Final Fantasy XI XBOX 360 Beta vs. PC and PS2 versions.

One of the main driving factors for me to buy an XBOX 360 was to play Final Fantasy XI. I was a bit miffed to find out that Microsoft lied when they listed it as a launch title. The Japanese XBOX 360 was shipping with a beta version of FFXI so it was kinda obvious that there was no way they would make launch. Anyway I thought I was going to have to import the goofy thing to get a chance to play it, but lo and behold the February issue of the Official XBOX magazine shipped with the North American version of the demo...Yay!

So I got my hot little hands on the demo today and I had a chance to find out all the little things that I wanted to know that nobody ever bothered to explain. It's a beta, of course, so some of this may change before the game is released. Right now it's set for August of '06.

Graphics:
The game supports 1080i and it looks gorgeous. The textures look to be straight out of the PC version, so essentially it looks just like you're playing on the PC at a resolution of 1080 x 1920 with the upshot that I get to play it on a 30" monitor. My HDTV is a CRT model so it has a bit of a problem with "blooming" on the brigher scenes - the text along the extreme edges is chopped off when I'm looking at a relatively bright scene.

Like the PS2 version, there is no way to change the text size so you're sort of stuck with what you get. At 1080i the text is practically microscopic. I suppose if I had a larger TV it wouldn't be so bad, but at 30 inches it's rough - Square Enix, if you're listening, you need to add this as a feature! Technically there are three settings that will allow you to adjust the resolution, however, unlike the PC version you can't adjust the text size independently, so if you change to a lower resolution, say 480p, you lose the beautiful textures of the 1080i version, but the text is large and readable. Incidentally 480p looks pretty much identical to the 480i resolution you get with the PS2 version. I can't tell you what 720p looks like because my TV doesn't support it, but I would guess it falls somewhere inbetween.

The controls are identical to the PS2 default setup, and cannot be reconfigured as with the PC version. The only difficulty I had with the controls had to do with the controller layout. On the PS2 Dual-Shock 2 controller, the D-pad is located where the left analog stick is on the XBOX 360 controller. I'm used to shuffling through menus while I sit down to heal, and I kept reaching for the analog stick thinking it was the D-pad. This was just slightly annoying because my character kept standing up and I had to keep sitting him down again.

Registration:
As with the PC and PS2 version, registration is not an entirely user friendly experience. They need to do a better job explaining what everything is for. Firstly, you need to get a POL(PlayOnline) ID, this will allow you to log in to PlayOnline - which is a sort of Portal for Sqeenix's online games. Technically POL is free - you don't pay a monthly fee for it and you can use it even if you never pay for it. From that point, you have to "purchase" a "Content ID". A content ID is the thing that you actually pay for, and it's what allows you to play games over POL. So after setting up your POL account, you have to set up a Content ID. Then when you log in to Final Fantasy XI and create a character, you will be asked to associate that character with an available (unused) Content ID. The system is more complicated than it really needs to be because Squeenix has designed POL to host more than one game. (In Japan, EverQuest II is actually provided through POL alongside FFXI)

I was also curious about how the registration would be different - particularly I wanted to know if it would allow me to play with my existing account and/or how it was going to stop me from doing so. All of the typical registration menus were intact, so I entered my POL credentials from the PS2 version. To my surprise, it actually let me log in, update POL, and update Final Fantasy XI.

It was not to be, however. When I attempted to actually log in to FFXI I got an error message: No valid content IDs. I checked my content ID's and POL could see them, but it was evidently smart enough to tell that they didn't give me access to the beta server, and vice-versa (that the POL beta is not allowed to connect to the retail servers).

I tried getting around it. I tried to create a new content ID using the beta registration codes under my existing POL ID, but it wouldn't accept the codes.

So I broke down and registered a brand new POL ID. As I was creating my new character, the World Pass function was still there. The World Pass function allows you to specify a server where you would like to play. To choose a specific server, you have to know someone on that server. That person has to purchase a world pass (using game money) and give you a pass code before the game will let you log in to that server. I tried entering a world pass for the retail server I play on. It almost looked like it was going to work, but I got a nasty POL error (no, I don't remember the code).

So, in the end, I had to do it their way....

It took about an hour and a half to install and update the game - this is pretty good by comparison to the PC version, and the PS2 version comes pre-installed on the hard drive so I'm not sure how long that normally takes.

Other than the graphical differences, it's pretty much the same game as the PS2 version with most of the same options and settings. It's nice playing on the beta server (Hydra) because the economy hasn't been completely ruined by gil sellers (and gil buyers! - you know who you are you little cheating punks, and you ought to be shot!). Stacks of Fire crystals are going for about 400 gil at the Bastok auction house. Mmmm. I remember back when they were as low as 800 on my server - those were the days. But I'm sure that will all change when the XBOX 360 version goes live...

One thing I really like is the ability to play my own music instead of the game music. Don't get me wrong, the game music is very good and appropriate, but I've heard it all hundreds of times so I'm just looking for a little variety. Just pop your USB flash drive into the 360 and play your own music to your heart's content. (If you're listening, Microsoft, YOU NEED A SHUFFLE FUNCTION ON THE 360'S MUSIC PLAYER!!!!)

I understand that voice chat is doable, but I never unpacked the headset from my XBOX 360, so I don't know what that's like. I'd imagine it's roughly equivalent to teamspeak considering that FFXI isn't actually supporting voice chat - XBOX Live is.

You have to be signed in to XBOX Live to sign in to POL, but it doesn't have to be a Gold account - the free Silver account works just fine. I was a bit concerned that they were going to try to pull something like they did with Phantasy Star Online - where you had to pay for both an XBOX Live subscription AND a PSO subscription.

I know this is supposed to be a beta, but it really isn't. It's just an advertisement and a chunk of free market research. They haven't given us any special tools or instructions for giving bug reports. I doubt much significant will change about the game in the next 8 months.

I'm not sure if they'll delete the existing characters when the 360 version goes live. They probably will, but haven't said one way or the other. It's a bit frustrating. I can play for free for 8 months, but I'll lose all of my progress, so what's the point?

I'm 99.9% certain that when it does go live, you'll be able to use an existing PC or PS2 account to play on the 360. (the PS2 and PC versions are completely interchangeable.)

One last little thing that annoyed me - you have to have the disc in the drive in order to play FFXI on the XBOX 360 - this is not true of either the PC or PS2 versions of the game and it is really freaking annyoing. I sincerely hope they come up with a better way to do this in the retail version.

And that's all I have to say about that.