History Videogame / FinalFantasyXI

** Well, you *can* fight as a Monk without weapons -- and you will, if you start as one; Monk is the only one of the six starting classes to get no weapon as part of his starting outfit (you get a White Belt instead: +1 Strength). Unless you're getting help, you won't be able to afford a weapon for a few levels.

* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: *Insert horror story about Maat/mammets/Diabolos/[[LordBritishPostulate Absolute Virtue]]/[[MarathonBoss Pandemonium Warden]] here*

** In the Treasures of Aht Urhgan story, there is a facility where [[FullmetalAlchemist forbidden alchemy was used to fuse different species together, creating chimera]].

This does not mean, however, that the game does not enjoy success. ''Final Fantasy XI'' has over [[http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11us/detail/3045/detail.html 500,000 subscribers, with nearly 2 million characters playing.]] It should go without saying that making millions a month makes this a sort of [[CashCowFranchise Cash Cow.]]

* ''Wings of the Goddess'': The adventurers, along with a battle-ready dancer of mixed descent, discover strange portals that transport them through time to when the Crystal War was taking place, ensuring that their future is protected from the evil plans of parallel selves from a universe where war never ended.

The eleventh entry in the [[RunningGag thesaurus-exhaustingly]] popular ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series, ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' is the first {{MMORPG}} created by SquareEnix, and the first MMO in the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' franchise, released in Japan in May of 2002, with a North American release in October of 2003, followed by a European release in September of 2004. It is also the first MMORPG to be released both for home consoles (Playstation 2 and Xbox 360) and the PC. The game even mixes all these players together, as no world is region or console specific.

This does not mean, however, that the game does not enjoy success. ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXI'' has over [[http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11us/detail/3045/detail.html 500,000 subscribers, with nearly 2 million characters playing.]] It should go without saying that making millions a month makes this a sort of [[CashCowFranchise Cash Cow.]]

* ''Seekers of Adoulin'': The adventurers travel to the continent of Ulbuka to aid in its colonization efforts, meeting up with a young royal heir named Arciela.

Now in the present day, three great plots are stirring in the heart of each nation, calling for adventurers to take up the reins of history. Furthermore, there have been signs of increased Beastman activity in recent months, leading to fears that the Shadow Lord may return and resume his bloody campaign across Vana'diel.

* ''Wings of the Goddess'': A number of sinister portals have appeared around Vana'diel, opening the gates to a parallel world called Abyssea: a dark version of Vana'diel where the failure of heroes has pushed the world to the brink of destruction. Now the adventurers of Vana'diel must stop the influence of Abyssea from leaking through the portals and corrupting their world.
* ''Seekers of Adoulin'': The adventurers travel to the continent of Ulbuka to aid in its colonisation, meeting up with a young royal heir named Arciela.

* AfterTheEnd: Abyssea [[spoiler:is an alernate version of the events following the Chains of Promathia story. In Abyssea, your character, Prishe, and Selh'teus challenged Promathia and failed. After absorbing your Abyssea alternate and Selh'teus, Promathia grows stronger, turns the skies of Abyssea blood red, and sends endless hordes of fiends to extinguish all life on the planet]].

* {{Hammerspace}}: Players either pull ranged weapons from their leg, like {{Robocop}}... or their ass. Not to mention that somehow a bowl of soup and a ''bed'' take up the same inventory space.

** In the Wings of the Goddess quest, an NPC asks you if you had ever fought a god before. Sadly, since your [[HeroicMime character does not speak]], the NPC does not get to learn the truth. Players who have done all of the missions, quests, and hunt Notorious Monsters have fought 21 gods. [[hottip:*:Ifirt, Shiva, Garuda, Titan, Ramuh, Levithan, Genbu, Seiryu, Suzaku, Byakko, Kirin, Fenrir, Diabolos, Bahamut, Promathia, Carbuncle, Odin, Alexander, Dark Ixion, Cait Sith Ceithir, and Atmos.]] This does not count supremely powerful beings such as [[MarathonBoss Pandemonium Warden]], or beastmen leaders who call themselves gods but are just unusually strong for their species. The only two named gods in the game that players have not fought (yet?) are [[spoiler:Phoenix and Altana]].

