Final Fantasy XI - Anyone still playing?

Awesome, I’ll go give that a shot. I thought you could do it, but couldn’t figure out how.

You’d be having more fun on Odin, by the way. I hear the other servers are lame :-p.

Nice. Actually I’m having a lot of fun on Phoenix, the people are pretty nice. A few of the white mages (there aren’t many in San d’Oria right now) cast protect and cure spells on me while I was out in the field. I guess they saw me standing in front of a rabbit for a minute not knowing what to do and figured I could use the help :D

I thought that was a nice gesture too, but then I realized that they’re doing it more to raise their Healing level than to be good Samaritans.

Oh well, that’s cool, too. Everyone wins. So I gave your suggestions a shot and the combination of gamepad and reconfigured inventory makes this game approximately 4 billion times better. And I already liked it a lot to begin with!

I just threw a whole bunch of stuff up for auction, the wait is killing me. I need some money to upgrade my equipment, I’m at level 6 and I still have the starting weapon/armor.

By the way, this game is ridiculously pretty. Not just because it has a nice graphics engine, but because Square has done an amazing job (as usual) with designing the content that engine renders. I saw a Goblin Fisherman down near the river, they’re awesome! They’re all hunched over with all of these packs and they just plod along in the river looking for fish. And when they find one, they whack it with an axe! Even the enemies are trying to make a living in FFXI.

So I killed him. But the point is, awesome. The forests are full of life, the rivers look beautiful, you could take screenshots all day. And I still haven’t left the one area outside of San d’Oria castle. I am actually in awe. FFXI rocks.

I’m from Bastok, so I can’t give you too many tips for the San area, but here’s one for the auction house: price the items just slightly lower than the going price if you want quick dough. They’ll sell first if they’re the lowest price, but you’ll usually get the same amount because people usually don’t undercut the going price.

FYI: Another tip is to use regedit to fix the rendering config.

Go to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PlayOnlineUS\SquareEnix\FinalFantasyXI

Edit the keys that are called:

0001
0002
0003
0004

Which are in hex with the decimal # in parens
ie: 0x00000480 (1152)

Fix it so that 0001 and 0003 are the same, and 0002 and 0004 are the same.

IE:

0001 becomes 1152 (decimal)
0002 becomes 864 (dec)
0003 = 1152
0004 = 864

This will work on any video card that supports textures that aren’t in multiples of 512 (read: any recent one, chances are if you are playing FFXI and it isn’t a slide show you are fine).

The graphics will appear crisper and cleaner when it is not doing any funky stretching (you are avoiding the default situation where the overlay is a different res from the rendering action going on).

Later on you will see giant rockmen with plants growing on their heads (Goobbue) acting as farmers. :)

  1. Earth crystals. You sell them to shops, because there are a zillion for sale at the AH for low prices. When you start doing missions, trade them for mission points to a mission NPC. Other crystals are worth selling at the AH, though water crystals are marginal sometimes. Of course you can also use them for crafting if you want. Most of the crafts just cost you money until you get rather high level with them. Fishing is an exception, but it is slow and takes a long time to improve your skill.

  2. Look through the prices at the AH for all the stuff you can reasonably easily get your hands on through hunting easy monsters, and anything which goes for over 500 a stack of 12 (or 500 each) sell that way, other stuff you might as well just dispose of quickly with a vendor.

  3. Always have signet up. Always. Even if you don’t get crystals in a beastman zone, you are getting conquest points which are very valuable.

  4. If you have the temperament and spare time for it, fishing can make you a lot of money. Go for moat carp in town, or quus by the seashore to begin with.

  5. Once you get a few K disposable income, you might want to try mining using a few stacks of pickaxes. To begin with, try Zeruhn mines once nothing there is dangerous to you, you will get a lot of iron and zinc which you can sell directly to people near the AH instead of waiting for an AH sale. Occasionally you may even get darksteel which is worth a lot more. Eventually you can go to palborough or gusgen for even better mining returns.

  6. Solo to level 12 or so, from then on, you team to get experience and levels, and solo to get cash and loot.

  7. Pick up some flower pots as soon as you can afford them (1K each), kill saplings to get seeds, and start growing random stuff in your mog house. Sometimes you grow junk, but other times you can grow some very valuable plants, stones, and crystals.

  8. Always keep your equipment up to date. If you find you have outgrown your old stuff and can’t afford the new stuff, it’s time to take some time off to get money through one of the various usual means including farming low level monsters for loot.

  9. Check out allakhazam.com for extremely useful lists of quests, semi-useful guides, and whiny forums.

I folded up my characters on Valefor yesterday and will play on Phoenix full-time now. I’d been dividing my attention between both servers for some time which, coupled with my limited play time, meant that my progress was really slow. It was a bit painful giving my loot to a friend and waving good-bye before I deleted my main; I think that Square could make a few bucks by offering a server migration service.

My main character now is a Tarutaru named Seratera; he’s a citizen of Bastok, currently visiting Windurst. He did the trip in two sessions, stopping in Selbina before boarding the ship to Mhaura and continuing the rest of the way. The trip was especially hair-raising because he’s only a level 10 White Mage and he did the whole thing on foot, alone. There were zones where he spent the whole time darting from rock to rock, hiding from the hordes of goblins that infested the countryside.

Windy is a nice-looking place but it has an infuriatingly inconvenient layout. I plan to train Seratera to level 11, run a few quests, then have him return home. Maybe I can have him hook up with an expedition heading to back to Valkurm, so he doesn’t have to face that nasty-wasty hike alone again.

