Leaning on Over a Decade Worth of Content
Final Fantasy XI is an old, old game that has hundreds of areas to explore, and five expansions worth of content and story to run through (plus more smaller DLC-like add-ons). While MMOs today have higher standards for their in-game story, back in 2003 when FFXI first launched worldwide, that wasn’t necessarily the case.
FFXI was notable in its effort to up the quality of MMORPG story telling, and continued to improve on that with each passing expansion. This culminated into a final story expansion released last year, Rhapsodies of Vanadiel, which ties all of the major expansions together, and actually delivers a feeling of “beating the game” at least from a story perspective, which is pretty cool for a MMORPG.
Beyond story, there’s also years worth of end game to pour through. Unlike modern MMORPGs that opt for rapid vertical progression of gear that quickly abandons older dungeons/raids in favor of new ones, a surprisingly high amount of Final Fantasy XI’s older content is still very relevant today. This is because even super situational gear can be swapped in for a split second during certain macros to gain their effect – which is an aspect of the game that some do not like – and then swapped back out for your normal gear.
Either way, because there’s a lot of worthwhile gear spread out across years worth of content, such as currency for relic weapons and upgradable artifact armor, there’s a wide variety of events to choose from to break up the monotony.
