The History of Final Fantasy XI/2011

==2011==
In the year of 2011, some major events happened to Final Fantasy XI. On March 11th, the Great East Japan Earthquake impacted Japan. The game servers and services were suspended to conserve electricity for the country. This was the longest amount of time that Final Fantasy XI was inaccessible since the Japanese release.
Dynamis as well as “The Three Kings” were completely changed. Voidwatch made its debut this year, although the content would not finish until 2012. At the end of the year, the level cap hit 99.
Jan. 1st, 2011 	    Happy New Year 2011 	    Happy New Year 2011 	 		
Jan. 1st, 2011 	As with previous years, 2011 had another New Year’s event. From the 1st to the 17th a group of rabbits named Celebratory Coney, Harbinger Hare, Revelry Rarab, Bountiful Bunny and Rejoicing Rabbit made their rounds in Vana’diel.
The Gyokuto Obi and Galette des Rois were new item randomly obtained upon trading with the NPCs. For the first time during the New Year’s events, other random food effects and random items were obtainable upon trading the NPCs.	 	 		
Jan. 14th, 2011	    FFXI Twitter Accounts Debut 	    FFXI Twitter Accounts Debut 	 		
Jan. 14th, 2011	Final Fantasy XI’s first step into social media was when Square Enix decided to create English and Japanese Twitter Accounts pertaining exclusively to the game.
The URLs to the accounts are:
*Japanese Account: https://twitter.com/ffxi_jp
*English Account: https://twitter.com/ffxi_en
Twitter would be used for all types of communication, and even for special community contests in the future. Twitter was the first official avenue of directly communicating with Square Enix and the community team members who ran the Twitter accounts. Before, you could submit general emails or post on community forums with no real satisfaction because you had no idea if your concern was seen. 
The main purpose of Twitter, however, was to relay announcements that were posted on the official PlayOnline website. This would make it easier for active and inactive players alike to follow news about Final Fantasy XI.	
Twitter was quite popular in Japan at the time, and the Japanese account was well received. The Japanese account would always keep substantially more followers and double the number of tweets than the English account. Additionally, they were more interactive and informative to players in general than the English account.
This could easily be associated with how much more popular the Japanese account was with the Japanese community. Additionally, English players quickly jumped to assumptions that nothing important would come from following or interacting with the English account, and it simply gave Square Enix more ways to not communicate with players.	 		
Jan. 31st, 2011	    8,888 Twitter Followers on FFXI_JP 	    8,888 Twitter Followers on FFXI_JP 	 		
Jan. 31st, 2011	To commemorate @FFXI_JP hitting 8,888 followers, Square Enix decided to hold an 8 day series of tweets that would hint at one of eight ingredients in the mysterious Goblin Stir-Fry recipe. 	To compare popularity, on the same day the English account was only at 2,440 followers.
While it is a rather lackluster food, mysterious food recipes like this have always been in Final Fantasy XI and never disclosed to players. The hope was players would come across these recipes one day by trying to synthesize random ingredients together. Having 8 ingredients, it was quite the impossible task to come across such a recipe by happenstance. The recipe was never found until revealed on Twitter with hints.	 		
Feb. 1st, 2011 	    Valentione's Day 2011 	    Valentione's Day 2011 	 		
Feb. 1st, 2011 	Valentione’s Day 2011 returned and was held from February 1st until February 15th.
The event and rewards were the same as 2010’s event. 	 	 		
Feb. 15th, 2011	    The First Mini Update 	    The First Mini Update 	 		
Feb. 15th, 2011	
*No new items were included with this Version Update.
This update was the first “Mini Update”, as dubbed by SE, that would introduce changes to the game between the releases of the major version updates. Mini updates focused on things such as qualify of life changes, while major updates had job adjustments and battle content additions.
*Nation Missions, known as “2-3” and “5-1”, had their battlefield level caps removed in order to ease the difficulty aspect.
*Fields of Valor’s once-per-day limit on undertaking training regimes was lifted. Regimes were now able to be completed for experience as often as desired. Gil and tab rewards, however, were still awarded only once per Vana'diel day. With this change, hunts and individual training no longer share the same timer.
*Traverser stones from the NPC Joachim in Port Jeuno may now be acquired in bulk, up to your maximum carrying capacity.
*The NPC Ehrhard (A) in Abyssea - Grauberg has been replaced by the NPC Tancredi (A).
* Experience point yield for defeating monsters in non-Abyssea areas has been increased.
