_xeno_'s Journal: Final Fantasy XI PC First Impressions - It Works Now

OK, I start off on a sour note by trying to install off the FFXI disc and not the PlayOnline disc first. Oh well, easy fix - my bad, I didn't read the install instructions.

So I install PlayOnline and start the registration process. I'm most of the way through, and then the program crashes. Why? Well, because I hit ALT-TAB to view another program. OK, so I can't do that. Never mind that any modern DirectX game since DirectX 7 was released should be able to accept losing the graphics context.

After completely the registration process - a second time - and now I can finally start to try and play Final Fantasy XI. OK - it needs to "update" - kinda strange for a game that's been out all of three days, but whatever. I suppose things could have changed since it was RTM. It starts scanning through all 7,200 files, and after ten minutes or so starts the two hour download for all the updated files.

After an hour and a half, I discover that the download has failed part way through. So I restart it, and it has to scan all 7,200 files again. After another ten minutes or so, it continues where it left off, downloads three files, and fails again. Third times the charm, though - it makes it through the remaining 150 files, and finally starts "installing" the update.

So, three hours after I installed the game, I can finally play it. Ignoring the efforts that I made to get onto a specific server, which was my own stupid efforts, I finally get to start playing.

And the fog's backwards. Seriously - everthing near me is grey. I can't see anything except buildings that are far away. Nothing. After fiddling with graphics options for a couple of hours, I give up. (Not to mention the time I accidently logged off by having the gaul to hit the Windows key, which crashed the program because it lost full-screen mode. Give me a break.)

So here I am. I can't play the game because the world is just a giant grey screen with my character in the middle. I go online looking for help, and can't find any. The support is no help. So I have no idea what's wrong. The FFXI benchmark runs fine on my system - the high resolution is a little choppy, but acceptable for a movie (although not for game playing).

If anyone can tell me how to fix this, I'd love to know. Otherwise I just blew $50 and am 30 days away from blowing $14/month.

This is with a GeForce FX 5600 on a Windows XP system, if that matters to anyone. Buyer beware...

Update November 2: Disabling Bump Mapping fixed the fog issues (uh, ok, whatever), and allowed me to actually play the game for all of a minute before my computer crashed. *grumble*

Update November 11: Well, it hasn't been crashing since, and it seems to be a fun game. I'll just have to wait and see...

Update February 14: I've been really bad at updating this - I've been happily playing FFXI for the past four months and haven't updated it in ages. No more crashes - I dunno why.