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Final Fantasy XI - Return Home to Vana'diel is Going On Now (Dec. 25-Jan. 4)

drtomoe123

drtomoe123

Member
Nov 1, 2017
259
the Bay Area
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Anyone else taking advantage of the free login for previously subscribed users in Final Fantasy XI right now? I started on the 360 right before it lost support and has a blast with the game and ended up making it through all the original story + the whole RoV storyline. I always try to log in a little bit every year, so I'm looking forward to playing a little bit over the next few days.

I recently quit my job so I've got an abundance of free time now -- maybe I should sub again for a month or two? I haven't played for probably 2 years at this point so I'm curious to see how endgame's looking, what items/upgrades have been added, and if memory serves me right, I think I read about new story content in another topic? Regardless, I am SO excited to catch up! Anyone else coming home to Vana'diel?

EDIT: as MetalKhaos points out, a player just released AshenbubsHD, an HD mod for the game with over 232,000 textures!!! this mod includes all armor, NPCs, weapons, mounts, zones, monsters, spell effects, weapon skills, monster TP-attacks, and CUTSCENES! check it out on Reddit and here's a quick video

 
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Theswweet

Theswweet

RPG Site
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
6,464
California
I really want to try out FFXI someday. I got into XIV this year, and I think it'd be nice to see where the MMOs began - I just can't justify a separate sub for it. I know they're different games, and the fact that they have separate subs in the first place is probably why XI is still up to begin with, but I wish it was like WoW where the same sub got you access to the older game.
 
kurahador

kurahador

Member
Oct 28, 2017
17,656
Theswweet said:
I really want to try out FFXI someday. I got into XIV this year, and I think it'd be nice to see where the MMOs began - I just can't justify a separate sub for it. I know they're different games, and the fact that they have separate subs in the first place is probably why XI is still up to begin with, but I wish it was like WoW where the same sub got you access to the older game.
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It's really crazy they are keeping XI subbed considering they have XIV running concurrently and made up of the same leadership from it. And it's not like the game is actively putting out major patches.
 
signal

signal

Member
Oct 28, 2017
40,279
Theswweet said:
I really want to try out FFXI someday. I got into XIV this year, and I think it'd be nice to see where the MMOs began - I just can't justify a separate sub for it. I know they're different games, and the fact that they have separate subs in the first place is probably why XI is still up to begin with, but I wish it was like WoW where the same sub got you access to the older game.
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If you want to just try it out then why does the sub matter when there is a free trial?

That said I tried it out last year and thought it was insanely dated and not fun at all. At least PlayOnline launcher is cool.
 
MetalKhaos

MetalKhaos

Member
Oct 31, 2017
1,704
On mobile, but perfect to mention that someone released an HD texture mod for the game. Can find it on the Reddit FFXI page.
 
Pikagreg

Pikagreg

Member
Feb 5, 2018
473
kurahador said:
It's really crazy they are keeping XI subbed considering they have XIV running concurrently and made up of the same leadership from it. And it's not like the game is actively putting out major patches.
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I played for a long time and still have friends that play and it is pretty impressive how much content they still make for the game. It is definitely mostly filler stuff to keep people subbing but every so often they do have some big new thing to do. The beauty in XI is the side-progression in the game. There is so much relevant content because new gear is not instantly replaced by the next new event that comes out and there is content from 10 years ago that still offers gear that is used today.
 
kikuchiyo

kikuchiyo

Member
Nov 9, 2017
779
I also want to get into XI but started playing XIV this summer. Double subs is a little bit of a pain but even bigger is just not having the time to support playing two MMOs at the same time.

I've said before and will say again a remastered, offline version of FFXI and with some QOL improvements would be catnip for me.
 
Quad Lasers

Quad Lasers

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,542
This is kinda unrelated, but it's still amazing to me that Square just livestreams 24/7 a random camera panning throughout one of their in-game zones.

I wish more games tried doing weird shit like that.
 