** This increase also applied to dragoon wyverns and adventuring fellows.
* Combat and magic skill increase conditions have been reworked in the following ways:
** Skills may now be increased to their caps by fighting foes rated "Decent Challenge" or stronger.
** Skills will rise more rapidly, and larger values will accompany each skill increase.
*Item drop rates were adjusted for the notorious monsters Apademak and Dragua.
*The following reward items for the Treasures of Aht Urhgan mission scenario could now be reobtained:
**Balrahn's Ring / Ulthalam's Ring / Jalzahn's Ring
*Additional items were made storable with Storage Slip 04 (AF1 Weapons) and Storage Slip 11 (Mission Rewards and Misc. Event Items).
*Items involved in ongoing Magian trials are no longer able to be stored with Storage Slips.
*The Pet Food Eta recipe was changed. Ruszor Meat was replaced with Buffalo Meat.
*The cost of a scroll of Instant Retrace was reduced from 500 Allied Notes to 10 each.
*The Playstation 2 and Xbox 360 installer now required less space on the hard disk, allowing future version updates to be accessible for these players.
*New Commands: <petmpp> and <wait #>	Mission 2-3 and 5-1
The level caps were previously Level 25 for “2-3” (or the “Dragon Fight”) and Level 50 for “5-1” (of the Fei'Yin Skeleton Fight).
These two missions were notorious for being a couple of the first toughest fights a player would face when playing the game. To complete these missions, Help was needed by other players. They both were incredibly hard for some jobs to solo and straight up impossible for others.
Experience Points and Skillup Increases
Prior to this update, Decent Challenge monsters rewarded an exceptionally low amount of experience per kill and were almost not worth the time. Due to the quick kill times, they became a main source of experience for low level jobs. Regardless of the change, Abyssean parties were still the preferred levelling method.
Skill Up changes were well welcomed, especially with how quick players were levelling up. It was all but required to focus on skilling up your magic and combat skills once you cap out.
Wait Command
The new <wait> command being inserted at the end of a macro line opened at least three new lines per macro without the developers actually adding more lines. More line additions have never been added to the game.
Console HDD Space
During the December 2010 version update download process, console players (specifically PS2 players) were encountering insufficient Hard Disk Drive space errors. Many PS2 players began fearing that PS2 support might be ending very soon due to these errors. It was nearly impossible to find a replacement hard drive at this point in the game’s life, so if there was no way of getting around the error, then PS2 support might have been over. Of course, these concerns were answered by other players with “The PS2 is 10 years old. Spend the money and get a PC”.
Luckily Square Enix acknowledged the concern in a Q&A, and this version update in February 2011 helped reduce overall file size for the PS2 client.	 		
Feb. 17th, 2011	    The Doll Festival 2011 	    The Doll Festival 2011 	 		
Feb. 17th, 2011	The Doll Festival was held from February 17th until March 3rd.
The event and rewards were the same as 2010’s event. 	 	 		
Feb. 25th, 2011	    Shantotto depicted in the FFTCG 	    Shantotto depicted in the FFTCG 	 		
Feb. 25th, 2011	On February 25th, 2011 the Final Fantasy Trading Card Game’s first chapter was released in Japan. Final Fantasy XI was represented by Shantotto.
Later chapters of the game featured Prishe (Released in May of 2011), Leviathan, Titan, and two different White Mage depictions. All versions of these cards were models from Final Fantasy XI.	 	 		
Mar. 3rd, 2011 	    Final Fantasy XI Represented in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy 	    Final Fantasy XI Represented in Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy	 		
Mar. 3rd, 2011 	Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy was released in Japan for the PSP on March 3rd, 2011. Prishe joined Shantotto and represented Final Fantasy XI in the game. The voice actress Aya Hirano was Prishe's voice in the Japanese version.
In North America, the game was released on March 22nd, 2011. Julie Nathanson was Prishe's voice for this release.
Additionally, the Empyreal Paradox was also represented by a battle stage in the game.	<youtube width=450>Ilf_CRkeWgU</youtube> 	 		
Mar. 8th, 2011 	    Official Forum Released 	    Official Forum Released 	 		
Mar. 8th, 2011 	The Official Forums were released this day by Square Enix to support community discussion between players and the developers. This was the first type of officially sanctioned communication line that Square Enix provided. The Forums would be used going forward for all types of communication, including Version Update Notes, and contests.
Link to the Official Forums: https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/forum.php
When first introduced, the forums were in Japanese, English, French, and German. As with before, the Japanese side had more activity from the developers.
