Final Fantasy XI
Final Fantasy XI is the first MMORPG to be released in the Final Fantasy series, and the first in the series to feature online play. It debuted in Japan on the Sony PlayStation 2 on May 16th, 2002, and was released on the Windows PC on November 5th of the same year. It saw its North American PC debut on October 28, 2003, with a North American PlayStation 2 release planned for March of 2004.
The World
Final Fantasy XI takes place in a world named Vana'Diel, or more specifically, one of the multitude of parallel worlds named Vana'Diel.
As this is an online RPG and each Square Enix server used to host the RPG can only cope with so many players, there are multiple servers, each representing a different parallel world. These worlds are named after summoned creatures from earlier Final Fantasy games (for example, Diabolos, Ifrit, Ramuh, etc.) and there are currently (as of January 2004) just over 30 of them.
A player is allocated to a random world when they are created, the only exception to this being that a player in a given world can buy a worldpass (a 10-digit passcode), give it to the new player and that player can then enter the worldpass to get onto that particular world. Once on a world, a player cannot move to another world, except via a special character called a World Shifter (put there by the administrators of a server when it has too many players and some need putting onto less populated worlds).
The four main places in each Vana'Diel are the cities of Bastok, Jeuno, San d'Oria and Windurst, though there are many other places to explore as well.
People and Politics
There are five playable races in Final Fantasy XI:
- Elvaan - the 'elves' of Final Fantasy XI, good with swords.
- Hume - basic human beings who are able to do everything to an average degree.
- Galka - large brutish humanoids who are best in fighting professions.
- Mithra - catlike humanoids who are more agile than most.
- Tarutaru - really small (about half the size of halflings in other fantasy settings) humanoids who excel at magic.
There is a sixth race called the Beastmen, who comprise all the 'evil' races of Vana'Diel. These are made up of the following species:
- Antica
- Demons
- Gigas
- Goblins
- Orcs
- Quadav (turtle-like humanoids)
- Sahagin
- Tonberries
- Yagudo
At the start of the game you choose whether you side with Bastok, San d'Oria or Windurst. The goal of Final Fantasy XI (insofar as there is one) is to take your country and help it conquer as much of Vana'Diel as possible.
As well as fighting against the other two nations, regions must also be taken from Beastmen control, where too many battles have been lost to them and the nation has fallen into their hands.
Related Links
Referenced By
Cloud Strife | Final Fantasy | Final Fantasy 3 | Final Fantasy 7 | Final Fantasy I | Final Fantasy II | Final Fantasy III | Final Fantasy IV | Final Fantasy IX | Final Fantasy V | Final Fantasy VII | Final Fantasy VIII | Final Fantasy X | List of Japan-related topics 123-K | MMORG | MMORPG | Massive multiplayer online game | Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game | Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
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