Really Confusing and Weird

Bombastuss

Yesterday I
bought this game and was going to try it today, the first thing I notice is
that I can't seem to upgrade the graphic settings at all. Now for me graphics
can enhance the gaming experience a lot but good and fun gameplay can easily
make up for having medium/half-bad graphics in the long run. What ticks me off
a little though is that in several screenshots I’ve seen (for example the back
the game box) the graphics look so much better than they do on my screen when
playing the game (and my graphic card aint bad, I can play BF2 and better
looking games without any problems).

 

Secondly
when I log on to the game world my character gets welcomed by this NPC that
then gets chased of by midgets (Sorry about calling them midgets I just can’t
remember what they’re called) and then they leave me standing there alone
completely clueless to anything about this world, just taking my first few
steps proved to be quite a challenge. There is no tutorial or any guidelines on
how to learn anything only some name one of the midgets give me that unfortunately
slips through my head, and since I have no idea on how to get up my journal
(pressing J just initiates chat) and I have no idea on how to find this guy
since I can’t seem to get my map up either. Neither do I know the way out of
this town so I can try to combat something, but even if I could come out of the
town I don’t know how to fight nor if I have any spells or how to access or use
them (I choose the class Black Mage) and I don’t know how to see what I’m
wearing or anything. Now I guess some of you might think I’m a noob and I
should go “RTFM”  I can agree to that I
am a noob, but the manual disc I got can’t be read by my computer for some
reason. Now I would really like to give FFXI a real try and really try to get
into the game before I decide on to continue playing so I would appreciate it a
lot if you guys could give me a few answers and some advice. Would be really grateful if you could take  some time and help  me with this as it seems like a really great game once you get into it.

ChrisMattern

You change basic graphics settings in a separate game configuration utility. You should be able to find it in your Start Menu.

You can get the map from the main menu, press "-" on your keypad. Call up markers, and you'll find that the guy they talked about is marked on your map. Use the main menu to trade him your Adventurer's Coupon and he'll give you 50 gil. This is also where you choose your equipment management--you start out wearing your starting armor, but you'll want to equip your weapon (Onion Staff for a BLM) and Windurstian Ring (which you'll have gotten if you're a Mithra or Tarutaru). The map will also show you the way to the city gates, and some NPCs will give you directions. You can also choose Items from the main menu, and use your scroll of Stone to learn the Stone attack spell. Once you've used the scroll, you know that spell and can use it on enemies by using the magic selection on the menu.

You can also target things by using the tab key to select, and call up a context menu by hitting enter (except for friendly NPCs; they launch directly into a dialog). This gives you fast access to using items or magic on targets, and is also how you attack mobs once you leave the city, since the context menu will have an "attack" selection when you target hostile NPCs.

You can also do all these actions from the command line: "/?" will list all the commands you can issue. Hit "+" on your keypad and hit enter to be able to scroll back in your chat log to see all the commands it lists. "/? /<command>" will tell you all about the options for a given /<command>.

You should really try to get access to your softcopy manual somehow. Reading the manual *really* helps. I got the old original version, so I can't help you much there; I got an old-fashioned paper book manual instead of a disk.

Chris Mattern

Bombastuss

Thanks alot for the help, it was really helpfull. But about the graphics I've allready tried that and either I'm doing the wrong settings or something is wrong.

The rest was really helpfull though, thanks alot.

Lord_Vayde

Make sure that the graphics resolution is the same as your desktop resolution, otherwise the images will be fuzzy. I had to bring my desktop down to 1024x768 to fit it to the graphics setting of the same quality (since I didnt want my interface too small), but it made the game alot sharper.

Telaki

In the Config Menu change your background resolution to 1024x1024, Umm turn bump mapping off.

Spacemeng

For some advanced tweaks, you can edit your registry.  This way, you can set a custom resolution for the game (the config tool calls it "background resolution").  The game looks so much sharper after I set mine up to what my monitor normally runs at.  The link below is a nice guide to this.

Start Menu -> Run...
Type "regedit" in the command line and find this file:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwarePlayOnlineUSSquareEnixFinalFantasyXI

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10&mid=1089735902216382834&num=3