Square Enix started to make news posts and forum threads leading up to a version update. These posts detailed major Version Update changes that were going to take place prior to the implementation of a Version Update. This was beneficial as it gave players the ability to provide crucial feedback, but the element of surprise when reading the version update notes no longer existed. DAT file mining and gear findings still existed, however.	Although a forum was a wonderful idea, and should have been released a lot earlier, there were drawbacks to it.
Besides being a central area for newer players to ask easily answered questions with google, for one, you needed a Square Enix ID linked with an active PlayOnline ID to login and post.
Additionally, the forums were (and still are) highly monitored and censored. Getting permanently banned was, and still is, incredibly easy. All it took was a tame insult to another player or even scrutinizing the game development in any way. It even seemed that bandwagon reporting of posts by other users was also a way to get banned, even if the post had nothing wrong with it.
Posting anything remotely like game code (even if the code itself was just an example and not even in the game) resulted in a ban. It was even posted six months earlier.	 		
Mar. 11th, 2011	    The Great East Japan Earthquake 	    The Great East Japan Earthquake 	 		
Mar. 11th, 2011	On March 11th, 2011 a magnitude 9.0 – 9.1 earthquake occurred off the central coast of Japan. This was referred to as the Great East Japan Earthquake (東日本大震災, Higashi nihon daishinsai). 
At the time it was the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in Japan, and the fourth most powerful in the world. The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that may have reached up to 133 feet in Miyako and travelled 435 miles inland.
Several nuclear and conventional power plants went offline after the earthquake, reducing the Tokyo Electric Power Company's (TEPCO) total capacity by 21 GW. Rolling blackouts began on March 14th due to power shortages caused by the earthquake. TEPCO, which normally provides approximately 40 GW of electricity, announced that it could only provide about 30 GW, because 40% of the electricity used in the greater Tokyo area was supplied by reactors in the Niigata and Fukushima prefectures. 
Rolling blackouts of approximately three hours were experienced throughout April and May while TEPCO scrambled to find a temporary power solution. The blackouts affected Tokyo, Kanagawa, Eastern Shizuoka, Yamanashi, Chiba, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tochigi, and Gunma prefectures.	Voluntary reductions in electricity use by consumers in the Kanto area helped reduce the predicted frequency and duration of the blackouts. Square Enix was one of these companies.
Final Fantasy XI, Final Fantasy XIV, and PlayOnline servers were shut down from March 11th until March 25th. The game servers accounted for 11.6% of the total power usage at Square-Enix's offices. Throughout the shutdown, the official website and forum remained online. These took far less energy than the game worlds did, so the line of communication remained open for updates.
Earthquake Epicenter	 		
Mar. 23rd, 2011	    Crysta Relief Donations Opened 	    Crysta Relief Donations Opened 	 		
Mar. 23rd, 2011	On March 23rd, Square Enix began accepting donations via their Square Enix Account management system with the Crysta currency. Donations were used towards Japanese relief efforts for the earthquake on March 11th.
In exchange for donations, players who had their Square Enix account linked were rewarded with the in-game item Charity Cap. There was no minimum required to be donated to be eligible for a cap. Consideration for the item was discussed on the Official Forum before implementation.
The cap was exclusive to this donation drive, and it is the only Moogle type cap with a green pompom on it in-game. There are no stats besides DEF:1 on the cap, it is simply a symbolic meaning of gratitude to the players who contributed to the relief fund. 
The Japanese version of the cap is called “グラトス” (Gratos) which is Portuguese for “Thankful”.	 	 		
Mar. 25th, 2011	    Game Services Restored 	    Game Services Restored 	 		
Mar. 25th, 2011	In exchange for bringing the games back online on March 25th, the Square Enix offices instead turned off their Air Conditioner units and reduced lighting and other electricity usage in their building. Even though the electricity crisis was not over, this exchange of energy usage was enough to allow operation of the game worlds again.	April 2011 service fees were not billed to make up for the downtime.
Many speculation threads on community sites thought the servers would be down for months, or even permanently. Two weeks seemed like an eternity for some, while others were happy for the forced time off.	 		
Apr. 7th, 2011 	    9th Vana'versary Art Contest 	    9th Vana'versary Art Contest 	 		
Apr. 7th, 2011 	The sixth art contest announcement was made in commemorating the 9th anniversary of Final Fantasy XI. Submissions were gathered from April 7th til May 8th.
Creators of the winning illustrations received a Chocobo Beret again this year, but no moogle rod. 	All art submissions for this contest can be viewed here.