* MarathonBoss: Pandemonium Warden used to fit this trope. A whole party fought it ''for 18 hours straight'' and it was ''still standing''[[hottip:*:Square-Enix later noted that they weren't using an effective strategy]]. There was such a huge backlash that Square was forced to change things so that [[TimeLimitBoss the Warden gets bored and leaves if you take too long to kill it.]]

** Tends to be rarer than many [=MMOs=], because SE usually increases the strength of weaker classes to balance them rather than reduce stronger classes. Even the original Dragoon nerf was only indirect because it was a change to Weaponskill TP gain rather than any effect on the class itself[[hottip:*:Prior to the nerf, weaponskills that were said to hit multiple times actually ''did'', for the purposes of generating TP, and spears had a weaponskill that could hit up to eight times; if it did, it would generate enough TP to use the weaponskill again immediately, meaning Dragoons could use a LimitBreak [[GameBreaker over and over again]]. The "nerf" made multi-hit weaponskills count as one hit for the purposes of TP generation.

* OneGenderRace: The Mithra are a playable race of catgirls. WordOfGod says that male Mithra do exist, but [[http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Lehko_Habhoka only one]] has been seen in the game, so far.[[hottip:*:[[UnfortunateImplications Lehko was apparently only brought to Windurst because the Tarutaru thought the all-female Mithra Mercenaries would follow orders better if the orders came from a man.]] The Galka fully play this straight, being an all male race that reproduce through a form of reincarnation. [[hottip:*:A mistranslation in the US instruction booklet said that Galka are asexual, but this was later corrected in interviews.]]

The game takes place in the fantasy world of Vana'diel, which is split into three great nations: San d'Oria, Bastok and Windurst. Twenty years previously, the three nations banded together (with the aid of the neutral city-state of Jeuno) to fight an army of Beastmen led by the mysterious [[BigBad Shadow Lord]]. The Shadow Lord was eventually defeated, and the three nations entered into a peace treaty in which they would compete for territory not through armed conflict but a system of benefaction called "Conquest".

The game takes place in the world of Vana'diel, which is split into three great nations: San d'Oria, Bastok and Windurst. Twenty years previously, the three nations banded together (with the aid of the neutral city-state of Jeuno) to fight an army of Beastmen led by the mysterious [[BigBad Shadow Lord]]. The Shadow Lord was eventually defeated, and the three nations entered into a peace treaty in which they would compete for territory not through armed conflict but a system of benefaction called "Conquest".

* ''Treasures of Aht Urhgan'': The adventurers travel to the exotic and untamed continent of Aht Urhgan, where various guilds vie for power over the land and each other.

* ''Treasures of Aht Urhgan'': The adventurers travel to the exotic continent of Aht Urhgan, where various guilds vie for power over the land and each other.

* ''San d'Oria'': Trouble stirs within the royal court of the Elvaan nation as two royal successors wage a war of intrigue for control of the throne.

The game also allows a character to change their job class (to any of the ''22'', provided they are unlocked) at any time without the need to make a new character, as well as set a "Support Job" -- a secondary, weaker job, typically chosen to complement the main job -- to further enhance your character. With enough time and effort, you can experience everything the game has to offer on only one character! (Whether you can store all your gear on that one character is another thing, entirely... fortunately, due to a per-character fee, FFXI is one of the few [[{{MMORPG}} MMOs]] that allows muling. SE has also provided limited NPC-based storage options to further alleviate that burden.)

