CHV Lives On

Well Ren, considering that you haven't played FFXI AT ALL and I've put in a little over 12 hours, I think I'm the one more qualified to make broad comparisons and sweeping generalizations. :O
In all seriousness, though, there's very little to differentiate it from other online RPG's except for the fact that it's got the "Final Fantasy" name on it. Myself, I'm extremely disappointed with the product; there are some nice things, yeah, but in the end, 98% of your time is spent leveling.
If you like leveling endlessly for hours on end, then FFXI, or any online RPG, is the game for you. Me? I like a little more substance than that. Even with a party of 6 early on in the game, you're going to spend at least 5-10 hours leveling to a point where you can complete the SECOND mission.
The second mission, by the by, is to dip a piece of PH paper in water to test it's acidity; thats some fun shit, right there. Maybe the third mission will involve pouring vinegar into some baking soda.
Since FF8, I've picked up every FF on it's release day; I don't know if I'm going to pick up FFXI at all. I may simply grab FFX-2 and wait for FFXII; I dunno.
Is FFXI a bad game? No, not at all; it's actually a great game. FFXI is what you'd expect from Square; everything is nice and glitzy, it's an incredible online RPG. If you like online RPG's, chances are you'll LOVE FFXI. Square did a lot right with FFXI, but I hate online RPG's. I was hoping FFXI would be markedly different from other online RPG's that are currently availible, but in truth, it's not.
FFXI is a great online RPG, I just don't like it very much.not allowed

Moogles, crystals, chocobos, summons and Cid are the only "Final Fantasy"-esque thing present.
As for the second mission; it boils down to you finding water thats a certain PH or something, I don't remember EXACTLY. It took me about 11 hours of straight leveling to get to level 7; if you want to go into the area with the pools of water with a party, you'll all need to be at LEAST level 10, and most likely higher. If you wanna do it solo, you're gonna have to be around level 20.
Leveling with a party isn't any faster, by the by; you fight more powerful monsters, yeah, but the exp is split up. So, a monster that would give me 100 exp if I were fighting alone gives me 50 if there's another person in my party. This doesn't sound like a huge deal, until you realize that I formed a party so I could take on stronger monsters and earn more than 50 exp a battle. :i
Money is also extremely scarce. In the 11 hours of leveling I earned enough money to buy a leather cap and a slightly stronger sword. Money earned applies to items I picked up and sold, as well as regular gold. You don't even want to know how much a potion costs. :i
I had extremely high hopes for FFXI, but most of them were dashed when I started the beta. The rest were dashed when one of the guys on an FFXI message board started talking about a fight he had recently been in in-game: he and his party of six, all maxxed out, spent 2 and a half hours killing a single enemy. I don't think the enemy was even a boss. :i
EDIT: Oh, I also meant to talk a little bit about the other two things that came with the FFXI beta: the first is the PlayOnline Viewer, the second is TetraMaster.
The PlayOnline Viewer is a fucking joy to use; everything is slick, everything slides in, it's great. If you have a friend, and that friend sends you a message through the POV, you can pause the game for a moment and check the message. It has different wallpapers you can load, and about 20 different music tracks you can choose from. It even has ambient noise, like beaches or woods or someshit. It's like a mini operating system, except it runs really well and looks really nice. The POV is actually the coolest part of the whole beta test(I'm not being sarcastic, or anything).
The other is TetraMaster; I hated TetraMaster in FFIX. I only played it once, maybe twice; I gave TetraMaster on PO a try and it's actually really fun. They have some things implemented to keep people from cheating, which is nice, but it means games, even against the CPU, take a little while to load. It's a pretty fantastic game to play if you need a break from work, or something, and I find myself playing it more than I'm playing FFXI. :O
EDIT 2: This time, it's not EDIT 1! *cough* Anyhoo, I just took some quick POV screens so you can see it all here. I wanna rip the music so bad, but they've got some shitty encryption on the sound and image files. :i Looks like I'm going to have to juuuump!
This image shows my char; it took me 13 hours to get enough money for her hat, slightly better sword and leggings or something. :i
not allowed

Tetra-master's fun, but I'm not gonna argue that Triple Triad was waaaaaaaaay better.
Anyway, FFXI has a certain countries getting control over certain territories. If you're people are dying like crazy in a certain territories, you're country may lose it to another. Losing a territory means you can't get crystals, which you can use to sell or synth items, from monsters. It doesn't sound like a big deal, but through out play it was my primary source of income.
PvP sounds fun if it's done correctly, but having anyone be able to run up and hack you to bits is a bad idea.
In other news, if I stop posting for a while, it's not because I died like Jim, it's because I was evicted. not allowed

CHVlo needs CvC...WITH THAT SAID, I CHALLENGE REN! :O REN, the nefarious junky who killed my family for crack money, I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL! :Onot allowed