Notice: This Guide is originally posted on http://ffxi.mmosite.com and http://forum.mmosite.com/list.php?id=184&sid=185, if you like it and would like to post it on other websites, please do not delect this paragraph, thank you


The MMORPG FFXI has been out for more than 4 years, the number of players is over 800,000 now and the amazing thing is this number is still increasing. This guide is basically for players that has only been in Vana' diel for less than 6 months or those who still has some basic problem with this game. Don't be shame, this game is basically hardcore-related , I've played it for more than 2 years but sometimes I still feel like a n00b in some cases. >.< Blame Square-Enix for hidding almost everything from us...... My purpose of writing this guide is to remind new players not to forget something that you are supposed to have already done it, I don't offer
you mission details because it's your job to find out them^^ English is not my mother language so I can only try my best to explain my opinions, if you see any error in grammer or contents, please send an E-mail to flamedust@hotmail.com, I'll fix it asap, thank you!

This guide will be divided into some parts based on your level:

-------------Lv0: Before entering the game---------------

Payment:
You can purchase this game from www.amazon.com, the most recently released expansion pack is Treasue of Aht Urgan, it's recommanded to buy the Vana' diel Collection which was released on Nov. 2006. It contains all the expansion discs including ToAU, and costs about 30 US dollars in total. If you buy another kind of pack without ToAU or CoP, you probably will want to pay much more money for these discs. Once registed , you will get an open content ID, with this content ID you can build a new character, if you want more characters for item storage etc., you need to purchase more content IDs. The month fee of your first content ID is 12.99 dollars or euros, extra content IDs cost 1 dollar or euro/month. Yes, EU players has to pay more '_'

Server:
There are more than 30 servers of FFXI, all of them are in Japan, and each of them has players from all over the world, don't worry about the connction speed, it doesn't matter too much. If you don't have a friend who is already playing game, you will not be able to choose the server, registration sever will assign you to a server randomly. If you want to play with your friend , you can ask him/her to buy you a World Pass from a NPC in game.

Basic:
As I mentioned above, FFXI is a Hardcore-related gmae, it has almost no newbie-guide, that's why I write this, you are need to search information from internet, so feel free to do that. If your playskill isn't as high as you're supposed to be at your level, you will not get a party invite or will be removed by some stick-headed party leaders.

Jobs:
There are 18 jobs in total, 6 of them are starter jobs, the others are advanced jobs, which can be activiated by finishing certain quests started with a lvl30+ job.

You can change job at will in you Moghouse, so you don't need to create a new character if you wanna play a new job, that's why most FFXI players has only one main character. The level cap of all jobs is 75, you can also choose a sub job to support your main job, sub job gives you a slight stat boosts and grantes you the ablities and spells from it. But your sub job can not be higher than your main job, in the other word, the level cap of a sub job is 37. e.g.: if you have White Mage(WHM) leveled to 75, Black Mage(BLM) leveled to 61, Red Mage(RDM) leveled to 20, you can choose these job combines: WHM75/BLM37, WHM75/RDM20, RDM20/WHM10, RDM20/BLM10, BLM61/WHM30, BLM61/RDM20. Please be sure you have a correctly leveled SJ when you are playing a job, it's a bad idea having a gimped SJ when you are seeking party.

Linkshell: It's called "guild" in the other MMORPGs, but you can have multipal linkshells if you want, just need to carry a pearl for each LS.The Auto-Translate function: (explanation from offical site)FINAL FANTASY XI has an auto-translate function. Text entered from the list of common phrases will appear in either English or Japanese, depending on the version of the game that the player is using.

You cannot modify or add to the list of common phrases. However, the list contains a comprehensive vocabulary of words and phrases that will allow you to easily communicate with other players no matter which language they are using! There are a lot of Japanese-speaking players in Vana'diel. The auto-translate function enables you to play in the same world as them so you can enjoy the best that online gaming has to offer.

