Final Fantasy XIV: A Social MMORPG

I can’t talk about Final Fantasy XIV without first talking about its predecessor: Final Fantasy XI, Square Enix’s first MMORPG. Released way back in 2002, FFXI was an amazing and beautifully flawed game. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship when it comes to MMOs. Of the several I’ve played they all seem to forget about the second “M” in their name: the one that stands for multiplayer. Sure the ‘World’ in _World of Warcraft _was massive and yes I was online but overall it felt like quite a lonely experience. There was some promise of multiplayer content in the distant endgame but for the most part it was me, alone in the woods, hitting boars over the head with an axe.

On the other hand, the group content in FFXI was compulsory from incredibly early on. After only 10 levels hitting boars on the head with my axe I was dragged to the Vulkrum a dunes, a vast desert areas full of enemies that would kill me in seconds if I engaged them on my own. Here I would stand, waiting and shouting trying to find five other players to fight with me. It was the holy trinity of MMOs at its most basic. A tank (usually me) would get the enemies’ attention and take all the hits, a healer would keep his distance making sure I stay alive whilst everyone else pummelled the poor goblin into oblivion. After ten or so levels there I’d make the long journey to somewhere stronger, and then a few short levels later we’d move on to somewhere else. What was interesting about all of this was that none of it was driven by the game and instead completely by the players. Sure, the game had quests like a normal MMO but no one bothered with them because the rewards were rubbish. Instead everything you did in this game was engineered by the players above you. It meant for an incredibly social experience albeit quite a restrictive one.

The whole thing was held together by the game’s ‘Job’ system. Unlike most MMOs where you levelled one class in FFXI you levelled all of them. At any point you could return home and switch from a burly warrior to a squishy white mage beginning again at level 1. The game forced you to do this, levelling multiple jobs over the course of the game. So the level 10 paladin who drags you to the Vulkrum dunes for the first time to show you the ropes had most likely been there many times before. Most players were extraordinarily friendly because, at some point in the game they’d been given help too. However, the incredibly social aspect of the game was, at times, its worst feature. Each time you went out in search of a party, it felt like applying for a job. With so much competition and no other way to level you were screwed unless you had the best gear. And boy gear was expensive. Before long the game itself felt more of a chore than it was worth.

So enter FFXIV. Released in 2010, pulled off the internet for being utter shite and then re-released last September as Square’s second foray into MMOs. This new re-imagined version of FFXIV manages to maintain the social, group-focussed aspect of FFXI whilst improving it in almost every other way. As before you can switch from one job to another but now, this can be done at almost any time by simply swapping your main weapon rather than making the arduous journey home. Fighting in a group is still required to progress but now this is controlled by the game rather than the players. Dungeons or ‘instances’ are nothing new to MMOs but in FFIXV there are tonnes of the things and they are introduced to the player very early on. Each one introduces something new to worry about, creating one of the best learning curves, not just in a MMO but any game I’ve ever played. Each dungeon sits just on the right side of challenging.

Despite all of this, the game is unashamedly old fashioned. To counter the dominance of WOW other MMOs have tried the best to be different. Age of Conan replaced the hotbar style of fighting with something more action oriented. Guild Wars 2, DC universe and many others replaced the holy trinity of tank, healer and damage dealer with... something else, and Star Wars: The Old Republic tries to tell a more personal story rather than just repeating the same quest that millions had performed before. Yet FFXIV doesn’t bother with any of this fancy stuff. At a glance this really is a bog standard MMO but it’s just done so well! It’s a bit ridiculous after getting told how special you are and how you’re the best adventurer to grace this land, you realise that the other 50 players in the room just saw the exact same cutscene. Generally though, the game is fun enough, and the story line is good enough that I don’t care about this stuff and I just get on with it. The game is absolutely littered with content. As well as the aforementioned dungeons, there are primal fights, against Final Fantasy staples such as Ifrit and Odin, the oddly named ‘Levequests’, Guildleves providing daily solo and group challenges when you want something else to do and the server destroying fates where hundreds of players gang up together in sporadic event quests that pop up randomly over the world.

So, if you’re looking for a new MMO to distract you from your all-important degree, and like the idea of a more social game then seriously, give FFXIV a try.