It’s bee quite some time since I quit playing Final Fantasy XI. I actually quite liked the game, but the pacing of the game was ponderously slow and if you didn’t have a group of at least 5 friends then you had troubles making it to the next town without getting savagely beaten to death by rabbits and silkworms. If you did have a balanced group then the game was quite fun, even standing in one place slaughtering fish was entertaining if your group worked well together.
I thought that the barrier to entry for this game was fairly low, since you can get the game and 3 expansions for $20, but apparently it gets lower. Eurogamer is reporting that folks will be able to get a ‘starter pack’ version of the game (just the main game with no expansions) and a free month of gameplay for £5.99 (or about $12.27 in American money, or about the equivalent of a one month subscription to the game). I wasn’t able to determine if it was coming out stateside or not.
Is this a desperate attempt to increase a stagnating userbase or ingenious plan to draw attention to the new expansion pack?
Time will tell!
Link! (Eurogamer)