Be sure to click the "Next" button on bottom of the page to see the other pages of entries.	 		
Apr. 12th, 2011	    Egg Hunt 2011 	    Egg Hunt 2011 	 		
Apr. 12th, 2011	Easter's in-game event known as the Egg Hunt was held from April 12th until April 26th.
The event and rewards were the same as 2010’s version. 	 	 		
Apr. 14th, 2011	    Siren falls in Besieged! 	    Siren falls in Besieged! 	 		
Apr. 14th, 2011	On this day at 4:00PM Japanese time, the Siren world finally succumbed to its first Besieged loss. The content was implemented about five years before this loss occurred. 
The record was 3166 consecutive wins. It was even more impressive because it was during the level 75 cap that most of these wins occurred.
During the server outage of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the Besieged records were unintentionally reset. Emergency Maintenance was performed on March 29th to fix the counts. 
Although the exact number cannot be investigated, there were many players on Siren who took the following volunteer actions to defend Al Zahbi:
*Defeating Archaic Mirrors prior to Besieged marches, which weakened enemy forces.
*Promptly free any captured NPCs after each battle, which greatly benefited the temporary items provided to players.
*Donating Imperial Bronze Pieces to the Imperial Defense after each battle.
It is without a doubt that such a virtuous cycle of events is the reason why the record continued. After the loss, the number of consecutive defense successes increased. As of March 31st, 2016 when the PS2 and Xbox 360 server access shut down, the number of losses was only this one.	On this day at 4:00PM Japanese time, the Siren world finally succumbed to its first Besieged loss. The content was implemented about five years before this loss occurred. 
The record was 3166 consecutive wins. It was even more impressive because it was during the level 75 cap that most of these wins occurred.
During the server outage of the Great East Japan Earthquake, the Besieged records were unintentionally reset. Emergency Maintenance was performed on March 29th to fix the counts. 
Although the exact number cannot be investigated, there were many players on Siren who took the following volunteer actions to defend Al Zahbi:
*Defeating Archaic Mirrors prior to Besieged marches, which weakened enemy forces.
*Promptly free any captured NPCs after each battle, which greatly benefited the temporary items provided to players.
*Donating Imperial Bronze Pieces to the Imperial Defense after each battle.
It is without a doubt that such a virtuous cycle of events is the reason why the record continued. After the loss, the number of consecutive defense successes increased. As of March 31st, 2016 when the PS2 and Xbox 360 server access shut down, the number of losses was only this one.	 		
Apr. 28th, 2011	    Feast of Swords 2011 	    Feast of Swords 2011 	 		
Apr. 28th, 2011	The Feast of Swords ran from April 28th until May 10th.
The event and rewards were the same as 2010’s version.
An interesting tidbit of information regarding this year’s event was that it was also run during the timeframe of the data collection for the 10th Vana’diel Census. That being said, the statistic for “Top 100 monsters who killed the most players” ranked Omodaka Armor as 17th place.	 	 		
Apr. 28th, 2011	    Abyssea Add-On Gift Announcement 	    Abyssea Add-On Gift Announcement 	 		
Apr. 28th, 2011	It was announced that players who purchased and registered of all three Abyssea battle content add-ons would receive a Prishe Statue for free in-game.
At this point in time, statues were still a big deal and quite popular with players. 	center|300px|link=Prishe Statue 	 		
May 9th, 2011 	    Second World Mergers 	    Second World Mergers 	 		
May 9th, 2011 	Due to continued population decline, a large-scale world merger was carried out on May 9th, 2011. Some worlds that were online since the beginning of service were merged for the first time.
Like what happened last year during the previous world merge, many players were not happy with the idea of merging. Frustrated players from the source world were especially bitter because they were the ones who had to go through a name change and not the destination world players.
Again, the biggest complaint was overpopulation after the merge. It was true that both source and destination worlds had a low active population online at any given time; but by combining worlds, the situation went from desolate to overcrowding practically overnight. Due in part from the merge, Abyssea had congestion issues occurring for quite some time following the May version update.	
{| class=default1 style="width: 100%; vertical-align: top;" 	Source World		Destination World
Ramuh 	=> 	Bahamut 	 		
Alexander 	=> 	Shiva 	 		
Titan 	=> 	Phoenix 	 		
Gilgamesh 	=> 	Carbuncle 	 		
Unicorn 	=> 	Fenrir 	 		
Ifrit 	=> 	Odin 	 		
Diabolos 	=> 	Siren 	 		
Caitsith 	=> 	Ragnarok