Nice. My Elvaan warrior is up to level 7 and I was a little nervous heading to the south end of West Rounfare, right outside San d’Oria castle! OK, she’s a timid warrior. Anyway, I bought some new equipment and went to the bronze armor, but I really can’t wait to upgrade it again, this stuff makes her look like some kind of Renaissance Fair hooker. Jeez, at least put an oversized t-shirt over that thing. I’m all for hot chicks in skimpy clothing, but I’m here for war, dammit, not a shoot for Victoria’s Medieval Secret.

She does have a cool hat, though.

The character that I deleted from Valefor yesterday was based out of San D’Oria, so I know West Ronfaure quite well. At level 7, you need to be careful when you’re skulking about the south end, because of the increased numbers of orcs and goblins that prowl the area. Be careful with Forest Funguars, unless you have something to remove poison… like a WHM buddy. And for God’s sake, if you see a rabbit named Jaggedy-Eared Jack, run like hell in the opposite direction. :)

Ha! Got it. I was on that quest for the hotel owner where you have to visit that tower down south and pick up some food. There were a few people out hunting so mostly I waited for them to attack the tough creatures and then ran by.

I’ve got a few friends who will be joining when the PS2 version comes out. I was going to make a second character based out of Windhurst because I want to do cooking, but I really like San d’Oria so far. Is it possible to get good in a craft when you aren’t near the guild?

Miramon, thanks for the tips. Is it possible to see how many conquest points you’ve earned?

synic, I’ll give that a try because I’m a moron and I’ll try anything, but if my video card explodes I’m going to make Todd Bridges and Lou Ferigno call you and sing showtunes.

If you see Jaggedy Eared Jack, get a friend to come kill it (it should be easy to anyone above level 15) and split the profits if it drops the Rabbit Charm (~200-300k) :shock:

Also, get very accustomed to using the Check function on enemies. The same type of monster could check as “Easy prey” or “Decent Challenge” and the difference could mean life or death.

Stay in West or East Ronfaure until level 9 or so, then you can either go soloing at Ghelsba Outpost or hook up with a party in La Theine if you want some variety. Of course, you can solo in the Ronfaures until 11 or 12 if you felt like it.

I’m a level 30 WHM and level 31 BLM (also level 17 Ninja and level 8 Dragoon), so if you guys need ANYTHING. Let me know. I have 75k to my name, so I have some cash to spare. :)

Seriously, I’m glad you guys like the game so much. I really enjoy it myself.

Go to Region info in the main menu (upper right). When that screen comes up, you can find out how many conquest points you have in the lower right hand portion of the window.

You could always use that money to fund an expensive job. Christ, if you were the same level RDM that you are WHM, you’d still have a long way to go before being able to afford your next big spell (Phalanx, 250k).

Thanks for the protect last night, Jaysun. I was out there looking for bats to give me wind crystals (I’ve had 11 for like the past two days) and right after you left I was beaten within an inch of my life (seriously, like 4HP left) by an Orcish Grappler. I ended up running and eventually lost him. I really didn’t want to get killed because I had already died twice last night :(

So now I’m working on the weapon skills and I love that whole system. At first I thought that warriors chose one line of weapons and just specialized in those. Then I noticed that my sword skill just wasn’t going up all that often. After about 30 seconds on a forum I saw that there’s a cap on how good you can get with a weapon that’s based on your level, so now I’m trying to diversify my weapons portfolio. I’m up around level 16 in swords and axes and now I’m on polearms. Can’t wait to try bows and arrows. I never knew playing as a plain old warrior could be so fun!

Mike Cathcart,

You can check how many conquest points you have by clicking on the Region button on the main menu. If you haven’t figured that out already. :D

Heh, yeah, actually all classes have their preferred weapon type, even though they can use a variety of weapons. Warriors are the best with axe weapons (1H and 2H versions), whereas Dark Knights use Scythes and Great Swords, Paladins use Swords, Dragoons use Spears/Polearms, etc… I think Warriors are generally more forgiving though in terms of what weapon they can use, but they still do the most damage with a big old two-handed axe (Sturmwind is badass).

Here’s some cool FFXI resources:
Virtual Vana’diel Timer
http://www.pyogenes.com/pyog-timer.html

Skillchain Chart (nice color image for printing)
http://vnscripts.ign.com/screenshots/images/ff/32941651.jpg

FFXI Weapon Skill Chart
http://www.all-final.com/ff11/skill_chart.htm

Thanks for those links, Jaysun, especially the weapon skills chart site.

I’m really enjoying this game. Seratera returned to Bastok the night before last. This time, he only travelled alone as far as Mhaura. He did his first bit of fishing on the ferry, and nearly got whacked by a Sea Pugil that he snagged on his hook. Luckily, some alert passengers took care of it for him. After disembarking from the ship, he found himself in the company of a powerful escort who took him all the way to North Gustaberg.

None of my friends were on last night, so I stayed close to the city and started to level Sera as a Black Mage. He’s going to want those levels, anyway, when he takes BLM as his subjob down the road. He almost got to BLM 5 before I started to nod, so I’ll finish that up tonight and then send him into town for better equipment.

What I really want to know is where I can see how many conquest points I’ve earned.

Bought myself a whole new set of armor and my first great axe last night after selling my first dozen each of wind and fire crystals. Yaaaaay bats! The leather armor is a huge improvement over the bronze. It’s still a little ridiculous but at least it looks stylish (if not exactly practical) instead of the bronze “Village People” look.

That butterfly axe is torturous, especially when you’re at the low skill levels for great axe. I almost got killed by an “easy prey” orcish fodder. Now that I’m over level ten it’s a bit more respectable but I can’t wait to upgrade to one of the better axes that have lower delay.