Neat explaination of all jobs (that's just my opinion):
Basic jobs:
Warrior(WAR): The most common SJ for melee jobs, and if you get great gear for warrior, it can be one of the best melee DD jobs, but it takes a LONG way to go to obtain the necessary gears for a great warrior, in the other hand, a top LS is also needed. If you want to play a melee job to 75, lvl 37 warrior is a must.
Chance of getting party: 75 Cost of lvling up: 60

Monk(MNK): Expert in Hand to hand combat, can do almost as much melee damage as a warrior in end-game section, but the defence ability is a bit lower.
Chance of getting party: 55 Cost of lvling up: 60

Thief(THF): The damage over time might be a bit low in melee jobs, but no one can replace a thief when you need a NM drop.
Chance of getting party: 60 Cost of lvling up: 45

White Mage(WHM): Has best healing ability, you will always need a white mage when you want to exp or fight a NM safely.
Chance of getting party: 75 Cost of lvling up: 10


Black Mage(BLM): Can do significant magical damage which can grab much hate from mobs, so please take care, BLM doesn't have much HP.
Chance of getting party: 65 Cost of lvling up: 10

Red Mage(RDM): Expert in enfeebling magic and every job that uses MP loves RDM's refresh, RDM can also take over some healing and slight nuking as well. A great RDM makes a great tank too.
Chance of getting party: 90 Cost of lvling up: 10

Advanced jobs:

Ninja(NIN): One of the best tanking job, but it's also the second expensive job when lvling up, and the most expensive job if you want to DD like godly. Elemental
nuking is how you throw gil into water.
Chance of getting party: 80 Cost of lvling up: 80~800+ depends on what you want to do.

Ranger(RNG): Skilled in ranged attacks. Someone still think this is the most expensive job, that's because they never see a godly ninja.
Chance of getting party: 65 Cost of lvling up: 100

Bard(BRD): The best support job, you'll get party invites no matter which language you speak and whether your flag is on or not.
Chance of getting party: 100 Cost of lvling up: 10

Beastmaster(BST): Has the ability to charm monsters to fight for you, or use jugs to summon monsters. BST us the only job that doesn't really need a party.
Chance of getting party: 30 Cost of lvling up: 50

Dark Knight(DRK): Builds TP slowly but deals crazy damage with the ability: soul eater, good Skillchain closer past lvl60.
Chance of getting party: 65 Cost of lvling up: 60

Summoner(SMN): Most likely you will be a fake WHM in exp party, with Fenrir you can greatly support your party, but in order to obtain Fenrir you will have to defeat him, this avatar can easily wipe a full lvl75 party so SMN is not recommanded as a

starter job.
Chance of getting party: 70 Cost of lvling up: 10

Dragoon(DRG): Decent damage dealer in party, has a wyvern following you, but not really usefull in HNM battles.

Chance of getting party: 40 Cost of lvling up: 50

Samurai(SAM): TP master, has many job abilities and traits that helps gaining TP. The 2HR ability of samurai might be the 2HR best ability in Vana' diel.

Chance of getting party: 60 Cost of lvling up: 60

Paladin(PLD): That's the best job that suits the title: "meat shield", has highest defence and nice enmity gears at high level.
Chance of getting party: 70 Cost of lvling up: 50

Blue Mage(BLU): Master of enemy skills, very powerful at low level, can act as almost all party rolls pre lvl 30 if having corrent subjobs and gears. But it takes
forever to get all the necessary spells from mobs.

Chance of getting party: 75 Cost of lvling up: 40

Puppetmaster(PUP): The Automan master, controls a puppet that could tank/nuke/shoot/heal for you, I'd say this job isn't fullly upgrated......
Chance of getting party: 30 Cost of lvling up: 60

Corsair(COR): A support job, not so professional as bard but corsair can use gun and do decent damage. Has one of the coolest artifact armors in game.
Chance of getting party: 80 Cost of lvling up: 80

Countries & Races:
The stat difference in race isn't very obvious, but each race still has its prior jobs. Mithras have highest DEX and AGI easiest to be a master Ninja or Thief, Galkas
have highest HP and VIT but low on MP, Paladin and Monk fit them best, Tarutarus are born mages due to their INT and MP, but it's hard for them to handle HNMs as a tank
job, Elvaans have highest STR , this makes them best melee DDs, Humes, as you can imagine, will do well in all jobs but never be the best. You can choose one of the three countries to start your Vana' diel life. If your
race corresponds to its country, you will get a starter ring as present. Mithra and Tarutaru belong to the Federation of Windurst, Hume and Galka are from the Republic of Bastok, Elvaan belongs to the Kingdom of San d'Oria.


--------------------LV 1~9---------------------------
Read Your Handbook:
Some important game features such as macros, emotions are introduced in this book, please don't just put it away.

Get a Linkshell:
There are many nice peoples in this game, a normal player will probly get invited into a Linkshell if a warm hearted player notices that you have no Linkshell on. If you just /shout in game: Hi everyone , i'm new to this game, could anyone give a Linkshell please? I'm 80% sure you'll get a /tell immediately^^

Auction House:
Check your map in menu or use the /map command, you can see the Auction House marked on it. DON'T sell items to NPCs if you don't know how much they worth in Auction House, a stack of crystals can worth 1000~4000 gil and sells pretty fast, but NPCs only pay less than 100 for them. But NPCs sell spells and low level equipments (lv10-) cheaper than players, please notice that.

