Because of this game I will never be able to say I have completed every major FF game. I don't like MMOs, plus my PC isn't powerful enough to run it, therefore I will never play it. This means that never in my life will I be able to say that I have completed FFI - FF12, 13 or whatever the latest instalment is at the time?

They should have called it FF Online for this reason.

[/rant]

You aren't missing anything. I played for about 3 months.

Just tell your OCD to chill out. Finishing every FF isn't really important.

LOL. OCD. I'm pretty far from completing them all anyway, I was just making a point. The point being that it shouldn't have been one of the main FFs.

Anyone who says to you..

'Nahhh you haven't finished XI. :P'

..is a twat. Just ignore them. Anyone who's anyone will already know that XI isn't really thought as one of the Roman Numeral titles.

But yes. It should have been called FF Online. They just gave it the title "XI" to convince fans, who insisted on owning all the titles, to buy it.

In response to Barnezy

Final Fantasy XI Online is also available on Playstation 2 and Xbox 360. So you don't need a 'powerful pc' (as you stated) to play it on, as there are two other mediums which you can use.

Saying that you will never be able to say you've finished all FF's from 1-12 w/e, is pretty shallow. Who cares if you've finished them or not? As long as the ones you've played, you've enjoyed. Shouldn't that be the main thing?

Stating that SE should've called it 'Final Fantasy Online' for that reason is a pretty narrow minded statement in my opinion. As I've stated above, it is available on multiple platforms, so you have the option to play it on one of them.

You don't like MMO's. That's fine, as even myself I disliked MMO's as well. However, after playing FFXI and getting involved with it, I have come to enjoy it. Granted it may not be for everyone, but you can't please everyone either.

I've been playing FFXI since December 2006, and I still enjoy it. The recent additions SE has brought to the game, have made soloing a lot easier than it used to be, as well as newer items available.

In response to Neg

You played it for three months, so I'm assuming you have some idea of what the game is like. I mean, played it and gotten past level 30? Granted after you've done all the missions in the game and the subsequent five expansions (Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urghan, Wings of the Goddess (Which is still to have more missions made for it) and A Crystalline Prophecy), there's not much to do, til the next expansion comes out (A Moogle Coup de Tat), but considering how long some of those missions are, you'll be occupied for quite some time.

In response to Earnest

You are entitled to your opinion. I will ask you this, have you played FFXI? I don't mean just the free month subscription either.


Yes, I am a fan of Final Fantasy XI Online. I enjoy it quite a bit, and still do. I am not responding in this thread to 'flame you', rather to offer my own opinion in response to your own. I admit, at first I didn't want to play FFXI. MMO's to me, initially, were not a good thing. I've played other MMO's and there was nothing in them to really grab hold of my attention for any length of time.

World Of Warcraft, Guild Wars and Everquest to name a few I've played... and tbh, there was nothing there for me to really enjoy. I don't know what it is about FFXI which drew me in, suffice to say it was (As Earnest so succintly put it It should have been called FF Online. They just gave it the title "XI" to convince fans, who insisted on owning all the titles, to buy it.), as I am a fan of the 'old school' ff's more so, than the PS2 generation of FF's (FFX, FFX-2 and FFXII).

Granted it was a experiment by Hironobu Sakaguchi, to create a vast online community, a social experiment, where people from all over the world come together to play something they enjoy. It did succeed in some ways, but didn't in others.

I would recommend people to give FFXI a go, and I mean have a good play of it... beyond the free month subscription and beyond level 30. To get a good 'feel' for the game. After that, if you don't like it, so be it.

I was letting him know if the only reason he wanted to play was a desire to play every Final Fantasy (which he clearly stated in his first sentence, ne paragraph), he'd be alright passing it over.

If he wants to play it for its own merits, that's his decision.

Me and Jesse once talked of getting it for the PS3. Is it out for it?

I might take a look if it is. Because I want to see what all the fuss is about regarding MMOs. I know I would have got into WoW when I was in school if I had had the chance. But shit computers and strict parenting meant I never could. FF XI could be fun. Does anybody know if it can be got for the PS3? And if so, are plenty of people playing it?

