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Welcome back to the continuing adventures of Monkfish, my MMORPG life alter-ego. In this series of articles I'm trying to discover the appeal of these games. Why are they so popular, and how easy is it to get involved in the community.
In the first part I visited the world of Guild Wars, this time I'm journeying into the realm of...
Final Fantasy XI
So here we are, Final Fantasy XI! Being a bit of a Final Fantasy fanboy I was really quite looking forward to this one.
But to even get anywhere near playing this I needed to download the client application (trial version) which was 2gb. I then needed to install the “Play online” portal application and update that. However creating an account was a trial in itself! It was asking me for a code? It took several google searches to find where to acquire a legal trial account key. I was then set for 14 days of Final Fantasy adventures with real people!
But what they don’t tell you is that for 13 of the 14 trial days you’ll be downloading the updates!
Ok, perhaps a little dramatic but it took a fair amount of time and I got bored very quickly. Luckily it resumes so I, once again, had a cup of tea and got on with real life instead.
Several hours later and the updates had finished!
After choosing a race and profession (Human and Monk of course!) I was flung straight into the game, starting in a town called Bastok. The first thing I noticed was a music shop! I was intrigued and headed towards it, but before I had chance to enter the shop I saw something amazing in another part of town – an airship! One that would transport me to another town that was far away? I wasn’t quite experienced enough to ride one (apparently) but I was impressed already!
Just standing in the town centre there were many players running back and forth. I followed a few to get my bearings and soon found my Mog-House, an area of the game where you can buy and store furniture and even invite friends over to visit. I then decided it was time to go and start adventuring. I spoke to one of the gate guards and he sent me out into the world to attack some monsters. However, in comparison to Guild Wars, Monkfish was actually fighting in an area populated by many other characters.
This was more what I was expecting!
So I ventured out into the wild and started battling obviously low-level creatures such as large worms and giant hornets. Occasionally another player would run past on some other quest. Often I saw players riding past on Chocobos! “I’ve got to get me one of them!” I thought.
After a bit of training the gate guard decided to send me further a-field to kill monsters in an area he called “The Highlands”. I knew this would be tricky but set off anyway, trying to level up a bit on the way. As I was running, a monster suddenly attacked me (usually they don’t initiate attacks!) and I was hurt quite badly. I ran away before I was completely knocked out but before the monster could finish me off another player appeared and attacked the monster. Before long it had been defeated!
My Savoir!
I thanked him for saving me and we had a quick chat. It turned out that he had just started playing like myself and was about to do the same quest! It seemed like our best bet was to buddy-up and form a party.
| Notes:This game really isn’t made for PC’s, all the menus are keyboard driven (you can use mouse but it feels wrong). The fighting is a bit cumbersome and slow to get started. Plus there is serious grind in this game. Not that this will matter to Final Fantasy fans who are used to this! |
Unfortunately our quest was cut short! Not too much further down the same path we ran into a more difficult monster to overcome and we were defeated. Nonetheless it was good to have actually met someone in one of these games that was in the same position as me!
A couple of days later I realised the free trial was going to be finished so I enquired at how much it would take Monkfish to continue his journey. It turns out that not only do you have to pay monthly (I was expecting that) but you have to buy the client as well! So my adventures in Vana’diel were over.
World of WarCraft
So it was onto World of Warcraft! I was quite interested in this for several reasons. Firstly it’s the biggest (apparently) MMORPG out there and has been mentioned everywhere from famous youtube videos to episodes of South Park. So I rushed to the site to download the trial version. The headline on the front page really stood out.
More than 10 million online!
Well, this I had to see for myself. After the initial program had downloaded I had to get a patch. The patch started to download and all was well. Except, well, no it wasn’t ok: Why was a 6mb file taking so long to download? The answer: Peer to peer download system. For those of you who don’t know what that means, I’m essentially file sharing this patch with anyone else who can reach my connection. It’s a clever way for Blizzard to cut down on bandwidth costs on users. And why not? With 10 million online subscribers (I presume) paying $13 a month (that’s minimum) they must be strapped for cash. And you have to buy the retail version before being able to play.
So far I wasn’t impressed. But soon came the time to play and create my character! Monkfish was not available as a name in the recommended server for me so I settled for Moonkfish instead, obviously being a Monk with the usual mace type thing.
I started off next to an old abbey, where some chap gave me a mission to go and kill some kobolds. There weren’t many others around (less than in Final Fantasy XI in fact) but I diligently completed the mission. I also attacked a few wolves to get the hang of fighting in this world. I returned to the mission chap who had yet another mission for me…to kill more kobolds. So I retraced my steps and killed more, slightly tougher, kobolds. I returned eager for a new, more interesting mission. And I got one! Go into a mine and kill some kobolds.
Now, I’m not one to usually complain, but that’s fairly dull.
| Notes: Yes, I couldn’t bring myself to play this one much. I’m not usually one to say things look dated, but this looked worse than FFXI in my opinion. It just didn’t have the feeling of awesomeness I was expecting and, not having anyone who plays these to show me the ropes, it felt like a lonely experience. But! If you do have friends who are into this don’t let me put you off, it is potentially a lot of fun. |
In fact it was so dull that I never had the motivation to play World of Warcraft and before I had time to finish my report the trial period ended. However, what little I played left a lasting impression on me. This game is not to be played alone, you’ve got to play with others. Even though others were around I felt more isolated than I did when playing Guildwars. The whole game felt far less epic than Final Fantasy XI, so I was left feeling surprisingly disappointed with the whole experience.
The best part of World of Warcraft for me was the battle system, it was far more intuitive than FFXI and somehow more fluid than Guild Wars (even though it was extremely similar). So it wasn’t a total loss. However it’s time for Monkfish to move on to other lands!
My MMORPG Life part 2 end - click here to read the other articles on the site
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