Signet:
Speak with national conquest city guards at the gates of your home city, they will cast signet on you. With signet effect on, you will be able to obtian crystals and conquest points, which can be used to exchange some nice items. The guards always have their title abbreviated: T.K. for San d'Orian Temple Knights, W.W. for Windurstian Wise Wizards, and I.M. for Bastokan Iron Musketeers.

Choose Your Weapon:
Each job can use multiple weapons, but they all have a ranking in the weapons they can use, e.g. warriors has A+ ranking in greak axes and a A- ranking in one-hand axes, he will have highest accurancy and damage when using normal attacks. But it doesn't always mean you must use the weapon which you have highest rank in. For Weapon Skill it's another story, THF has highest ranking in knives, but before lvl 34 you do crappy damage with knife because knives have no good weapon skill to stack with THF's job ability-Sneak Attack and Trick Attack, THF should use sword or H2H weapons according to his subjob. After lvl 34 you get knife's WS Viper Bite, from then on knife will be your best friend. And for WAR, GA gets its best WS very late, so you'd better use single hand axe all the time, the axe WS Rampage you learn at lv55ish is very powerful.

Check Your Enemy:
Mobs with the same name cans vary in their levels, you can check an enemy's difficulty before fighting it, unlike the other online games, it's pretty hard to solo a mob that is Even Match to you, even a Decent Chellenge mob can kill you if you don't have full HP and MP. So please try to get used to checking a mob before fight.

Beastmen Seals:
By defeating any mob that gives you experiance, you get a slight chance of obtaining a Beastmen Seal, they are your ticket to BCNM, which could grant you huge amount of gils. I will describe it later, just keep this in mind: NEVER DROP YOUR SEALS.

Make Some Gil:
FFXI has a very mature tradeskill system, low level players don't have to worry about money too much if you know what to do. If you're born from San d'Oria, you can
head to blacksmiths' guild, buy some copper ores and tin ores from NPC, and use fire crystals to synthsize them into bronze ingots. (Fire + Copper Ore x3, Tin Ore)You
can also benefit from the Leathercraft's recipe (Dark + Sheepskin, Windurstian Tea Leaves, Distilled Water). Bastok also has a blacksmiths' guild, and if you are
interested in mining, buy some pickaxes(Boytz, Bastok Mines H-7) and head to Zeruhn Mines. Mining is profitable for non-crafters, it requires no skill, if you have Field Tunica/Gloves/Boots equipped, you will have better result. For windurstrians, you can simply farm silk threads wich drop from crawlers while leveling up. You can also purchase a fishing rod and some insect pastes then go fishing moat carps, simular to mining, you will find it easier if you have fishing gears.

Food:
Foods are mostly made by cooks, the purpose of using food is to improve your battle efficiency, they are not just like medcines that just recovers your HP or MP. They are some really cheap foods on AH that can help you much in battle, like melon pie for BLM or RDM(improves INT and max MP), ginger cookie for WHM(+5 MP while resting), melees' food will be more expensive, Meat Mithkabobs are good for your level, they increase your STR and attack.

Buy Maps:
Maps helps you to locate yourself, NPCs in the 3 countries sell maps for starter zones, don't forget to buy them. If you are in a party or an alliance, check your map, choose the "marker" option, and then press left or right arrow, you can see the location of your party members.

This post has been modified on2006-12-08-00:53:52by flamedust!

------------------------------------LV 10~19---------------------------------------

Empress Band:
By the time you have 1000 Conquest Points, go to your national conquest city guard and exchange them into an Empress Band, it gives you a 50% exp bonus when you lvl
up. It has 7 charges and the maximum bonus of each charge is 1000 exp, reuse timer is 16 hours. When all the charges are out, just trade it back to the guard to recharge it, it will cost you 700 points which you already obtained from the 7000 exp bouns.

Get Gate Crystals:
There are 6 gate crystals around Vana' diel, by clicking them you will be able to teleported there by a white mage at any time. When you go the the following 3 zones, don't forget to click on these crystals. Teleport-Dem crag is in Konschtat Highlands, Teleport-Holla in La Theine Plateau and Teleport-Mea in Tahrongi Canyon, you can see where the crag is by using /map.