I know I could just google it. But it's not something i need to know right away, and i imagine someone here will have a more detailed answer than the scraps I would get off google.

It's not an actual PS3 game, but the PS2 version is compatible with the PS3 (originally it wasn't, but Sony released a firmware update for it). The PS2 version is very hard to find though, as it's classed as obsolete. It was also never released in PAL territories such as the UK and Europe.

As for how many people are playing it, SE recently announced they hit the 2 million active players mark, which is barely a drop in the ocean compared to games like World of Warcraft. Still, with all the recent additions to it FFXI is still very busy, and you shouldn't have too much trouble making friends and finding people to party with in game.

still the name is kinda bothersome

it's so much of a Spin Off in the series, shouldn't have a number

Final Fantasy Online, that was fine, so now it would be Final Fantasy Online II, not Final Fantasy XIV.... coming out the same year Final Fantasy XIII! sfadgjh

Why does the same year thing bother people? I hear 'milking' thrown about sometimes, but there's really no special justification to label it as such. If anything, FFXIV wouldn't be coming out in 2010 if FFXIII hadn't taken so damn long to develop.

I don't really care about the name. And the online versions aren't 'spin-offs'. Spin-off of what? Besides being structured as an MMO, it's like all the core FFs (barring X-2) which is a segregate story mixed with a few common elements like chocobos and common FF jobs.

I don't mind about the Year, it was some kind of stupid observation, that's all XD, just that 2 numbered FF's in the same year is like... well, we might see XV sometime in 2012? xD

Because of this game I will never be able to say I have completed every major FF game. I don't like MMOs, plus my PC isn't powerful enough to run it, therefore I will never play it. This means that never in my life will I be able to say that I have completed FFI - FF12, 13 or whatever the latest instalment is at the time?

They should have called it FF Online for this reason.

[/rant]

I agree that the game should have been called FFO like many other series that went online did (Phantasy Star, Ultima etc.) but for whatever marketing reasons SE wanted it to be part of the main series - though it really isn't.

Despite the number it's really just FFO...personally I don't consider it part of the main series but SE does.

I agree that the game should have been called FFO like many other series that went online did (Phantasy Star, Ultima etc.) but for whatever marketing reasons SE wanted it to be part of the main series - though it really isn't.

Despite the number it's really just FFO...personally I don't consider it part of the main series but SE does.

Ok, so following your logic, Final Fantasy XIV, which has been confirmed as a MMO, is not part of the main stream? Wow, you are so clever, we must bask in your ultimate brilliance... of stupidity.

If SE, released the game as Final Fantasy XI Online (I just doublechecked my case of the game to reconfirm this too), then by some miracle, I guess that according to SE (Who have made and released the FF series as it's flagship series), that Final Fantasy XI Online IS part of the main stream series.

So what if you can't play it offline? Who cares? The way technology is going nowadays, everything is going online. Sadly, CRPG (Computer/Console Role Playing Games) are becoming a thing of the past, as more MMO's are being released every year. Companies are focusing more on MMO's, from my perspective, as they realise there is a viable market for MMO's.

Unlike a CRPG, once you buy one of these, the company gets a share of the profits, and that's it. MMO's on the otherhand, people still pay the company money each month in a subscription fee. Hence, companies are going to use whatever means they can, to get money from the masses.

Also, slightly off topic here... This whole arguement can also be directed at Blizzard with World of Warcraft. The original Warcraft was a RTS game, as was Warcraft II and Warcraft III. World of Warcraft, took the history of Warcraft from RTS to MMO, two totally different genre's of game.

So instead of bitching about the title of this thread, aka 'Why FFXI? Why not FF Online?', ask yourself this.

Why not?

The easy answer to this thread is:

Its called "Final Fantasy 11 Online" and it is considerd a main part of the series because it in fact has a full on story unlike other MMO's where you get the back story for the world but do not play out the world changing events like you do in 11.