Valkerion

Valkerion

Member
Oct 29, 2017
7,283
Played earlier this year and kinda hit the fun nostalgia vs. grind for an item wall pretty hard. Don't think I'll play during this time but if you have been out for x years its a great trip down memory lane.
 

Deleted member 29599

Banned
Nov 1, 2017
1,365
Every time i see these "Welcome back to the game!" kind of offers it makes me wish i could remember what on earth my Playonline ID was and all that jazz but i have no idea what any of my login information is or even what email address i would have used back in the day. Somewhere in the ether there is an old abandoned FFXI account with a respectable (at the time at least) level 50ish account that had some blood, sweat and tears poured into it when the game was stupidly difficult. But to be honest it's probably better left in my memory, i briefly toyed around with a free legacy server and remembered just how obtuse and unintuitive the game used to be, not to mention for some insane reason an ancient PC game still managed to run at like 15 FPS on a device that should by rights be able to absolutely crush it. I might as well try FFIV instead.
 
Warrior of Light

Warrior of Light

Member
Jan 11, 2018
9,900
It's such a shame that story focused mobile remake was cancelled. Here's hoping they're still willing to remake it into a single player experience for PC or consoles instead at some point.

At this point, for me to be willing to give the original a go they'd have to:
- Give us a Free Trial for it on par with that of FFXIV
- Have XI and XIV share subscriptions
- ... or just make it F2P somehow?
 
MetalKhaos

MetalKhaos

Member
Oct 31, 2017
1,704
Collin Skeen said:
I literally came across the post a little after starting the topic -- thank you SO much because this is a HUGE addition...I went ahead and linked to it in the OP so people can see how awesome it looks!
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Very welcome. I was actually watching the 4K cutscene footage moments before. Didn't realize they had a return home campaign going on and figured that it would be perfect to bring this up for anyone hoping back on or thinking about giving the game a go for the first time.

Over a long while they would post various HD textures on the subreddit, so was kind of amazed that they just dumped the entire thing as a Christmas present to everyone.
 
Skyfireblaze

Skyfireblaze

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,257
As dated as the game is, everyone who loves Final Fantasy and/or MMOs should atleast take a look once, Play Online (the launcher) alone is an experience of blissful nostalgia.
 
Icarian

Icarian

Member
May 9, 2018
5,482
That stream has been going on even before youtube existed, I remember watching it in late 2003 / early 2004, before the game released in EU.
 
Skyfireblaze

Skyfireblaze

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,257
TaleSpun said:
Can you explain a little why it's cool? Very curious, since my only experience is seeing the logo on the FFX start screen LOL
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I see you have been linked to the thread we had about it already so I'll just say, if I had to describe it, it feels a bit like Japanese developers from the early 2000's making their own OS, from the the music to the UI it just oozes style and a homely feel even if things are slow and often unintuitive. To give another example, remember games like Ace Combat 3 or the .hack// series of games that had a fake OS as its game-menu? It's like that but with the OS actually being functional and having a purpose.
 
KeRaSh

KeRaSh

I left my heart on Atropos
Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,338
Icarian said:
It's on the official site.

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I remember watching this stream before the NA version even launched. They even showed a King Behemoth fight and I had no idea what was going on.
I still consider FFXI to be the best game ever.
So many fond memories. I just love Vanadiel. I wish we would get another game set in that universe...
 
Icarian

Icarian

Member
May 9, 2018
5,482
Ferrs said:
It isn't.

PlayOnline was shit. The nostalgia around it is baffling to me, which I had to endure it for years lol Cool music I guess...
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The only good thing about POL was the aesthetics and music, it was complete shit in every other regard. It was slow as hell, it was extremely un-intuitive, you often got lost navigating in menus inside menus inside menus and to reiterate, it was excruciatingly SLOW since it was made for 56kbps. If I remember correctly to update FFXI you had to download the files one by one and then check them one by one afterwards, with no resume funcionality. Your connection had a hiccup or a file is corrupted? You just lost 2 hours, start again from the beginning.
 
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