Join a Party:
This game is based on co-operation, a good party can get exp 3+ times faster than soloer. You are required to respect your party and try to do your best. Mages better
get all spells you can learn, and melees better upgrade your weapon, warriors will have to upgrade armor too because you can be required to tank. At lvl10 ppl basically party in Valkurm Dunes, you'd better go there or the zones next to it(La Theine Plateau, Konschtat Highlands or Selbina) and use /inv to flag up. If you add
your comment(e.g.: @1000 till next level, Please invite me. Food: OK), you will have higher chance to get invite. Valkurm Dunes is a party newbie zone, but there are still many experianced players who will share their game experiances with you. Ppl don't blame newbies for not knowing something, but they all hope new players can follow our advices, which should be most likely correct. Just learn to how to skillchain/magicburst/control hate step by step you will grow up^^ If you want to invite someone into your party, do "/sea all hisname", if he is in the same region as yours, you can invite him.

National Missions:
You can start most missions by a NPC officer at the gates of your country, doing missions will improve your rank, with higher rank you can exchange better items with conquest points, your signet will last longer. Ppl can see your rank in their search list, which means higher rank gives you higher chance of getting a party

invite. I personally don't want to invite people who is rank 1, people who is lazy to get even rank 2 isn't welcomed by me. Yes , I repeat, that's just my personal opinion.

Subjob:
You might have already known that you can choose a support job for your main job. To be able to use a subjob, you need to finish the quest "Elder Memories" or "The Old Lady" after lvl18, but you can start to collect the quest items at lower levels. Both quest will need 3 different rare/ex items, I recommand "Elder Memories", because you can obtain all the 3 items when you party in Valkurm Dunes, Snipper drops Crab Apron, Damselfly drops Damselfly Worm and Ghoul drops Magicked Skull. Ghoul only pops at night time(20:00-4:00) and it's rare pop, if you can't get the Skull I'd suggest you to go to Gusgen Mines, there are plenty of Ghouls at 1st
floor. After obtaining all 3 items and being 18+, go to Selbina and find Isacio at G-10, congratulations on your SJ!

Generally speaking, lv20+ without a subjob will be considered as a noob and rarely gets invite. Also you're required to have suitable and leveled subjob, your SJ will not exceed 1/2 of your main job, so a lv20 warrior will need a lv10 MNK sub, of course if you are planning to get 37 WAR you can level your MNK to 18 in advance.
I'll display the best job combos before you are lv30 and being able to get advanced jobs: WAR/MNK, MNK/WAR, THF/MNK(H2H, use Combo as your only WS) or THF/WAR(use Fast Blade as your only WS), BLM/WHM, WHM/BLM, RDM/BLM or RDM/WHM.

This post has been modified on2006-12-08-00:57:11by flamedust!

------------------------------------LV 20~29--------------

Journey to Jeuno:
The Grand Duchy of Jeuno, is considered as the "central country" of Vana' diel, the city itself connects the two great continents of Quon and Mindartia via a series of
terconnecting bridges that link up with a central hub, Port Jeuno contains the Airship docks that transport travellers between the three other major cities and
Kazham. The Auction House of Jeuno has the highest transfer quantity, high value items will only be sold here. Port Jeuno also has an underground connection to
Qufim, an area devastated by the Crystal War and seemingly several earlier conflicts. When you are LV20, you can party at Qufim Island.

Chocobo License:
Old class FF players know Chocobo is our traditional mount, in FFXI you need to get your Chocobo License before you can ride on a Chocobo. You need to finish the quest "Chocobo's Wounds" in Upper Jeuno to get this license. Brutus at (G-7) is the quest starter. You need 4 x Gausebit wildgrass, this can be purchased from AH or farmed from Wadi Hare in Dangruf Wadi. You'll have to speak with the Chocobo beside Brutus 6 times, each time in a seprate game day.At the first and second time, the chocobo will reject your grass, that's why you only need 4 grass.

Fly to Kazham:
From Lv25-31, almost everyone level up in the Jungles next to the Kazham. This port is located on an isolated portion of the Elshimo Islands, halfway between the Mithran homeland to the south, and the continent of Mindartia to the north. Get your Airship Pass to Kazham, you will need 3 chest keys in Yughott Grotto, Giddeus and
Palborough Mines, the Beastmen that drop the keys are all around Lv25 and they are not common drop. Here is where you start to need help. Try to request help from your sweet LS. Don't be shame, FFXI is the game that ppl always need help, even when you are 75 and with godly equipments, experianced players know when you need it.

