History Videogame / FinalFantasyXI

* AwesomeButImpractical: Blood Weapon, a Dark Knight's 1-Hour, and a few other 1-Hours, to a lesser degree. When combined with certain equipment and other abilities, it results in flatly obscene amounts of damage... but only once every hour.
** The Dragoon's old 1-Hour, Call Wyvern. As cool as the Wyvern was to look at, it had such low HP that nearly any mob with an [=AoE=] ability would kill it, and the only way of healing it involved resting, which got rid of TP for the Dragoon. Waiting one hour for it, even if it died in the first fight after it was summoned, made it that much worse. This has since been changed.

* EleventhHourSuperpower: 1-Hours are ''always'' saved for boss fights.

* TooAwesomeToUse: Again, 1-hours. Even when its use would be justified, some people save them anyways.

*** Cait Sith suggests, "Even if you do not believe in the power of the crystals, [[TengenToppaGurrenLagann believe in us who believe in them!]]"

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: If Rochefogne had simply spoken to King Destin [[spoiler:(who is his brother by marriage)]] at the start of story, all the trouble in the San d'Oria missions could have been avoided.

* ''Bastok'': Tension between the Humes and the Galka are at an all-time high, with the latter growing discontent with their role as brute labour within the nation.
* ''Windurst'': A prominent researcher has disappeared while investigating the slow decline of the earth, which may be linked to the mysterious monoliths placed around Windurst and the "Cardian" golems that act as servants within the capital.

* ''Wings of the Goddess'': The adventurers discover strange portals that transport them through time to when the Crystal War was taking place, where they must ensure that their future is protected.

* ''Rhapsodies of Vana'diel'': The grand finale. A young woman named Iroha appears before you, claiming to be your apprentice from a future where the destined end of Vana'diel is nigh. As darkness begins to seep into and corrode the world, portending the apocalypse Iroha spoke of, you must fight together against fate to secure a future for Vana'diel.

* ''Rhapsodies of Vana'diel'': The grand finale. A young woman named Iroha appears before you, claiming to be your apprentice from a future where the destined end of Vana'diel is imminent. As darkness begins to seep into and corrode the world, portending the apocalypse Iroha spoke of, you must fight together against fate to secure a future for Vana'diel.

* ''Wings of the Goddess'': The adventurers discover strange portals that transport them through time to when the Crystal War was taking place, ensuring that their future is protected.

The free expansion ''Rhapsodies of Vana'diel'' was announced as the game's final major story content and released during 2015, covering story points from the previous expansions, adding 3 new areas as well as multiple bonuses for completing sections of it - it concerns the arrival of a character, Iroha, who claims to be your character's apprentice from the future, sent to try and prevent the end of Vana'diel.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Blood Weapon, a Dark Knight's 2-Hour, and a few other 2-Hours, to a lesser degree. When combined with certain equipment and other abilities, it results in flatly obscene amounts of damage... but only once every 2 hours.
** The Dragoon's old 2-Hour, Call Wyvern. As cool as the Wyvern was to look at, it had such low HP that nearly any mob with an [=AoE=] ability would kill it, and the only way of healing it involved resting, which got rid of TP for the Dragoon. Waiting 2-Hours for it, even if it died in the first fight after it was summoned, made it that much worse. This has since been changed.

* EleventhHourSuperpower: 2-Hours are ''always'' saved for boss fights.

* TooAwesomeToUse: Again, 2-hours. Even when its use would be justified, some people save them anyways.

The eleventh entry in the [[RunningGag thesaurus-exhaustingly]] popular ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series, ''Final Fantasy XI'' 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.

* CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot: If Rochefogne had simply spoken to King Destin [[spoiler:(who is his brother my marriage)]] at the start of story, all the trouble in the San d'Oria missions could have been avoided.

** Several references to the [[ZeroWing "all your base are belong to us"]] meme appear in the Wings of the Goddess story.

* LovecraftianSuperpower: Blue Mage is a very nightmarish combination of PowersAsPrograms, VictorGainsLosersPowers and, [[FridgeHorror if you look at the]] [[AllInTheManual lore right,]] TheAssimilator or CannibalismSuperpower.

* StoneWall: Paladins play it straight, while Ninjas are a hybrid of this and FragileSpeedster.

* ShoutOut: The monster and weapon list is loaded with them. Some examples include a trio of bats called the [[MobileSuitGundam Black Triple Stars]], [[TheSongOfRoland Joyeuse, Durandal, and Curtana]], and numerous monsters named from nearly every mythology, whether Greek, Norse, American, Asian, or otherwise.

This does not mean, however, that the game has not enjoyed success. ''Final Fantasy XI'' had over [[http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics/ff11us/detail/3045/detail.html 500,000 subscribers, with nearly 2 million characters playing]] at its peak, and while there are a number of indications those figures have declined significantly since then, it's still [[CashCowFranchise the single most profitable Final Fantasy title ever made]].

* ShoutOut: The monster and weapon list is loaded with them. Some examples include a trio of bats called the [[MobileSuitGundam Black Triple Stars]], [[TheSongOfRoland Joyeuse, Durandal, and Curtana]], and numerous monsters named from Greek, Norse, and many other mythologies.

-->'''Atori-Tutori:''' Are you ready to [[PuellaMagiMadokaMagica sign a contractaru with me and become a magical g]]--er, a mightier, more majestic adventurer?

** A character is lucky if they can mod up to 2000 HP. Cactrot Rapido can use 10000 Needles, as opposed to normal cactaurs being limited to 1000 Needles.

* LordBritishPostulate: Absolute Virtue. Square used to intentionally try to make the boss even ''more'' unbeatable if someone actually ''does'' beat it, then sometimes banned the players for exploiting glitches to do so.