Final Fantasy XI

Final Fantasy has been a long running favourite of mine. From the first to the 12th, ive owned and loved every single one of them... except one (two if you include X-2).

Final fantasy XI is probally one of the worst MMO's ive ever played and i was quite upset by that fact. Im not saying the game is bad period, because it still has some sort of fan base, however, in my opinion, it is bad, and i aim to explain why.

Firstly, lets talk registration. As we all may, or may not know, to play these kinds of MMO's, you need to register for an account. Most of the time you need to do this with a CD Key and a credit card for mainstream MMO's. This allows your account to be bound to a game and a subscription fee.

The process is simple, put in your name and address etc, but for this, I found it majorly confusing.

Okay, I purchased the game, and installed it. 8 Gigabytes, pretty standard stuff. Upon initiating the game, the PlayOnline pre-loader opened. This thing was awesome, genuinely. It looked very well presented and played a very relaxing soundtrack, which was a welcome change from most standard and often generic pre-loaders.

After about 2 minutes of updating the pre-loader, it restarted. I Initiated FF XI again which opened the new PlayOnline Pre-loader. Still looked the same but i presume most changes were for network tweaks and so on.

I was presented with two options. Either log in with an existing PlayOnline account, or alternatively, make a new one. Now, at this point i need to mention, Final Fantasy XI and PlayOnline are TWO SEPERATE programs and services, however they are both owned by Square Enix.

I started to make a new account and after the usual name, address and general details were asked, I was then prompted to enter a PlayOnline registration key.

I had no Idea what this was. I searched the net and most people didn't know either, they said it would be in the manual of the game. Well this was no use, as I had purchased the game from steam.

So, thinking this was a detail only needed on the client of the PlayOnline service, and not the web side, I set off to find a PlayOnline registration page on the net. None existed. The only PlayOnline site available was only accessable to current users of the service.

So, figuring I have a Square Enix account for my Final Fantasy XIV Beta, I could log into that and see about activating a Final Fantasy XI account on there manually, and perhaps that would give me a key. No chance, again.

The Square Enix account I have, although is an account nonetheless, isn't compatible with the Square Enix service...

Yeah.

I can only use it for the Beta of FF XIV which is daft as the details are registered as a Square user, non exclusive to anything.

Already frustrated I decided not to bother making a new one, as then I would have 2, I searched the Steam support forums some more. Sure enough there was only one thread that told me this:

The PlayOnline Registration key was the CD key.

Now before I continue, what If I wasn't tech savvy, what if i was a casual? I wouldn't know how to notice that, how to search for it. I trudged a good 30+ websites looking for an answer. Additionally, labelling the CD key as PlayOnline Registration key is ridiculous for Steam users and normal users alike. And to boot, the CD key isn't even immediately evident upon purchase of the game, the user must navigate to the game in steam, right click it and select view CD key.

Okay, so I inputted my CD key. Completed my account setup. I couldn't initially set up a user name, nor could I a email account. That's right, users of PlayOnline get a free email address (navazarian@pol.com if you wondered).

After the registration was completed, I was told my new username was... well, something like JQ23r56G9. Catchy isn't it. I could, however change this slightly afterwards to Navazarian, my internet handle, however that was only a cosmetic name that covered, but didn't replace, the original JQ23r56G9.

The whole experience post-registration on PlayOnline was thoroughly entertaining and genuinely a satisfactory experience, Id go as far to say, one of the best online services i've used.

Okay, so, after this I started Final Fantasy XI, but before I could, I had to register with Square Enix...

Thats right, If you can remember me commenting, I already have one, however this wasnt allowed into the main public Square Enix servers apparently. So, I created a new account with them. Again. Oh and just to add more fun, the new Square Enix account COULD NOT be registered to the same email address as the PlayOnline account created.

Even without the beta account worries, this process was still quite long.

Now lets talk content ID's. Content ID's can be explained like this. Imagine a regular MMO game account online. You register, usually with the key available on the back of the manual. Now when you go to your online account, it lists what you have registered. With Warcraft, it will have your name and then the expansions you have inserted retail keys for.

For me, Core, Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King cause im aweseome. Just as awesome as the "Account Deactivated" note next to my name as I cancelled my subscription last year. Anyway im getting sidetracked.

Content ID is basically the name given for a game. So lets compare, Warcraft: Core (Content ID), Burning Crusade (Content ID) and Wrath of the Lich King (Content ID).

Now, thats cool, each game has a content ID that needs to be joined to the account, and this process is done automatically when you set up your Square Enix account. The only problem? Each character also has an Content ID. So, by default you can only have one, before buying another.

Not bad enough for you? To set up more, you cant just go to the menu and make a new one, no, you need to log out and set one up in the account management, then go back to the game a couple of quid short and make a new character.

Okay, so, we have our account set up, lets play... well actually, no. Y'see the initial install of 8GB was only the core game, and not the 3 expansions the game is sold with. So, Ii started downloading the expansions. 10 hours later and the download finishes.

So I start playing and, oh boy! The game itself, was striking. Upon opening the game I was shocked at how bad everything looked. My monitor resolution is 1680 by 1050 so I didn't expect the game to look completely up-to-date as the game is relatively old.

However, textures stretch, there is no anti aliasing and the max resolution for 3D model resolution is 1024 x 768. The only way to up this is by going into the REGISTRY and manually editing the configurations there but the difference in quality is appalling, there practically is none and there's no options to change this or anything else in game.

So lets look at the game itself and try not to be sick. The game itself with its lore is awesome, i really got into it, however this was quickly overshadowed by the controls. Every main alphabetic key on the keyboard is "say" so i couldn't do anything. The mouse opens the menu, the mouse closes it, some buttons do more than others. The number pad controls the direction of movement, the mouse is overly sensitive (as it is set to a 1024 x 768 display) and casting spells is.... well, i still don't know how to do it, i think Esc does it. It takes 30 seconds to log out and 30 seconds to shut down.

In the 4 hours i played online, I completed 2 quests as it took me ages to find the quest givers and hand-ins as there are no visual clues or directions in the quest log.

Additionally, in the entire time of playing, I only saw 3 players and nobody used chat. There are no signposts to tell you where you are or where your going.

The area map is bad, is difficult to navigate. It isn't possible to open it and look at other areas.

And subscription prices for this? £8.99 per month. Enjoy.