Hide from Enemies:
There are 4 ways that aggresive monsters can detect you, sound/sight/magic casting/low HP, some mobs have multiple senses, but sound and sight are the majority. RDM and WHM can learn the spell Sneak at Lv20, and Invisible at Lv25.
Sneak can prevent mobs from detecting you by sound, Invisible prevents mobs from detecting you by sight. The item Silent Oil gives you sneak effect and Prism Powder
gives you invisible effect, there is no way to prevent mob from aggroing you by magic casting or low HP, so just be careful. The duration of Sneak and Invisible is very variable, if system warns you that the effect of sneak is going to wear off, go to a safe place, press "+" twice, choose the sneak effect then press Enter key to cancel it before you recast sneak on yourself. Invisible is different, any action of casting spell, using item or ability will cancel your invisible, if invisible starts to wear off, you can simply recast Invisible on yourself even right before a sight aggro mob.

Burning Circle Notorious Monsters:
At lv25, if you have finished the first part of mission 2-3, you will be able to get into one of the Burning Circles(BC), it's a special type of arena with specific mobs. Every mob in a BC will be a Notorious Monster, which will be response of Impossible to Gauge if you use the /check command. So we normally call them BCNM, most BC has a level cap to enter, the cap varies from Lv20 to Lv75, even low level players can start to earn gil if you are skilled. That means if a high lvl character goes into a BC, his level will be limited to the cap, abilities and equipments the exceed the cap can't be used, meanwhiles, anyone who dies in BC only looses the exp at cap level. Mission 2-3 BCNM has a level cap of 25, it just gives you the sense of BCNM, you don't need much playskill, with 4+ people with correct jobs it will be pretty easy. However, if you've never tried a BCNM, the cutscenes, the battle music and the atmosphere in BC will still excite you. By the way, if you have a high level friend(60+) that is willing to help you to get your airship pass(not the Kazham one), ask for it now, he will understand you.
I will keep this article upgraded, any suggestions are welcomed^^
To be continued......



--- Flamedust

This post has been modified on2006-12-08-00:44:43by flamedust!

Looks very good
Thanks for the info.

Holy crud lool, so much info >_<

Thanks a bunch for it though :)

great job you must have spent so much time on it
cheers!

I wonder if ffxi will get any cheaper :P, ahh the mmo players dream, cheap monthly fees hehehe

I'd seriously pay $100 for the game if I didn't have to pay for monthly fees :P

Yep.. me too.
Then you can pay it in 1 time, when I wanne buy something now I will have to keep an eye on the bill for the next month so I can pay the FF fee

Was ffxi always $12.95/mo or am I just imagining that it dropped by a few dollars :P

No its always been that price, not too bad. It's a shame having to use a credit card to play, especially when you don't have one >.<

Yea that sucks...
I use the one of my dad

Yea I just recently got one, I couldn't play when it first came out because of that :/
Well, $12/mo isn't that bad... compared to $15/mo that 90% of the other mmos charge :(
Bah, I can't stop thinking about the cost in a year. Makes mmos such a turnoff :(

I demand more expansion sets! lol or I demand they implement more races in the new expansion sets :3
I'm sure it would bring a huge influx of fresh blood to their servers :P like if they implemented vierra. Not like adding more races would imbalance the server a whole lot anyways.

13 dollars/month isn't really expensive, well i have 3 mules and I'm using the EU version, So I pay 16 Euros/month >_<
The game itself including all the Exp-disks cost 30 dollars also.

yeah, but the yearly package is like $80 >_< or not lol, I vaguely remember somethign around $80. All that potential bank interest :P

On a side note, nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo our new section sign is gone :P

Yeah you know it's the service fee. "Month fee" has been the common idea of online games. And yes I do think $12.99 for a month is acceptable due to SE's good service.

Yeah thats true, pay to play games usually do update atleast once a week. While free to play games update randomely and not very often unless its still in its testing phase.

Anyways I think they don't make time cards because either it might end up losing a bit of profit for them since they'd have to actually make pieces of plastic and then put it in a nice case and then also have to market them. It is alot of work just to allow more of the younger players access. It's that or, they actually don't want the younger generation to play. Like lately mmos have been getting ratings and to prevent some of the younger generation from playing, they get a higher rating like for Hero online as an example.

But actually..what if the FFXI's company decided to let the game free...it would be horrible..trust me..xD

Well it depends, some games work well with a large population of the younger generation while others just find them annoying. Even then, a higher rating and a credit card won't prevent them from playing entirely and also, there will always be some stupid people regardless of age that will always try and ruin the game :/

So yeah, I do agree with you. Free would ruin the game and also, they would probably never update or care about it any longer. And who knows, they might just randomely shut down the server because they feel like it's taking up too much bandwidth or something :/

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