Places I thought I would never revisit: Vana’diel

I don’t know what possessed me this last weeekend to do the unfathomable: re-install FFXI. Yes – that Final Fantasy, the first cross-platform MMORPG that ever was and cradle of my online gaming journey. When I left the game in 2004, I knew I was not to return. WoW was around the corner and I had spent entirely too many painful nights grinding the same mob together with random Japanese players who would only ever invite you back if you stayed for several hours of EXP grind. There was no soloing after level 16, death penalties were harsh and the acquisition of the most basic things, such as your class skills or a zone map, even harsher. FFXI liked to torture new players and frankly humiliate them too. The early gameplay was the opposite of motivating.

Over the years however, I heard much about how the game had become more beginner and casual friendly. A lot of expansion content was added and QoL changes happened, supposedly. New players kept giving the game a go long after it was new which always piqued my curiosity. Did SE really manage to make gameplay more tolerable? There is after all greatness to be found in FFXI: the graphics at the time were top, the scale and feel of the world, the small places, the cities, the soundtrack. They could be worth a second chance. Only one way to find out, I guess.

The 2024 FFXI experience thus far

This is not going to be an early gameplay review because frankly, after finally managing to log into Vana’diel after several hours, I required a week’s break to recover from the shock of the whole process. I had forgotten FFXI’s old adage: the first boss fight in FFXI is the account creation. And much to my chagrin the old Playonline launcher is alive and well.

Account management has never been this company’s forte but I am still surprised they didn’t bother to update the launcher situation for FFXI, when FFXIV is doing pretty okay in this regard. Instantly I was faced with an array of problems that were only tolerable thanks to my previous knowledge and already existing Square Enix account. Just to give you an idea of the hoops you’ll have to jump through before ever getting close to in_game:

1. Create or have a Square Enix account (thankfully I could skip this!)
2. Inside the account, create a FFXI service account with extra Playonline password
3. Choose a subscription, realize you have to separately choose ‘Options’ which means the amount of player characters (you pay for each alt)
4. Install the Playonline launcher (I used Steam) and launch in admin mode
5. Meet the update boss; wait for several hours for the game to patch
6. Meet the DirectX 8.1. boss; go and learn about how to enable legacy options in Windows (thanks Reddit!)
7. Meet the Playonline launcher boss; navigate through several tiny menus which require different handles and passwords
8. Realize ENTER is not a thing, figure out the bird cursor and whatever ‘O’ and ‘X’ mean on keyboard (there’s also something that looks like a sprinkle donut)
9. From the Playonline launcher connect to the FFXI launcher? I don’t know what to call this step
10. Accept a bunch of terms & conditions, from there enter the actual FFXI start menu
11. Realize there’s still no settings to let you adjust the horrendous pixelated resolution and tiny window
12. Google how to change resolution, learn where the config file is in the root folder of the game
13. Realize everything crashed while you were googling because the game won’t allow Alt-tab outside windowed mode (adjust this too in the config file)
14. Return to step 4. Start hating the repetitive Playonline jingle that plays incessantly
15. Finally arrive back at the FFXI start menu, endure several more progress bars and accept some terms & conditions, again
16. Create a character, learn hairstyles are still bound to faces and there’s still hardly any customization options
17. Name ugly character, log in
18. Listen to a 10 minute intro for your starter city (no, there is no skip)
19. Stare blankly at the UI and return to googling things like ‘where is the context menu’? and ‘how do I adjust the rotating camera from hell’
20. Log out immediately (actually it takes 30 seconds) and have a drink or three!

Now what do the kids say these days, I have the RECEIPTS for all of it just so you get the idea –

Now I feel like I earned an instant level 20 just for getting through that whole brain-melting ordeal! I don’t know how but they managed to make menu navigation even more tedious and confusing over the years. From the first look at ingame, not much has changed in the UI department either. It’s just silly that you require things like arrow buttons and (‘) to navigate the most basic stuff. They had 22 years to optimize the game for PC and there’s still an active enough player base to release regular content updates.

I have no idea whether this bodes well for what’s to come. Maybe it turns out to be true that you can progress reasonably well solo in FFXI today – or maybe this undertaking was one massive mistake. Time will tell, although I’m not willing to allow for too much of it. If I get killed by a worm or sheep right outside the city gates, again, I may decide that life is too short to give Vana’diel a second shot after all!