Final Fantasy XI (Brady Games Official Strategy Guide) [Paperback]

Being completely new to the genre, this guide was a must for me. It has good details on early quests and missions, and though the maps could be larger, for many places you can get or buy maps as well in-game. As every monster is somewhat different, I found the monster guide fine, as it gives me an idea of what areas I can go to and which ones I can't, before I spend 30-40 minutes walking there in game.

The reality is that all of this information can be found online. Often it is better info, such as maps of NM spawn areas, etc. However, I find the guide invaluable, and it is always by my side for a few reasons.

1)I do not want to run back to the auction house to see if it's time to upgrade my gear. I check the book, and go back when I reach the appropriate level. The guide also details the gear itself, saving me considerable time looking when I do get to the auction house.

2)If you don't have another computer right next to the one you play on, it's mighty hard to check quest and monster information while you play. Having a printed out book to flip through is wonderful. The book is quite clear on what you need, and what you get, so you can easily do the quests with the biggest rewards and skip others.

3)It's true the synthesis guides are short, but they are intended to get you started. At low levels they are wonderful to have at quick reference. Once you get higher level in your crafting you will be relying on other player formulas more extensively.

4)The job information is extensive, including the abilities and levels they are gained per job. This has been an invaluable resource as I plot my main job and sub job path within the game.

In summation, this book is a great reference for some things, and nice to have handy. For higher level players you might be better served by forums and websites, but even then there are some things such as gear lists that are nice to have at hand during the game, unless you want to print out page after page of often poorly formatted websites.

First off, the book is chaptered off like an instruction manual with the early chapters dealing with "entering" the world of Vanadiel and getting around and along with the other players in the game. The subsequent chapters talk a lot about the jobs, the weapons, the armor, the scrolls, and all of the accessories you can acquire during your playing time. Toward the back end of the book, you get the starting missions for all of the cities and "some" of the quests for the major cities in Vanadiel (note that I say "some"). Finally you get a list of all the regions of Vanadiel and a list of all the monsters and guilds and such.

Most of this information will serve you for the first 15-30 levels of the game, and then you can set it aside for a reference when need be. However, you're going to have a hard time using it as a "guide" for anything too complex because of the chaptered layout. If you need to find information linking weapon skills to skill chains to monster strength, you have to do a lot of flipping of pages to get the information you need.

Also, if you want to check on weapons for certain jobs, they are not listed with the jobs, they are listed seperatly in the weapons section. Meaning you have to flip back and forth between the two sections to figure out if that's going to work for your character or job.

Mr. Lummis, who has not really done strategy guides for RPG's before, can be forgiven (up to a point) for these small mistakes due to the fact that the guide is generally well written and does have some good advice. However, a section pertaining to ALL the job combos rather than a section of emoticons clearly listed in the much smaller (and free with the game) manual would have been a nice touch...or more detailed weapon/armor -> Job charts -> Magic charts (with strength/weakness indicators).

Basically, hard core RPG'ers and DND'ers will feel had by this guide due to its simple "booklike" and not "guidelike" feel. However, if you are an rpg newbie looking for a rather well made life preserver to keep you afloat in the "make believe" world of Vanadiel...this is a good place to start.

`Revu

This is not one of those guides. This is a full featured, up to date, and comprehensive guide to the game. Tables include stats on creatures, weapons, armor, recipes and effects of crafted items, mob lists including levels and vulnerability information by zone, all quests in each zone, all spells, and virtually all aspects of gameplay.

It is truly a comprehensive guide to every aspect of playing Final Fantasy Online and is the model of what a guide to a MMPORPG should be like. It's a fabulous job.