Think about it for a second. Both Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV essentially let you be any class at any time. You aren't locked into a single selection a la World of Warcraft; your role is maleable based on the circumstance and what you feel like playing at any given time. By all rights, these classes could essentially be throw-away distinctions for abilities, without any sort of larger framework to live in. There's no strict mechanical reason why it would have to matter that a character was a White Mage if he could just as easily be a Warrior or a Scholar after a quick trip to the Mog House.
But that's not how the game has played out. In FFXI, outside of the initial six classes, each additional class requires you to undertake a quest that teaches you something about what the new class represents. You aren't just turning in quest items to become a Summoner; you're undertaking a ritual to earn the respect of a first summon and thereby starting down the path to understand this esoteric form of magic. And even the core classes get a fair dose of lore associated with them -- a White Mage has a close tie to the church in San d'Oria, for instance, and you can't ignore the traditions of Windurst's Mithra when playing a Thief.From a roleplaying standpoint, this is significant. It means that even though in system terms these classes are just abilities and armor restrictions, the actual game world backs up a more robust set of roles. Even if you're not big on roleplaying and all that comes with it, however, you can enjoy the fact that there's more to being a Warrior than having an axe and the Double Attack trait. You exist in a specific framework, and on some level the game feels aware of the distinctions of jobs.
More to the point, even though the game is class-based, there's never a sense that your character just can't learn one skill or another. You get the feel of a more sandbox title by proxy, of every character's having access to the various deep wellsprings of lore and training available in the game world.
This is redoubled in FFXI's last two expansions. I mentioned it before when I was talking about Treasures of Aht Urhgan, but it bears repeating -- Corsairs, Puppetmasters, and Blue Mages are distinct parts of another culture. Most NPCs you encounter in the Empire have one of those three jobs or one of the six core classes, and the few with different classes feel appropriately exotic. Just like when you come back from the Near East with monster blood in your veins, or an automaton that seems to know its master's mind, or a large gun and a deck of cards. And Wings of the Goddess gave us two jobs that had completely died out in the Crystal War, resurrected only by players traveling back in time to learn them before they sank out of sight.
New jobs don't feel tacked-on. Their unveiling is tied to new areas or new heights of skill, and that means a lot in the larger scheme of things.
By contrast, FFXIV makes it even easier for players to switch between jobs -- you don't need a quest to become a Pugilist, just a set of knuckles. But at the same time, the guilds that form a large part of class customization lend even more definition to each class. Thaumaturges and Conjurers aren't just two different kinds of caster -- one of them is part of a sprawling and rather morbid church, while the other works with creation and the lifeblood of the Black Shroud. Gladiators are a specific sort of prize fighter, honed to a razor's edge in Ul'dah's games.
You don't have to belong to any of these guilds, of course. There's nothing stopping you from entirely eschewing the Wood Wailers because you don't like your character's being part of Gridania's defensive force. But the guilds are where the concentrated knowledge about a given class is focused, and as a result each class gets a unique flavor to it, which you can dive into or remain separate from. It even holds true for crafters and gatherers -- after all, where but the woods of Gridania would Botanists be valued so highly? Or Carpenters, for that matter? Not in Ul'dah, which works in stone (produced by the Miners that live there in abundance) or the waterlocked Limsa Lominsa...The sad part is that much of this flavor, in both games, is hidden away until higher levels. You can start the game as a Pugilist and not know about your role as gambling debt collector until you make the trek to Ul'dah at rank 20. But once you do get there, you suddenly find yourself understanding the setting of the game that much better, and everything takes on heightened significance. I can only hope that the Arcanists and Musketeers aren't too far off the game's development schedule, because one of the elements contributing to Limsa's rather sparse feel during the beta was the lack of these two classes whose guilds are in the city.
By contrast, World of Warcraft's Death Knights might as well be any other class in the world by the time you finish the starter region. If I sound like I'm being spiteful, that's because I am.
That's our column for this week, and as always, feedback may be left in the comments below or mailed to eliot@massively.com. Since I spent some time talking about FFXIV's guilds here, next week it seems appropriate to segue into the traits one can purchase with a healthy supply of Guild Marks -- and one of the big sources of gameplay that doesn't become clear until later.
A community postscript
If you'd somehow forgotten, I'm a pretty big fan of what the folks at Eorzeapedia do with the Aetheryte Radio Network. I'm doubly a fan of Remotely Plausible, since it's FFXIV and roleplaying, which together make up a good cross-section of things I like right there. (Also, I know all of the people doing the show, so... triply a fan, I suppose.) So I wholeheartedly support a poll to pit all three of the hosts against each other.
The Mog Log will officially endorse whichever candidate donates me the most gil. (Donations are non-refundable.) In all seriousness, if you haven't already seen it, I'd encourage you to take a look, and if you haven't listened to the podcast... well, you've got a lot of listening backlogged now.
From Eorzea to Vana'diel, there is a constant: the moogles. And for analysis and opinions about the online portions of the Final Fantasy series, there is also a constant: The Mog Log. Longtime series fan Eliot Lefebvre serves up a new installment of the log every Saturday, covering almost anything related to Square-Enix's vibrant online worlds.
