How Final Fantasy XI Is Still Alive 18 Years Later

Ultimate Fantasy XIV might the MMO on everybody’s thoughts today, particularly contemplating its unbelievable redemption story. Nevertheless, earlier than there was Ultimate Fantasy XIV, and even World of Warcraft, Ultimate Fantasy took its first steps into the MMO world with Ultimate Fantasy XI.

Maybe much more superb is that Ultimate Fantasy XI continues to have an lively participant base in 2020, in addition to a paid subscription service. By means of thick and skinny the sport has managed to outlive and thrive for eighteen years.

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Few MMOs have managed to see such longevity and success, and a giant a part of that’s how Sq. Enix crafted and supported Ultimate Fantasy XI.

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Ultimate Fantasy XI Doubled-Down On Participant Freedom

Freedom is on the coronary heart of the MMO expertise, and the perfect of the style provides gamers an countless quantity of choices. A giant a part of this for Ultimate Fantasy XI got here with the sequence’ iconic job system. Gamers might select from a wide range of totally different jobs in Ultimate Fantasy XI, however not like most MMOs, you did not have to alter characters to alter “class.” Gamers might accumulate gear from all internationally, then use it in tandem with jobs to experiment with fully new playstyles. The sport additionally added sub-jobs on prime of the system, increasing on every function with much more distinctive concepts and playstyles.

What resulted was an expertise that felt distinctive to every participant, and experimentation was obligatory. Exterior of conventional MMO concepts, jobs even utilized to the broader recreation and never simply fight, like how thieves can choose locks. Ultimate Fantasy XI took the concepts of the sequence and utilized them to the MMO system in fascinating methods. Sure, the sport had its tough patches, however through the years by modifications and additions, the core methods grew to become much more partaking. As MMOs grew to become extra guided experiences that held participant’s arms, Ultimate Fantasy XI nonetheless demanded that gamers determine its methods for themselves, and experiment.

Additional creating on participant freedom is the Belief system launched in 2013, that permit gamers summon NPC characters to combat alongside them. This meant that gamers not needed to type events to tackle the sport’s harder challenges, encouraging solo play and guaranteeing choices even when participant numbers fell. A lot of Ultimate Fantasy XI’s methods may appear archaic by right now’s requirements, however options like its job system have been revolutionary on the time.

Associated: Ultimate Fantasy XIV Surpasses 16 Million Gamers Forward of Shadowbringers Enlargement

Ultimate Fantasy XI Bred A Welcoming Group

An MMO merely cannot succeed with no passionate group, and Ultimate Fantasy XI intentionally tried to foster one since its creation. Ultimate Fantasy XI is a punishing recreation, particularly in its early days, and the complexities of the sport could make it powerful to leap into. Due to this, it was important for gamers to band collectively, because it offered a greater likelihood of success and survival earlier than there was any form of Belief system. It was an MMO that actually fostered cooperation, and it confirmed.

Aside from that, Ultimate Fantasy XI caught true to the sequence’ roots and doubled down on story and lore. It tried to make gamers really feel like part of a respiration world and succeeded in that for essentially the most half. Ultimate Fantasy XI nonetheless had all these iconic components of Ultimate Fantasy; Chocobos, Moogles, Black Mages, and an exceptional soundtrack crafted by longtime composer Nobuo Uematsu. With these two details, Ultimate Fantasy XI fostered a tightknit group. The sport has hundreds of gamers nonetheless subscribe, practically 40,000 a month in accordance with the positioning MMO Population. In case you head to the Ultimate Fantasy XI subreddit there’s nonetheless a number of posts each day, even when issues have slowed down. It is a testomony to what number of gamers have been invested within the recreation through the years.

Sq. Enix Continued To Replace Ultimate Fantasy XI

Robust design and a devoted group can hold a recreation afloat for some time, however true longevity solely comes when a developer continues to iterate upon what they created. Amazingly the sport has acquired a brand new patch practically each two months since its launch, with the latest version update hitting on March 10, 2020. Sq. Enix has been extremely diligent about fixing issues, and offering incremental updates, even whereas it tried to launch one other MMO, Ultimate Fantasy XIV. On prime of that, Ultimate Fantasy XI acquired an growth or main replace yearly or two years after its launch, till Rhapsodies of Vana’diel in 2015.

Every of those expansions added on a wide range of content material like new races, new jobs, new areas, and further story content material. This saved a continuing stream of recent content material for followers to dive into, making certain that the group had one thing to speak about and a few new problem or boss to beat. Ultimate Fantasy XI had a powerful sufficient consumer base that it stayed a constant moneymaker for Sq. Enix, and in flip, they continued to replace the sport and convey new content material. It’d led to an MMO that has continued to exist, even whereas Ultimate Fantasy XIV grew to become wildly profitable. Little doubt, there’ll proceed to be a group till the sport’s final days.

Subsequent: Final Fantasy XIV Will Be Available On PS5

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About The Creator

Hayes is a Options Editor for Display screen Rant. He’s been writing and podcasting about video games for over a decade, and he’s a graduate of the Metropolitan State College of Denver within the Journalism program. He’s been diving into RPGs ever since discovering the Ultimate Fantasy sequence at a younger age. You could find him on Twitter @Solfleet.

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