Battle of the MMORPGs

Figuring out which is better: Final Fantasy XI (PC, PS2. Xbox 360) or World of Warcraft (PC, Mac)?

Before I continue, someone out there is going, “Why not Everquest or Lord of the Rings Online?” Why you ask? Because FFXI and WoW are the two MMORPGs I have personally played and at always in the top 5 MMOs. Plus you never hear anyone say, “LotR Online is better than FFXI/WoW!”. And if you do, you should slap them. Repeatedly. With a large blunt object.

Anyway, we’ll break it down by what each game has to offer.

—Costs—

Both games are Pay-to-Play games due to the size of each of them yet each offers something different while paying.

-WoW-

WoW offers three types of subscriptions: $14.99 (USD) for 1 month, $41.97 ($13.99/month) for 3 months, or $77.94 ($12.99/month) for 6 month, accepting Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express debit or credit cards, PayPal, and can even bill it to your home phone. For those with only cash in your wallet, you can buy a “Game Card” that has a specific amount of playtime on it. This also allows parents to control how long they want little Junior or Susie playing (along with the Parental Control feature, but that will come along later.) What does this give access to?

1. Over 200 servers (or Realms as Blizzard puts it) for the North American players, and more being added when needed, with the ability of having 10 characters on each server. They also have servers for Europe, China, and Korea.
2. A world that old school Warcraft players will recognize, with NPCs like Thrall (Horde) and Tyrande Whisperwind (Alliance), and the aftermath of the war on different cities like the Ruins of Lordaeron and Strathholme, both devastated by the Scourge.
3. A wide variety of challenges the will test solo players and groups alike, from simple “go-for” quests to taking down legions of monsters.

And much more. There’s a little something for everyone.

-FFXI-

Square made it simple when it came to the payment plan. It is $12.99 for the account to Playonline and 1 character. Each additional character costs $1. They accept Visa, Mastercard, and Discover, and you’ll be charged the 1st or 2nd of the month, depending on if it is a business day. Simply? Though so. So what does this get you?

1. 33 active servers, 32 open to the public while the last one used by Game Masters (GMs) and approved testers, with a total of 16 characters across all the servers. (If you need 16 characters, there’s a problem.)
2. A beautiful, (sometimes seems a bit too large) world of cities, dungeons, and open areas that form a massive enviroment that will sometimes sidetrack you from what you were originally doing.
3. Several large story lines that each have their twists and turns, and all connecting together in the end.

And once again, a lot more.

—Characters and Classes—

-WoW-

World of Warcraft offers a total of 10 races, 5 for each side, with 9 total classes. While this seems great, certain races do not have access to certain classes, like Blood Elves on the Horde side are the only ones allowed to become Paladins and Dwarves on the Alliance side don’t have access to the major spellcasting classes except Priests. Once you pick a Faction (Alliance or Horde), a race, and a class, you cannot change them unless you delete the character. This tends to cause a lot of problems especially when a group is missing a healer or a tank.

-FFXI-

Final Fantasy offers 5 races and a total of 20 jobs, 6 beginner classes, and 14 more you unlock through quests. All races have access to all the jobs though some tend to be better at others; ie. Tarutarus make better mages due to their high intelligence and MP while Mithra are better Thieves due to their high evasion and dexterity. While this might seems like a hassle, the game allows players to change jobs back and forth when they need to. This tends to help when someone has multiple jobs leveled and a certain niche in a party needs to be filled. The game also allows for a “subjob” to be used, allowing players to adapt to different situations better.

—Quests, Missions, and Group Activities—

-WoW-

Due to the way the game is run, a lot of quests can be soloed at higher levels, though for “raids” and dungeons, a party (5 people max) is always required. The group also tends to be balanced: a tank (someone to take the hits) DPS (damage per second - your standard melees or offensive casters) and your healer(s). Also, due to the variety of the game, replacing an unwanted person in your group tends to be easy, unless it’s the tank, then sometimes, you just have to deal with it.

-FFXI-

This is where a player can truly see the mindset of the Japanese culture. Unless you are extremely skill, damn lucky, or have a lot of patience, you will need a party (6 people max) almost everything in the game. The game focuses on teamwork and if one person screws up, the party tends to follow. Once again, there is a wide variety to create a party, depending on what the situation is, though it tends to follow the typical tank, dps, and healer. At higher levels, many roles change where the tank is also a dps and vise versa.

—Other things besides killing—

-WoW-

So what does someone do besides kill things? Craft, fish, and /dance on top of the local mailbox. The profession system in WoW allows you to pick two main professions out of 11 and dabble in all three secondary professions (Cooking, First Aid, and Fishing). The system also allows you to learn and obtain new recipes for your craft and through a color coding system, you can see which item you craft will have a high or low chance of skilling you up to a higher level. Being able to also see what materials are need it handy too, instead of sitting there and either memorizing what you need or looking it up every time you need it.