There is also a sometimes distressing issue of Player versus Player options. At this time, there are only 4 modes of [[PlayerVersusPlayer PvP]]: Ballista, Brenner, Chocobo Racing, and Pankration (or you can try and get charmed by the Lamia during Besieged so they'll make you attack other players). Brenner and Chocobo Racing are rarely used at all, and Pankration has recently gotten some interest again (thanks to new [[BonusBoss NMs]] that can be spawned only though selling photos, when you can only buy photo equipment with Pankration jettons), while the amount of players involved in Ballista is based on the world. It also possesses a definite amount of LevelGrinding, like most [[{{MMORPG}} MMO[=RPGs=]]]. Add in a necessity to party for a majority of the game's content, difficult [[BonusBoss Bonus Bosses]] (two formerly NighInvulnerable; now one is beatable and the other is [[MarathonBoss basically impossible to kill before]] [[RageQuit the media-backlash-induced]] [[TimeLimitBoss arbitrary time limit]]), and all sorts of other stuff [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard designed to challenge you]], and you've got an [[{{MMORPG}} MMO]] that's NintendoHard ([[KingdomOfLoathing It's ridiculous. It's not even funny.]]). And then there's the fact that most things in the game require a time investment of 2 hours or more, so casual players may be a bit put off. The difficulty has been eased through updates, but many people still avoid the game and tend to jump to [[{{WorldOfWarcraft}} casual-friendly]] [[{{GuildWars}} MMOs.]]

The game now has a [[http://finalfantasyxi.com/freetrial/ a 14-day trial for new players to try the game without devoting to it.]]

[[caption-width-right:330:"The should have called it ''Final Fantasy Online''!" [[spoiler: They did.]]]]

The game takes place in the world of Vana'diel, which is split into three great nations: San d'Oria, Bastok and Windurst. Twenty years previously, the three nations banded together to fight an army of Beastmen led by the mysterious Shadow Lord. The Shadow Lord was eventually defeated, and the three nations entered into a peace treaty in which they would compete for territory not through armed conflict but a system of benefaction called "Conquest".

* ''Final Fantasy XI'': Rumours continue to persist that the Beastmen are plotting to use a dark ritual to resurrect the Shadow Lord. With the help of a team of heroes assembled from each nation, the adventurers must rise to the challenge if they hope to prevent a repeat of the Crystal War.

* ''Chains of Promathia'': One of the elder gods of Vana'diel is stirring from his slumber, and it's up to keen adventurers- along with the help of a spunky Elvaan named Prishe- to stop him before he literally "un-makes" the world.
* ''Treasures of Aht Urhgan''
* ''Wings of the Goddess''
* ''Seekers of Adoulin''

While allowing the game to be as open-ended as possible, being a ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' game, an incredible emphasis on story remains, which is rarely done well in [[{{MMORPG}} MMOs]]. There are 10(!) different main storylines (Missions), one for each of the starting nations (Bastok, San d'Oria, and Windurst), as well as one for each expansion (''Rise of the Zilart'', ''Chains of Promathia'', ''Treasures of Aht Urhgan'', ''Wings of the Goddess'', and ''Seekers of Adoulin''), plus multiple "Mini Expansions". There are also countless side stories that come from smaller quests.

The game also allows a character to change their job class (to any of the ''20'', provided they are unlocked) at any time without the need to make a new character, as well as set a "Support Job" -- a secondary, weaker job, typically chosen to complement the main job -- to further enhance your character. With enough time and effort, you can experience everything the game has to offer on only one character! (Whether you can store all your gear on that one character is another thing, entirely... fortunately, due to a per-character fee, FFXI is one of the few [[{{MMORPG}} MMOs]] that allows muling. SE has also provided limited NPC-based storage options to further alleviate that burden.)

* VerbalTic: In the English localization, Tarutaru tend to replace any word ending T with "taru" and tend to rhyme words as well in a childlike, "lucky wucky" kind of way, which is somewhat similar in the Japanese version. [[CatGirl Mithra]] tend to have TrrrillingRrrs instead in English, while in Japanese they usually end their sentences with -nya.

* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Often seen in dialogue with more formal speakers, especially Elvaan. This is presumably an artifact of translating very formal Japanese (Keigo) that a normal Japanese person would understand, but it often comes out like an SAT vocabulary test in more severe cases on the English side of things.