Final Fantasy Forum

I know some of you guys play or have played Final Fantasy XI. Game Spot and Square Enix are currently offering a special deal on downloading the game for $11, and it still comes with a free 30-day subscription to the service.

Now, at $11 and some free subscription time I'm finally willing to consider trying the game out to see if I'd be willing to pay monthly to play...even though it'll probably get shut down sometime after Final Fantasy XIV comes out.

The question is, should I bother? Is the game really worth playing? That's where you guys come in. Give me a heads-up. I'm not hugely into the MMO scene-- I've played a few free ones casually, and I'm kind of interested in finding something fun that I could tentatively play with friends and/or users. Is this the game?

@gia: do you like grinding?, how long can you grind? are you good at forming parties?
 
if the answer to all the above is a yes, then well try it

Uh no, unless you love mmo's don't buy them no matter what price they are at.  The amount of time and effort you have to sink into them to get any real "reward" for it far outweighs the benefit unless you plan to play them long term.  Also FFXI is one of the most grindtastic mmo's out there and that is not a compliment.

MMOs are pure-time sinks. And while I'm sure FFXI has improved from when I played it in its opening year, you could do better for less. I don't recall it being particularly solo-friendly either after the newbie areas. Even if you're playing to kill time and socialize.. grouping is usually a chore. There are plenty of decent and even good free-to-play MMOs out there. Heck, the Dungeons and Dragons MMO went hybrid not too long ago, offering both free-to-play/freemium and a monthly subscription model and it seems to be working for them quite well. If it's the Final Fantasy aspect you're looking for you're certainly better off waiting for FFXIV, in my opinion.
 
The next closest thing would be to play an older FF game where you could set the ATB meter to "wait" and have a laptop open with an IRC client open. Final Fantasy and socializing, sort of together.

No.  I say wait for FFXIV.

Does having your virtual self stand in one spot for four hours while a party member fetches a crab and bring it to you so you can kill it and repeating this for hours sound fun?  While I played it for years, the game is pretty dated in almost every aspect. I can guarantee you wouldn't like it.

I played the North American Beta for Xbox 360 and I will say having Japanese players camping the spawn locations for monsters that at times where at Everquest levels of time before they respawn sucked. I hear it got better but that turned me off the game.