Also, while in the major cities, you will find people who will be looking for someone to craft this or make that, so keep an eye open for someone who is willing to crank out a few gold for a few seconds of your time.

-FFXI-

In Final Fantasy XI, there are 9 crafts that you can take up. Yes, you can do all 9, but with limits. To quote from FFXIclopedia:

“After you hit level 60, you get 40 levels to distribute among the other crafts you also have above level 60. Meaning you can get every single craft up to 60 without any issues, but post 60 you have 40 levels to distribute.

The only exception to this rule is Fishing. You can level Fishing to 100, all the rest of the crafts to 60, and still have the 40 points left to distribute as you want.

If you raise a craft skill past 60, after already having 40 levels distributed to other crafts above 60, the level of the crafts already above 60 will decrease.

In other words, other than fishing, you can get one other craft to 100 while the other crafts will default to 60.”

The crafting system tends to be a bit more realistic and a bit more harsh here. Each “synthesis” requires a crystal of a specific element and up to 8 materials and there is a chance of your failing the synth, which can lead to you losing just the crystal or all of your materials. There is some light out of all of this. Depending on your skill, you have a chance to make a “high quality” version of the synthesis. This can mean a “+1+ version of the item, making is better than its normal version, or more of the item; instead of 2, maybe 4 or even 6. Overall, a high quality synthesis tends to lead to money.

Once again, there are people who will require someone to synth an item for them. But beware: take on a synth too high and lose the person’s materials and be prepared to compensate them.

—Back to the killing—

-WoW-

If anyone knows the Warcraft games, there is always conflict around the corner. WoW offers plays a chance to beat the ever living (or unliving if your undead) crap out of each other in PvP (Player vs Player). Depending if you’re on a PvP server, this can be controlled by turning off your PvP flag. This will stop opposing faction members from acting you. Though if you are on a PvP server, once you leave the safety of a controlled area, you’re fair game. Even if you leave “contested” territory (that’s the areas no one controls) your PvP flag will still be active for a few minutes. During that time, a group of enemies can camp you like it was Woodstock ‘69 all over again. (Don’t get the reference? Follow the white dove.) As long as you’re on a non-PvP server, you will never have to kill (or be killed) by another player.

WoW also offers “Battlegrounds” to players which ranges from “Capture the Flag” to “I’ve got more land than you! Ha ha!“. Some people play for fun, most take them seriously and tend to forget that it’s a game.

-FFXI-

In the world of Vana’diel, PvP is controlled by events known as “Conflict”. This is broken down to three different kinds; Ballista, Brenner, and Diorama Abdhaljs-Ghelsba. Each involves PvP, though Brenner tends to be more strategic than its siblings which are basically “beat the crap out of each other” though Ballista has a scoring system also included.

Due to the way these games are run, very few get serious and almost always tend to be laid back and relax. Though it tends to be serious when someone /shouts “I’ll meet you in Ballista.”, then it’s a matter of someone’s ego getting inflated and their head getting big. Ballista, or rather Diorama Abdhaljs-Ghelsb (since it’s the relax version of Ballista) is also a great way to have some fun with friends and test new idea for job/subjob combinations and equipment checks.

—Community—

-WoW-

Oh, this is where it gets fun. Due to the simplicity of WoW, children (people under the age of 17) flood the chat with infantile remarks and love to /yell obscene comments. Beyond that, there is a slightly more mature group the keeps the IQ average above 100.

Now that I’ve got that out of my system….

The community of WoW tends to be made up of a younger generation of gamers, the ones born after 1990, just after the NES came out and their siblings raged through ever game possible. This tends causes some conflicts in chat between the small generation gap of old school gamers and “new school” gamers. The players are further broken down by the casual players and the hardcore players. At the top of the hardcore players are the self-proclaimed “elitists”, who (tend to think) they have the best gear and the best skills.

As for the social groups, WoW offers the option of making a guild to stay connected with friends or to form large groups of allies fast. Unfortunately, you’re only able to have one guild at a time so switching between a PvP group and a PvE (Player vs Environment; ie dungeons and large bosses) is nearly impossible unless your guild does both.

-FFXI-

Not to say FFXI isn’t without it’s immature rug rats running around with Mommy’s credit card, invading the chat with nonsense, but due to FFXI being more complicated than WoW, it tends to draw in an older crowd. That doesn’t mean some of them act like they’re going through puberty.

