Product Description
BradyGames' FINAL FANTASY XI Official Strategy Guide (for PS2 and PC) provides extensive character strategy. Crafting guilds for those following the path of a crafter. Comprehensive weapon, armor, and accessory tables. Complete bestiary for the monster-rich areas in the world. Plus, spell lists, skillchain chart, potions and meal effects, area, dungeon, and city maps! This Signature Series guide includes a special cover treatment, bonus content and a premium item. This product is available for sale in the U.S. and Canada only.
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Final Fantasy XI Official Strategy Guide for PS2 & PC (Spring 2004 Version)
- Paperback: 384 pages
- Publisher: BRADY GAMES; 2004-04-05
- Label: BRADY GAMES
- Studio: BRADY GAMES
- ISBN: 0744003687
- Average Customer Review:
 based on 40 reviews
- Sales Rank in Books: #99061
Avg. Customer Review:
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Use the Internet Instead 2007-12-23
Comment: For one of my favorite games, I really don't like to bash it like this. However, this guide was, and is even moreso now 3 years later, pathetic. Back in the day, it was decent, but the lack of maps, real strategy for quests and the exclusion of things including skill caps for crafting really killed this. Not to mention there are only strategies listed for missions until you reach Rank 5. There's still 5 more levels to be reached afterwards.
To add insult to injury, there's nothing on any of the expansions, and at the time of this guide's release, Rise of the Zilart had already been released, yet there was no mention of the Zilart missions here. While it's understandable there wasn't anything for Chains, Treasures, or Wings, they still could've included something for this, let alone continuing the trend of releasing new volumes of the guide quarterly to keep players up to speed, but alas.
There is no mention of Dynamis, Beseiged or Sky, as well as guides for Level Limit Breaks.
I've come to love Brady Games and, while I do get some help out of this guide, I would much rather use a website like Killing Ifrit, Allakhazam, or FFXIclopedia.
***3 stars for occsional usefulness***
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: FFXI Guide for Beginners 2007-06-11
Comment: This item has helped me a lot during my time in FFXI. YES the game is updated beyond this version, YES the information is inaccurate, but this guide has saved me tons of trouble, time, and effort for BASIC beginner information such as LVLs of Magic, Armor, Weapons, and Weapon Skills. There is even a neat little guide on what weapons skills link together to preform Skillchains! All in all I've been using this guide since the beginning and believe it is worth every penny. If you buy this guide, I HIGHLY recommend also buying the FFXI Atlas Guide as well. Both of these items make entering the FFXI world that much easier and more enjoyable from beginning to end game.
1 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: just because i cant use 0 stars 2007-03-11
Comment: please dont buy this , it keeps me company on the toilet sometimes , but thats about it
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Two Years Later and I Still Use This Thing...Sometimes. 2006-04-21
Comment: Even though it is two years old (and I've been playing for about that amount of time) it still has some helpful info. Of course it doesnt have any of the recent higher level things because when this guide came out there were'nt that many high level players. Also SE does not want to give away too much end game information. SE wants people to keep paying money to find out for themselves. Even though some of the quest are a bit dated it gives me a starting point. Without this guide to show me certain quests I wouldn't even know where to start to look online for it. Oh, and about the job info, the guide was written the way SE intented the jobs to be used, not the way the players use them now (Ninja was never supposed to be a tank you know.) But anyway...to the real points >>>
1) The guide IS 2 years old going on 3.
2) It does have a nice list of guild recepies. (I have level 49 Clothcraft and I love this list!) (However there are NPC's in game that can tell you everyhting you can make up to your current skill level.) On a side note: The way you actually have to fish has changed because of an update, so ask a fellow fisherman for help if you are just learning :-)
3) It has a decent mob list. No mobs from the past 2 years. Most of the ones that people level off of are in there, and it does show weaknesses,how they aggro, their jobs and their levels. Has no Notorious Monster information though.
4) Has a good gear list too. Yes you can see it in Jeuno if you just search through the Auction House. But it's still nice to have on hand at any given moment. It shows which jobs can use the gear and all the status info on the items. It also shows some Rare/EX gear which cannot be found at the Auction House.
5) Only covers the orginal version with the Rise of the Zilart expansion pack (although Zilart Missions are not actually mentioned in the guide. Which would have given away secrets to the then new expansion pack at the time.) It does have a decent quest list for these cities (I still can't do some of them because my fame is too low XD)
6) There is a skillchain chart. However it does not show all the skillchains (even some of the lower level SC's are missing.)
7) Only has maps of the 4 moajor cities. These maps are easily obtainable in the game itself. It does have some key NPC locations based on the quests that the guide provides so you dont have to hunt for Tapoh Lihzeh (she is an NPC that provides a low level repeatable quest that can actually help build Windurstian fame)or any other strangely named NPCs.
9) Some of the job info is no longer correct due to updates in gameplay. Most of these updates are on the advanced (unlockable) job classes, so by the time newer players are introduced to these jobs they should already have been made aware of these incorrections.
In all this is a fairly decent guide that is still useable (for how much longer is unknown.) I would still recommend it to new players ONLY if they can buy it at the suggested retail price of 19.99 or lower.
12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Outdated, and polluted with bad editorial and misinformation 2006-04-01
Comment: Final Fantasy XI is an MMORPG's with a developer actively supporting it as well as a dedicated user base creatively finding new ways of putting play mechanisms in more and more clever uses. It's a living environment, which no book can ever come close to detailing, and no book can present you with anything better than an incomplete snapshot in time, forever left behind by all the regular game mechanism tweaks and new item additions.
That said, this guide is especially bad, even for a book. Lacking newer items and information on the different updates aside, it has a very misleading section on the different jobs ("classes") and their uses in game. It also fails at helping readers understand the dynamics of grouping ("partying") for gaining experience points and levels, and does not provide any realistic strategy to level crafting for beginners.
For a real guide on how to play the game, the best way is to just play it--and ask for advice from players in the game. Join a "Linkshell" (often called "guild" in other MMORPG's), and hang out with new friends. There is no better or more fun way to learn about the world of FFXI.
For information on various items, quests, missions, crafting, etc., look toward the Web. You can find just about any information you need out there; here's a short list of good sites to start with:
ffxi.somepage.com
ffxi.allakhazam.com
mysterytour.web.infoseek.co.jp/ffxi/us/
wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/index.php/Main_Page
So, skip this book--it'll just put wrong ideas into your head, which you'll have to unlearn. Play the game to understand it, and use the Web as your reference book instead.
(BTW, ignore all the pretty "buy gils now" advertisement on the web pages--buying virtual currencies is rather frowned upon by many players.)
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Final Fantasy XI Official Strategy Guide for PS2 & PC (Spring 2004 Version)
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