Defeat your enemy and you receive experience points, contributing towards your next level gain. The wide spacing of player levels (the current cap is 75, still a distant dream to players playing on the North American PC version) and the use of the classic Final Fantasy fanfare as you level up make it a real event, with other players often congratulating you with a typed 'gratz' or '/cheer' as they run past.
However, solo play is only feasible, and indeed pleasurable, until around level 12. At this point even easy monsters become more of a challenge, and the quirks of each job class begin to manifest themselves.
White Mages will find their healing magic no match for the hit strength of enemies, and warriors will spend long downtimes healing (players can kneel to slowly rebuild HP) between monsters. Pair the two classes in one party, though, and you suddenly have both bases covered.
Now add a Red Mage to cast debuffs - Slow, Poison, Bind - and a Monk to increase your melee strength and your party is really starting to come together. Maybe add a Black Mage to nuke from the back and a Thief to increase your chance of finding good items, and it's time to settle down for a few hours of exhilarating full-team gaming.
That Square-Enix has placed such emphasis on the social aspects of Final Fantasy XI is the key to its strength. To play well you must play well with other people, and a party can fail due to one player's failings or soar thanks to a good leader.
And as a result, Final Fantasy XI is an exceedingly courteous and altruistic place to play - there is no player vs player, no muggings, and no con artists. Players low on HP will often find themselves healed by passing Mages for no other reason than to be helpful, and White Mages with 'Raise' will routinely travel for 15 minutes to bring a player they have never seen before back to life. High-level players will entertain others with tales of how they got their amazing hat and level-one noobs can often pick up free swords or armour if they ask nicely enough.
Sony still hasn't confirmed PAL releases for either format, but the PC version at least should be a fairly straightforward undertaking. European gamers have already waited long enough, and elsewhere in the world FF XI has been inducing inappropriate somnolence in impressionable journalists for nearly two years. Perhaps now isn't too soon to start checking out how comfortable it is under your desk.
FFXI has not been confirmed for release in the UK
