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Mixed Experience If you've read all the reviews here at Amazon on this game, you're probably pretty confused. Some people claim it's the greatest MMORPG ever. Others say it's the most boring and time consuming they've played. If you're looking to buy this game, it's hard to make that decision based on the conflicting information. I doubt my review will help as it's based on my experience only. This is exactly the nature of this game, you either love it or hate it. Unfortunately for me, this game did not live up to my expectations. However, I'd like to start on the positives. Firstly, the game's graphics are pretty good. There are three main base cities to start off in (there are other cities that you can explore to, but your ranks and missions are generally based on the three base cities). The environment changes dramatically in the different zones, it's refreshing to just take some time and explore the different scenery in the game. This game is also huge. I've played it for a couple of months and I doubt I've seen more than 50% of the world. Add to that, the recent expansion makes the game even more mammoth. This also has a negative, I'll address it later. FFXI features all you'd expect in a MMORPG. You have your different skills, you can multi-skill when you reach a specific level. You also have "crafts" which are side skills that you can do, e.g. fishing, farming, etc. The depth in this game is mind boggling. The number of side skills (I believe there are eight or nine) all have their own levels. Currency is also traded with something called gil. You need gil to get anywhere in this game. FFXI is heavily cooperation inclined. You cannot play this game solo and reach anywhere. Anyone who says this would either be lying or have absolutely nothing else to do in their life. This is both a positive and a negative. The positive being it encourages players to group together, share knowledge and play together. The negatives being there's always competition to find the best groups. People also tend to clique together and play separately from the whole community. I should note that FFXI is played amongst several servers. When you create your character, you are randomly placed on a server. You cannot move from one server to the other, this is your server for life. If you want to play on the same server as your friends, you must buy (with gil, not real money) something called a "Worlpass" which your friend can enter when they're creating their account. I have no problem with this system, I understand it's necessary for the maintenance of the popularity of this game. In the game, there's a wide range of armor and weapons that can be bought or retrieved. In your character's class, there are tons of spells and skills to be learned at periodic levels. The battle system is similar to most FF games however the speed of the battles greatly depends on your equipment. I like the battle system, personally I find it very flowing. On to the negatives, and there are many. As I mentioned earlier, the game is huge. This brings me to my greatest grievance with FFXI. It takes far too long to reach anywhere without the help of higher level spells or items (Airship). I'm sure the drop out rate with this game is high for new players. You can spend fifteen to twenty five minutes walking from one area to the other. I personally found myself spending more time walking than fighting. That's what drove me to stop playing. Another big negative is the variety of mobs. There's a very limited number of mob classes available. Most zones are limited to only three or four different mob classes of varying strength. This makes fighting extremely repetitive, you are fighting the same looking thing each time. Every city has "[insert name] crab", "[insert name] worm", "[insert name] fly" that ALL look the same. The developers really failed in providing variety to players, especially since this game requires hundreds of hours to achieve mighty levels. A related negative would be the fact you have to consider every mob as you have no idea of the mob's strength if they look alike, even in the same room. Big negative number three relates to people selling gil for real money. Yes, it plagues all MMORPGs, however most companies try to do something to clamp down on it. Square has done absolutely nothing to try to control the sale of gil for money. What this has caused is the cost (in gil) of items to be sky high to due the easy availability of gil to those who are willing to spend money for it. This makes the game extremely difficult for the average player who simply gains gil from killing, quests and trading items. FFXI is centered around trading items with other players (there's a central auction house for this) that you can't get around playing without buying your equipment. I'm not sure if it's related to the gil selling, however all the rare item drops are "camped" by dozens of people. The average player will never be able to achieve a valuable item without buying it. Finally, because you can't solo in this game, you need to find yourself some friends to play with. If you can't join a group (called linkshells), you will be spending minutes or hours waiting to join parties. The number of hours required to reach anywhere in this game is ridiculous. That's probably why so many people are either terribly addicted to this game or absolutely frustrated. Unfortunately for me, FFXI wasn't for me. It's too demanding on time and far too repetitive for me. There are some people this game appeals to, I'm certainly not one of them. If all the negatives I mentioned seemed negligible to you, perhaps you should give it a try.