The History of Final Fantasy XI/2002

==2002 - Release & First Updates==
With the Playstation 2 beta test completed, Final Fantasy XI was finally given a public release. The Windows beta test ran through the Summer, and the final version was released in the Fall. Final Fantasy XI was ready to set sail.
Feb. 7th, 2002 	    Final Fantasy XI Credit Cards 	    Final Fantasy XI Credit Cards 	
Feb. 7th, 2002 	Square, DigiCube, and UC Card announced details concerning special Final Fantasy XI/PlayOnline Visa and Mastercard credit cards, which were available in Japan starting February 2002. These cards were one of the various marketing schemes designed to promote Square's online community. 
The cards offered various benefits to PlayOnline users and Final Fantasy XI subscribers:
*Cardholders had their annual fees waived as long as they were a Final Fantasy XI Subscriber.
*Gift rebates were earned based on card usage, up to a maximum of 6,000 yen in gift certificates
*FFXI themed T-Shirt for spending 100,000 yen on the card.	 	
Feb. 20th, 2002	    Final Fantasy XI Opening Cinematic Debut 	    Final Fantasy XI Opening Cinematic Debut 	
Feb. 20th, 2002	The debut of the Final Fantasy XI Opening Cinematic was shown after a "Music from Final Fantasy 20020220" orchestra concert.	<youtube>-CUepYCA4c8&</youtube> 	
Apr. 26th, 2002	    FFXI Playstation 2 Beta Test Ends 	    FFXI Playstation 2 Beta Test Ends 	
Apr. 26th, 2002	The final version of Final Fantasy XI was put together, and the beta test ended. The night of the shut down, around 3,000 people logged into the Chaos world and about 1,500 were online on the Zande world. During shut down, zones were closed one by one every five minutes and the entire process took 30 minutes to finish. System messages were displayed saying "xxx area down!" every time another was closed.
Testers were allowed to have their chosen names transferred over to the full game. The game began with 20 worlds, and it was announced that the last two digits of your total gil would determine where you were placed. This way, players were able to transfer along with their friends to the same server. This system led to servers initially being referred to by number, such as “World 0,” or “Server #5.”	During the months of the beta test, it was extremely hard to find a PS2 HDD. On top of this, many people discovered defects in some HDDs. This caused the demand to be even higher due to the unfortunate people were trying to replace their defective devices. On "Yahoo! Auctions", some HDDs were being sold and purchased for a minimum of 18,000 Yen (Around $150 at the time) up to 50,000 Yen (Around $415).	
Apr. 26th, 2002	    First Article from Vana'diel Tribune Released 	    First Article from Vana'diel Tribune Released 	
Apr. 26th, 2002	The first article from the Vana'diel Tribune, a Final Fantasy XI "newspaper" published within Playonline by Square Enix, was released coinciding with the finished Beta test.
The newspaper, for the most part, was in the role play setting. Oftentimes, the reporters broke the 4th wall and acknowledged adventurers as players. The newspaper was based in Jeuno, and often covered seasonal events in Vana'diel as well as version updates to the game. Reporters in the newspaper were actual staff members of Square and Square-Enix. They all had characters ingame coinciding with their newspaper reporter names and personalities. Players were often invited to write and participate in articles in the newspaper.
Correspondents were easily spotted in-game due to a unique icon displayed by their names: This was in the same spot as the Bazaar or Linkshell icons.
The first edition of the Vana'diel Tribune ran monthly from April 26th, 2002 until October 25th, 2004. 31 publications were made in the first edition, of which the first 17 were only in Japanese. English players started receiving translated editions starting with Edition #17 on October 28th, 2003. See the Vana'diel Tribune page for a link to all of the articles.	 	
May 16th, 2002 	    FFXI PS2 goes on sale in Japan, Service begins! 	    FFXI PS2 goes on sale in Japan, Service begins! 	
May 16th, 2002 	The names for the twenty worlds were revealed: Bahamut, Shiva, Titan, Ramuh, Phoenix, Carbuncle, Fenrir, Sylph, Valefor, Alexander, Leviathan, Odin, Ifrit, Diabolos, Caitsith, Quetzalcoatl, Siren, Unicorn, Gilgamesh and Ragnarok. 
The PS2 version cost 7800 yen. It contained Final Fantasy XI, PlayOnline Viewer, Tetra Master and JongHoLo (a Mahjong game). It also came with a pretty thick playing manual, weighing in at 288 pages.
Square said they prepared 20 servers worldwide capable of withstanding 5,000 simultaneous connections towards the official version, and that they can handle 100,000 players at any time. FFXI was well organized in its launch, but suddenly big issues occurred immediately after the service started.
FFXI's first week of sales amounted to 63,958 units (Famitsu survey). Despite being below the 100,000 limit that Square announced, the "Authentication Servers" accessed when logging into the game couldn't withstand the enormous amount of traffic. On top of this, the official FFXI site and their support center were having technical difficulties so Square was unable to communicate with their customers via their official site.
Not only could people not play the game, some were even being charged duplicate amounts when registering their WebMoney code. A majority of BB units were also not delivered on launch day as promised.
All connectivity issues were completely fixed by May 19. Due to the loss of service, free play was extended past the end of May until the end of June.	<youtube>u6SjIvyee7Y</youtube>
One of the first trailers for the game, released sometime in 2002.
Early FFXI Official Website 	
May 16th, 2002 	
{| class="notice metadata plainlinks" style="background: #feba71; border: 3px dashed #FF911A; border-collapse: separate; border-radius: 15px; text-align:center; line-height:20px; max-width:90%; height: 80%;"	
{| class="notice metadata plainlinks" style="background: #feba71; border: 3px dashed #FF911A; border-collapse: separate; border-radius: 15px; text-align:center; line-height:20px; max-width:90%; height: 80%;" 	The following is a quote from Yoji Fujito regarding his memory of Final Fantasy XI's debut day.This quote was publicized on the "WE ARE VANA'DIEL" official commemorative website in 2021.
"I was logged into the live servers from our office. I figured we'd see more players after the official release, but my searches indicated there were only a few players coming in at a time, which I thought was kind of strange..."
-Yoji Fujito, Director	 	 	
Category:History