Once again, the game breaks down into the casual player who goes through the story line or just likes to level, and the hardcore players who spend every moment they can killing the largest monster, getting the best gear, and just love racking up the /playtime counter. These are further broken down to the self-proclaimed elitists once again, though many only have the gear and no skill. There are a few who don’t have the greatest gear (these tend to be item-whores: someone tries to every piece of gear they want no matter how they get it) but their skill more than makes up for the lack of extra stats and an ever smaller number of the former never claim to be elitists, though in many peoples eyes, they are, in a good.

Due to the fact that there is so much to do in FFXI, find a group to hang with isn’t hard. Social and event groups are formed into what is called a Linkshell. This allows people to communicate with each other in mass numbers. Also, because of the fact that there is so much to due, it’s not unusual to find yourself with one or more LS pearls (pearls are the basic form of Linkshells), one for social, another for monster hunts, and so on.

—Time—

-WoW-

To simply put it, you do not have to put in a lot of game time to get anything done. You can log into the game and get ten things done within 30 minutes. The longest duration you might spend on just one thing is about 5+ hours on the final raid which takes 25 people to do. That's if there isn't any problems with people leaving or continuous deaths on a certain boss.

-FFXI-

Once again, this is simple. FFXI takes a long time to get things done. Even if you want to level a job, you’ll need about 3 hours: 1 hour looking for a group, another hour leveling, and the last hour looking for a replacement for you. Sure, there are things that don’t take that long but because of the fact that almost everything is group oriented, finding a group could and will take a while. So throw up your “Looking for Party” flag, grab your Nintendo DS or Sony PSP, and prepare to wait.

—Additional Features—

-WoW-

WoW allows players to customize their gameplay with Addons. These help players keep track of damage, allows them to make notes on the maps and about other players, and mixes up the game a bit. Blizzard allows these because they offer their own for use and there is no penalty using them until a new patch comes out and “breaks” or makes an Addon useless or acts oddly.

WoW also offers Parental Controls to parents who want to limit how long the little ones are playing. This is a great feature, especially when little Johnny has a computer in their room. All a parent has to do is log into the account though the main website (not the game itself) and set it how they want.

A player can also change realms and their name for a price, $25 for the move and $10 for a new name per character. Personally, both are a little over the top, so pick your name and home well unless you want to start forking out more money because you couldn’t spell.

-FFXI-

Square is a bit of a… ahem… stick in the mud about this. If you are caught using and addons or modifications (or mods for short), it’ll lead to a temporary ban, usually three days. After that, if your caught again, then say goodbye. Square throws the proverbial book at you and bans your account permanently.

After some fuss, Square introduced an option to allow the player to run the game in a “window” form, letting players look back and forth between the game and a guide, making it a bit better. The legal “windower” doesn’t have any support for player made addons, so even though it’s available, may don't use it.

FFXI also offers a server change for the price of $25, but you can move one or all your characters to a new home. There is no renaming processes, Drtynsoreknees (Yes, I have seen this name on my server….) so get use to the cat calls and lewd remarks.

—Overall—

WoW is great for someone who is looking for an easy game to come back to every so often, something they can pick up, play for a bit, then forget about it for a few days. New school gamers tend to be attracted to WoW because of that. FFXI, on the other hand, takes time a dedication to actually get somewhere and this appeals to old school gamers who were used to a real challenge. Both are great games with their perks and downfalls:

1. FFXI is time consuming and tends to be more of a challenge while some find WoW too easy.
2. Making money in WoW is too easy while FFXI, it’s a pain to make a single coin.
3. There’s so much variety in FFXI or too little in WoW
4. Many classes in WoW are unbalanced while there are too many jobs for FFXI.

And the list goes on. Neither game is perfect yet both are great depending on the player. And may the gaming community be helped if Square and Blizzard ever collaborated to make the “perfect” MMORPG: FFXI class balancing, WoW’s crafting and experience scaling up as you level, and the beautiful world both have to offer. That, my fellow gamers, would be the end to all MMORPGs for it would be, fearfully, perfect.

First to the chopping block...

Back near the end of '08, Square Enix released a new title named Infinite Undiscovery. The name itself caught my ear and along with the gameplay and graphics, the hook was set and all SE had to do was tug on it a little harder.

I received the game back in Christmas and had recently began to play it a few weeks ago due to the fact that Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2 had me hunched over, playing with my enemies as I slowed, doomed, and confused them. But I digress. For an RPG from SE, I was a bit disappointed at the fact that there's about 20 hours of straight storyline, skipping almost all of the side quests, but was pleased with it overall. I was, however, extremely frustrated that around hour 10; I was on the second disc, the proverbial shit had hit the fan, and I was confused with only more questions thrown at me and no one able to answer them. When I told my friend this, he was shocked. "You understood Indigo Prophecy!" I sadly nodded in agreement.

