[blkbrrymage]

Hello everyone and well met. I'm new to FFXI, but not new to mmorpgs as of right now im really enjoy the way they set up FFXI except for the controls. It seems the mouse cursor has a little bit of a learning curve, and sometimes i can barely see it near the south gustaberg unless i look really hard to find it. Anyways I'm getting use to it, I thought about maybe buying a ps2 controller hook up for the computer, but really not sure if that would help with the interface issues i am having as I would like to make the game easier to play instead of misclicking a bunch etc. Also as a newcomer what expansions should i buy, are there any that can really benefit a low level character if so, which ones and when should i buy the other ones? Sorry im full of questions as the game isn't very straight forward at first. Any great guides that someone can direct me to? Also I've always loved red mages in earlier final fantasies, and i think i understand the class role but not sure if i picked the right class for me. Also im in south gustaberg at level 9 where should i be at? As you can see I have a lot of questions. I hope this is the right part of forums to post in, if its not i apologize. If someone could point me in the right direction i would greatly appreciate it! =)

Thanks in advance =D
Salando - Ramuh server

[cidbahamut]

First tip I've got for you is to stop trying to use the mouse. It may seem weird, but trust me it'll be less of a headache to just get used to tabbing around for all your targets. I also found that switching the keyboard style to compact made things a little easier, but that might just be a personal preference thing.

As for expansions, I'd just drop the $15 on the Vanadiel 2008 collection and grab them all. Or you could wait a little longer until the latest collection hits shelves(somebody help me with the release date on that).

Red Mage is a decent starting job, as it'll get your feet wet in a lot of the various gameplay elements early on. It's also just sexy on so many levels. Personally I enjoy turning the mobs into gibbering piles of status ailments. Don't worry if it doesn't work out for you though, because you don't have to roll a new character. Just go into the city and head for the Residential Area. Duck inside your moghouse and you can change jobs and level a new one. Your previous job will even retain its levels. It's a pretty snazzy feature.

Glad to hear you rolled Bastok
At level 9 I'd recommend talking to the gate guards for some of the low level missions as a place to get started. You'll be doing stuff like hunting down some lizard eggs or decapitating Quadavs in the beginning, but it's a good way to go exploring.

Eventually you'll probably want to head to Valkurm Dunes(N.Gustaberg>>Konschtat Highlands>>Dunes) and see about joining your first exp party. It's sort of the default leveling spot for low levels, but if you can find some adventurous folks I'd recommend just romping around elsewhere and seeing everything that's out there while you can.

[Satori]

Hi there welcome to the game and welcome to the forum.

Just to answer a couple of your questions,
Firstly I wouldnt recomend using the mouse for anything other than camera angles. make use of the keyboard it gives a more stable control of your character. In regards to the expansions I wouldnt bother until you decide you want to continue playing if you do you can buy them all on one disk which is helpful if your computer ever has a meltdown and you need to install it again.

Crafting takes a fair amount of time I personally wouldnt craft until you can farm reliably to have a decent income of gil to fund it. Once you have Thief at lvl 15 you can achieve this.
Also a thing to point out is you can change jobs at will unlike other MMORPG's by speaking to a moogle at certain locations and also in your moghouse which is located in the cities marked on the map as the residential area.

A good source of reference is a ffxiclopedia which people refer to as the "wiki" which has job guides, and information on items armour spells virtually anything you can think of.

Also theres a site called ffxiah which is a detailed list of the auction house which may aid you in selling items. It doesnt list the starting cities auchion houses though only the main one but it's a good thing to look through.

I hope you enjoy the game if you need any assistance I'm not on your server but I'll do my best to answer any questions you may have so you can message me at anytime on here.


<Take Care> Satori

[Pwnagraphic]

GO BASTOK!


That is all..

[blkbrrymage]

Wow guys thats for all the great information, and I'm glad someone told me to stop using the keyboard tabbing sounds a lot easier, as i cant even see the damn mouse cursor half the time. Also if anyone is on the Ramuh server and has room in the guild for a newb i would be happy to join =) maybe someday i will be of some use lol Cant think of any other questions i have right now, but now this site is my #1 stop for questions, information, and hopefully some good friends =D

[Shadowneko]

Personally I think the KB and mouse controls in FFXI are the worst things ever. I really can't stand to use them when I'm playing on a PC so I really recommend you pick up a controller. I use a Nyko Airflow myself but any Dual Shock 2 clone will do you. With some tweaking in the setup you can make it work just like it was a PS2 and I really prefer this setup for moving around and controlling the camera.....

[ShepardG]

Originally Posted by cidbahamut

(somebody help me with the release date on that).

The 10th of Nov, 2009

So... 2 days ago i recon as of this post

[Takelli]

Originally Posted by Shadowneko

Personally I think the KB and mouse controls in FFXI are the worst things ever. I really can't stand to use them when I'm playing on a PC so I really recommend you pick up a controller. I use a Nyko Airflow myself but any Dual Shock 2 clone will do you. With some tweaking in the setup you can make it work just like it was a PS2 and I really prefer this setup for moving around and controlling the camera.....

The "WASD" controls are good controls. You can even set it up so that you can move the Camera with the "IJKL" controls and the curser with the arrows.

The thing I don't like about the controller is that you need to deal with the Macro lagg witht he controller. With a KB, there are no issues with macro lag.

[Evion]

Take it slow. It seems huge and overwhelming at first, let alone the operational/physical mechanics of playing the game.

Try HERE for some tips and GL!

[Lunaryn]

Actually, Pteryx swore by the mouse interface for the first few years she played, not having a gamepad. There are some things keyboard is better for, but the mouse interface can be handy if you get used to it. The catch is that the mouse interface only works properly in fullscreen mode, which ever since SE added their own Windowed mode, practically no one ever uses for any reason. I actually wish I could disable mouse input entirely in windowed mode, it only ever gets in the way (for instance causing the region map to forcefully and jerkily scroll to a corner).

I find that using a gamepad works quite well though. Note that if you really mean using a PS2 gamepad and not merely a PS2-style gamepad, NTPad XP (driver for parallel-port-connected console game controllers) will work with FFXI gameplay-wise, but last I knew there was a bug that caused FFXI to always crash on exit when used with it. Though since "Temporary Logout" no longer exists it's only a minor hassle on the whole.

---------- Post added at 09:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:40 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Takelli

The "WASD" controls are good controls. You can even set it up so that you can move the Camera with the "IJKL" controls and the curser with the arrows.

The thing I don't like about the controller is that you need to deal with the Macro lagg witht he controller. With a KB, there are no issues with macro lag.

Not really true, unfortunately. There is less lag since you don't need to wait for the macro bar to appear (although in my experience the bar appears faster when requested by controller than by keyboard). There's no question you can enter macros more quickly with the keyboard, but there is definitely an 'input lag' issue where if you fire off the key sequence quickly it may well be ignored entirely. The only ways of firing off macros with no lag or uncertainty are to use some kind of third party software or hardware tool to implement the 'macro' instead of actual in-game macros.