Oh so hot...

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to delude myself that FFXIV is going to be perfect in any way, shape, or form. I am however, a massive Final Fantasy fan. I have fond memories of having a neighbour who patiently translated the original games when I was young for me as I watched him play, on through playing them myself on import, to getting my first console and having them all neatly lined up on my shelf.

Final Fantasy XI was my first proper MMO that I actually played seriously, and likening your first love to your first MMO is not an uncommon analogy, and rightly so. You’ve (generally) moved on from it, so you can reflect on the bad points, but they’re often shaded by the memories of the good points.

This is a surprisingly difficult topic to write about, people who play FFXI will no doubt have their own opinions on matters, and people who haven’t played FFXI will not really understand it.  Not because they’re incapable, but because they haven’t experienced it first hand.

Ask any FFXI player, any one at all, what their favourite aspect of the game is. I 100% garuntee that they will answer you thus: “The Community”

Final Fantasy XI: Community Edition

The reason for this immense feeling of community comes from many aspects of the game.

Firstly, your reputation is absolutely, 110%, TOTALLY the most important thing there is. You invest so much time into a single character, levelling different jobs, meeting different people, and the inter-networking that exists on a server means if you fuck someone over, everyone is going to know about it.

For this reason, everyone is pretty much reasonable. That’s not to say that everyone is friendly, but generally the people you group with, and the people you do interact with are going to be aimaible – why? Because if they’re not, you’ll complain to your linkshell (guild) and in turn their reputation will take a down. Think of it as real karma in a game.

Secondly, you rely on people for everything. To level. To gain your AF armour. To level your weaponskills. The list is endless, there are very very few things you can do alone in FFXI.

Thirdly, there are generally fairly niche communities on the various servers. The Japanese generally keep to themselves, the English speakers generally keep to themselves, and on Bahamut, eventually the Europeans generally kept to themselves in forming their own End-Game linkshell.

This interlinking network of niche communities, all relying on each other to co-exist and make progress leads to the game becoming totally community focused.

Final Fantasy XIV: Casual Edition

Picture this: You get home from work, sort out dinner, get around to logging in to your favourite MMO about 7-7.30. You decide tonight you’re going to get some experience points on that class you’ve been working on…You put up your LFG flag, and you wait for an invite that may or may not come. While you wait, you do some fishing, some crafting, or some farming for peanuts. You could technically log out 4 hours later having achieved nothing.

Games have developed over the past 10 years away from the strictly Eastern MMORPG methodoly of grind-central. Us Western folk decided we wanted our grind disguised and made a little more engaging. Even Aion, which has a very clear Eastern feel to it, is littered with quests from what I saw of the recent beta weekend – so maybe all MMO’s are swinging this way nowadays.

Square Enix have stated that they will be aiming to move away from the very time-intense gameplay of FFXI. They have said that people won’t be forced down the party-for-exp route… Excellent news for people like me who moved on from the very hardcore gameplay of FFXI. Though I think the general concensus of the people who still play FFXI is “omg noobs crai” etc.

Final Fantasy: Online

Now, these two aspects, in my opinion aren’t going to mix to recreate FFXI. This is a good thing, but I won’t try and convince anyone of that fact right now – especially an FFXI player.

How are they going to make the game less group-orientated and maintain the community feel that FFXI nurtures? I certainly don’t have the answer, but I’m sure some will argue that the community nurtures itself. All I know is that FFXIV is due to bring in a much larger crowd, and if they keep on making some of the promises along the same lines as what they have been, then they’ll probably be keeping that crowd too.

Character affinity + Casual friendly = Win.