Final Fantasy XI

Final Fantasy XI, also known as Final Fantasy XI Online, is the eleventh Final Fantasy mainline game and the first in the series, developed by Square and originally published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2; later releases for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360 were published by Square Enix. XI was the first MMORPG with cross-platform play between consoles and personal computers, starting with the release of the Microsoft Windows version.

Five expansion packs have been released for XI: Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, Wings of the Goddess and Seekers of Adoulin.

Gameplay
Unlike all Final Fantasy games before it, Final Fantasy XI is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game with a fixed monthly subscription fee. Servers are not segregated by region, and players speaking different languages can communicate through an automatic translation software. The in-game interface features menus common to the Final Fantasy series, visual information such as player names, and an in-game log window showing such information as battle logs, system messages, player text input, and in-game dialogue. XI's interface is designed for gamepads with a virtual keyboard available by default, but all versions of the game have supported USB keyboards to ease text input.

The world of Final Fantasy XI is fully mapped with a virtual camera following the player. Player characters are customizable, with their race, nation allegiance, gender, and limited aspects of their physical appearance at the player's disposition. While battles in previous Final Fantasy games were random encounters in a separate screen, XI has battles seamlessly take place inside the world of Vana'diel.

Development
After moving to Honolulu, Hawaii in 1996 to establish Square USA, Hironobu Sakaguchi started playing EverQuest in his free time. Impressed by the game's massively multiplayer online features and seeing a market opportunity for Japanese-made MMORPGs, Sakaguchi eventually commissioned the production of a MMORPG to become part of the Final Fantasy series. In November 1999, Sakaguchi presented his ideas to producer Hiromichi Tanaka and Mana series director Koichi Ishii, with whom he had worked on the first three Final Fantasy games; he envisioned his ideal MMO as not just an RPG with online play, but also a means to forge bonds between players across the world. Though Tanaka and Ishii were uncomfortable with moving from single-player games to online games at first, they became inspired after playing EverQuest at Sakaguchi's invitation. The two men saw XI as an opportunity to create their ideal Final Fantasy without the technological limitations of earlier games, with Tanaka personally considering it it "the most [emblematic] Final Fantasy out of all episodes".

Sakaguchi's idea to make a mainline Final Fantasy as a MMORPG caused controversy within Square. Initially Tanaka considered giving the game a different name, such as Final Fantasy Online or Final Fantasy World, but was convinced otherwise by Sakaguchi, who argued that an unnumbered title would cause a major-scale project like XI to be seen as a spin-off. Square's top management also considered the PlayStation 2 version's additional hardware requirements too prohibitive for Final Fantasy players; after Sakaguchi's official leave from Square Enix in 2003, then-President Yoichi Wada repeatedly tried to revoke XI's status as a numbered title, but was convinced otherwise by Tanaka.

Actual development began in December 1999. Due to the scope of the project, Tanaka, Sakaguchi, and Ishii drafted as many developers from Square as possible, with the final staff being merged from four different development teams: the Legend of Mana and Chrono Cross crews in Tokyo, and the Brave Fencer Musashi and Parasite Eve II crews from Osaka. XI was developed concurrently with the PlayOnline service, into which the game is fully integrated; both together cost between US$ 17—25 million (2—3 billion yen) yen to develop and were projected to turn in profits within five years of launch. Development used the NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti graphics processor, described by Square's then-President Yoichi Wada as the most powerful on the market at the time. The localization process started as soon as Chrono Cross finished its localization. To fulfill the vision of a "world without borders", the English and Japanese scripts of XI were made at the same time, with characters and enemies each keeping a single name across all languages. Instead of different server groups separated by language, XI uses a single set of servers hosting players from all over the world, reducing development costs by 66%. The development process was so fast for a game of its scale that Ishii was burned out after the mastering process; even then, a considerable amount of story and content planned could not be finished in time for launch and was split off into Rise of the Zilart.

Final Fantasy XI was announced in January 2000 at the Square Millennium event, with a mockup trailer and key artwork by Shinichi Kameoka. It was announced to require two peripherals, the PlayStation 2 Network Adapter and the PlayStation 2 Hard Disk Drive, for its online capabilities and software updates respectively. Its reveal as a numbered title was met with negative press, and several reporters questioned its status as a mainline title and if it would have a structured story, which was not common in MMORPGs of the time. A month later, Square announced a simultaneous worldwide release for PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows, but this plan fell through due to delays in production of the required PlayStation 2 peripherals; as a result, the PlayStation 2 version was released late in North America and never released in Europe. A port for the Xbox was scrapped because the console's 8GB hard drive was considered too small.

XI was designed with the key theme of "bonds". The combat system and character-building was heavily influenced by Final Fantasy III and Legend of Mana, with many systems from the latter incorporated into XI. The game's high difficulty curve was intended to not only increase the stakes of battle, but also allow players to bond over their experiences of overcoming adversity and be rewarded for skillful cooperation. Director Koichi Ishii was responsible for designs related to the worldbuilding and lore; he first drafted the world of Vana'diel in a hand-drawn map, and from there, elaborated on its lore including the backstories of its five races and nations with help from planner Kenichi Iwao and writer Masato Kato.

After a closed beta test of the PlayOnline client in September 2001, Square began recruiting beta testers for Final Fantasy XI in November of the same year. Applicants required a PlayStation 2, the necessary peripherals, and an e-mail address from an internet service provider, then were entered through a lottery system and spread across four Worlds: Chaos, Zande, Golbez, and Xdeath. The test proper began in December 17, 2001 and lasted until April 26, 2002. Early into the beta test, a playable demo was made available at the Square Online Party 2002 event, where the Final Fantasy XI beta kit was also sold as a set.