I also played the game for several years and I can tell you without a doubt it has epic moments on par and beyond some of the games in the main series.

If you really want to know the story that bad to feel like you played it just youtube FFXI mission cutscenes or something. Each expansion was like a whole FF in itself, crazy bad guys, plot twists, hard bosses, world saving events.

Most of SE consider FF11 to be the quintessential Final Fantasy anyway, a lot of the developers have talked about how they feel online is where FF really should be, with groups of friends banding together to save the world like in the games.

Personally I think they are nuts but there you have it.

Most of SE consider FF11 to be the quintessential Final Fantasy anyway, a lot of the developers have talked about how they feel online is where FF really should be, with groups of friends banding together to save the world like in the games.

Personally I think they are nuts but there you have it.

A lot of companies are looking at online gaming as the 'future of gaming'.

Where did you get your information from which states 'Most of SE consider FF11 to be the quintessential Final Fantasy'? I'm just curious about it's source is all.

It is FFXI and not FF Online because it is part of the numbered series and has every right to be. Why shouldn't it be part of the numbered series? It has all the same elements that an offline FF has with extra dimension added: the fact that you play it online in a consistent world. Everything else is there, though, in one form or another. Moogles, Chocobos, Gil, Cait Sith, summon monsters, Black/White/Red Mages, airships, Cid, Gilgamesh, Tonberries, Ultima and Omega Weapons, gigantic swords, spiky hair, epic battles (one of them even lasted 19 hours at one point!), massive world, hundreds of sidequests, and storylines that are breathtaking with their scale and complexity.

Yes, it's bizarre, but FFXI has a better-developed world and storyline than a lot of the numbered series games. It's all so meticulously planned and it all comes together in such a seamless whole that's absolutely amazing. Better still, the expansive world is full of mysteries interwoven into that storyline, which means that theories about them have persisted for nearly a decade (the game is more than seven years old at this point).

FFXI absolutely deserves to be part of the numbered series. Saying it shouldn't be in the numbered series because it's online is like saying FFVII shouldn't have been in the numbered series because it was 3D and on PlayStation. There's no sense in it whatsoever.

epic battles (one of them even lasted 19 hours at one point!)

Epic battles... like the one against:

Pandemonium Warden (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Pandemonium_Warden)?

Apparently he was beaten only ONCE... and that was earlier this year, due to SE lowering his level amongst other things as well... and even then it was still a hard fight.

I heard that Absolute Virtue (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Absolute_Virtue) was once a nightmare battle as well, but some people have beaten it on occasion.

There are other fights which are challenging and frustrating to the point you want to smash something over the nearest person's head.

The Mammets in Chains of Promathia 2.5... the bosses in Promyvion... even Shadowlord (before the level cap was raised from 50 to 75. Now a 75 MNK, with merits, can solo him easily.).

You have 10 missions per country (Bastok, San d'Oria and Windurst), then the expansions come in.

Rise of the Zilart has 18 missions.
Chains of Promathia has 8 chapters with each chapter containing 3-5 missions).
Treasures of Aht Urghan has 48 missions.
Wings of the Goddess has 26 missions with sidequests between some missions.
A Crystalline Prophecy has 11 missions.
A Moogle Kupo d'Etat has 15 missions.
A Shantotto Ascension has just recently been made available for preorder but I think that'll have at least 10 missions in it.

Granted that each of the expansions does have some of the missions as Cutscenes, the fights are challenging and require a lot of preparation to defeat.

Absolute Virtue has yet to be "legitimately" defeated. I think it's been killed once or twice, but the strategy involved glitching the AI so that it couldn't attack. Needless to say SE immediately patched the monster so that the old way wouldn't work, so the old kills pretty much don't count. People have finally figured out the gimmicks to "lock" his abilities and prevent him from regening to full health when he's about to die, but after losing a certain amount of health he essentially goes into Trance and just wipes the floor with everyone in the area.

If Absolute Virtue fought Emerald Weapon, AV would knock Emerald into the next dimension.