The story revolves around a young flute player named Capell who has been captured and just as quickly broken free, though he complains about being stuck in the the cell for three days. The first major twist is merely 20 minutes or so in, where you find that Capell has a look alike named Sigmund (or the other way around) who has been fighting the baddies of the world though they both deny having any siblings. This sets off a long series of events that encompasses a large world of creatures and characters, each with their own distinct personality, from the hardass Edward that follows Sigmund around to the wise and soft spoken Eugene who is an old friend to the group.

The fighting system is smooth but not without some flaws: Basic run around until you have to draw your sword then kill everything until it's dead. Your party members will not attack until you draw your weapon first which makes getting from point A to point B in a rush nice. The AI can also be set to different settings such as "Focus", which tells your party to focus on whatever you're attacking, and "Free", which allows them to do whatever the see fit during the battle. You can even "Connect" to a nearby party member and command them to do certain actions, some of which allow you to open locked chests, set up large combo, and even talk to animals (I personally love that one). The "Y" button calls out for healing (while not connected) and anyone able to heal, whether it be via magic or potion, will do so. There are some points, however, where the camera gets to be a pain or your half naked caster runs into the enemy's blast of fire which can lead to disaster during boss fights.

The world in which you travel isn't too big thankfully yet it is big enough to give the feeling that this might be a real world to adventure in. Each town is unique, from the poor yet homely town with their doors open to the expansive town inside of a castle. As time passes in the game, the people in the towns change; a tsunami wracked town will rebuild itself after some time has passed. Along with the world, the music to beautifully composed, once again, each area having its own theme, from the open desert that you'll get to know well to the final castle which will send a chill down your spine.

Now that I've given the game praise, I'm going to rant a little about a few things that drew the primal fury out of my subconscious and turned me into that coin-flipping Twoface that I can be.

First, the voice acting: I'm a big fan of any game that adds voice. Not only is it convenient, it gives the character a depth that simple text cannot give. But when you go from a voiced cutscene to a non-voiced cutscene with no warning, this can and will irritate the audience. They do this several times during the game and you never know when! This is especially annoying because of the fact that you can't pause, read the line, and then continue. Now, this isn't annoying for me per say, but it was extremely frustrating when I was playing with my niece who is currently eight. She would go and read whatever the NPCs would say, allowing her to really get into the story. But if I'm not paying attention, say in the other room to get a drink, and one of these voiceless cutscenes come up, I have to rush from whatever I'm doing to quickly read whatever is there out loud. A mild pain in the tail.

Still on the topic of voice acting, overall the work was sub par. There was some great scenes where the voices sang with the fury of a thousand angels and there are some lines, usually Edward's, were so off key, even Helen Keller would have asked, well signed, "WTF?" A major problem I saw was the fact that some of the lines tried to match the lips of the character which usually left the lines sounding like the voice actors took line delivery classes from William Shatner; choppy and unnatural. The few major scenes where the voices really matter, they were perfect, which was a relief.

The second flaw that made my eye twitch a little was the clipping. Now, when someone says, "Oh man, his cape keeps clipping through his leg," gamers refer to this as clipping; one object going through another that it's not suppose to. This pretty much never happens during game play except for the friendly sword going through you. The clipping problem tends to happen during cutscenes, the place it should never happen. The one clipping problem I kept seeing was when Capell went through a wardrobe change. Before hand, he never had a problem, but once he got his new armor, his sword would clip his hip and cape, but as I said before, only during cutscenes. Details like this is what can make or break a game when it comes down to score and awards. Am I nitpicking? Yes.

I was going to go on a small rant about the shadow problems but was informed that the problem was not the game but the actual 360 itself . So /endrant

Is Infinite Undiscovery worth the $40? Almost. If you really want it, go for it and enjoy but to the general RPG fan, wait until it drops a few more bucks before picking it up. That or bum it off a friend. So what's the overall score for this little gem?

Grade: C+
Pros: Wonderful environments, well composed music, wide variety of character
Cons: Amateur voice acting, simple details overlooked
Shocking: Seeing one of the characters, my niece and I both thought, "Oh cool, a woman to join our group." Until he spoke. "Oh gods! I thought that was a woman!" And that response didn't come from me.

Testing.... Is this thing on?

*waves*

Before I start off on any tangent of the sorts, I'd like to let you, the reader, know a little more about me, the writer. Nothing in depth, just some basics.

I have no special degree in gaming, as fun as that would be, but I am college educated with a major in English. I am also an old school gamer; I grew up during the times of the NES and Gameboy and still have working ones of each. Will I make references to them? Probably so be prepared for a few to go over some of the younger crowd's heads.

I will also try not to be bias when it comes to certain games or genres, ie, not be a fangirl about certain games that I love. On a similar note, to clear out the fanboys, Final Fantasy VII for the PC and PSX was not and never will be the best game ever made. Period. End of story.

Now that's out of the way, let us begin, shall we?