Ten Level Test: Final Fantasy XI vs Lineage II

Final Fantasy XI: levels 1 to 4

Half an hour into Final Fantasy XI, and I'm not even playing Final Fantasy XI yet.

Everything about this game is idiosyncratic. Perhaps that's to be expected for an MMO developed with the PS2 in mind, in a country not known for its affinity for online gaming. The painfully slow and entirely quixotic Play Online Viewer must be negotiated, and things called Content IDs must be registered, and baffled tinkering undertaken to get the game to display in some kind of respectable resolution, and at the correct aspect ratio, and to find a workable keyboard layout (the game supports mouse control in name only, really), and get my head around a completely foreign interface designed for a gamepad.

Compensation comes in the form of great, breaking waves of nostalgic Final Fantasia - an epic intro movie, urgent yet lyrical MIDI music, hints at an interesting socio-political set-up to the steampunk world, spell-casting effects that sound like an angel levelling up in bliss, and items and spells I instantly know the uses of.

But - as I'm directed to a guard who talks me through the basics, and sends me out of the town gate to kill my first monsters and thus raise my weapon skill - there's another shock coming. This is absolutely Final Fantasy, and to play it is to be one of the characters in a Final Fantasy party - that is, you have no health regeneration at all, and you mostly have nothing to do but auto-attack until one of your few spells becomes available. Attacking monsters is a case of selecting, watching and waiting... and waiting. If I'm lucky and have built up enough weapon skill and tactical points, I might use a skill. Just the one.

After a tussle with a worm or a swarm of Ding Bats has near-exhausted my giant warrior, I have to let him rest for minutes before I can take on another. I'm beginning to wish I'd chosen a class with some form of heal spell. A nearby player heals me after one nail-biting encounter with a Rock Lizard and I'm pathetically grateful, so grateful I'm delighted to be able to step in and help when she's attacked while resting. We don't speak, and don't have to. It's implicit - we need each other.

Still, the guard takes pity on me and offers a temporary experience boost and a series of goals that offer just enough motivation to get through this slow-motion grind. Get your weapon skill to 5. Get to level 4. Go to somewhere called Konschtat Highlands to kill a single beast there.

I research the route and set off. It's an epic trek, and in amongst the pink vultures and animated plant-bulbs are some dangerous turtle-men who'll attack me, unprovoked. Dying means going all the way back to town and losing 10 per cent of my precious experience, so I'm not keen, but it can be hard to avoid.

After an arduous journey I'm almost at Konschtat - but the line on the map turns out to be an impassable ravine. I've come the wrong way, and have another 20 minutes' walk to make up for the detour. Dispirited, I log out.

Lineage II: levels 4 to 7

A quest-giver's challenge: to collect supply manifests from the warehouse and the store. Oh well, a chance to turn on the standard WASD control scheme - but it doesn't feel right, somehow, with sticky turning and strafing. In time, I'll revert to using the mouse. I see another player, the first time this has happened.

I run the errand, hand in - and suddenly I'm level 6 and have been given a whole new armour set. A Newbie Guide smothers me in buffs and drowns me in weapon tokens, one of which I exchange for a fancy new sword. Visiting the trainer, I discover that I can buy improvements to my weapon and defence skills, but actual combat abilities require something called a battle manual to learn, and I have no idea how to get one of those.

I receive a couple of quests, which in Lineage II scale to how much time you put into them. You're instructed to collect drops from monsters but any amount will do, with a certain target being set for a useful item, and other amounts paying cash. I get one to kill Keltir - the fox things - and wolves, and one to collect the teeth of goblins and wolf-men in the hills.

Stepping outside the "village", I find literally hundreds of Keltir and wolves standing around, waiting to die. They are feeble, and I have seven buffs, a weapon buff, a new sword and new armour. I smite every one with a single blow. Five minutes of senseless clicking later, I'm level 7.

Someone else has been grinding here recently. The ground is littered with little piles of money dropped from the animals, that they haven't even bothered to pick up.

Final Fantasy XI: levels 4 to 5 to 4 to 5

I'm playing carelessly, not selecting Check on monsters before I attack them to see how tough they'll be. I keep dying and losing experience - and more importantly, progress on foot.

I work my way up to level 5, then die and get knocked back to level 4. I claw my way back up to 5 again and push through towards Konschtat, but the enemies are getting tough. I have a strong feeling I'm not supposed to be there yet.

This, they say, is how it used to be in the Good Old Bad Old Days of MMOs. Directionless level grind, soloing like pulling teeth, glacial pace, death penalties, vast but barren worlds populated only by unassumingly deadly spawns crawling across the empty landscape. It's horrible - but it's also compelling. I'm acutely aware of Tenlevels' vulnerability, and I know it's a grim climb ahead, but I also know there'll be a sense of reward - probably only a sense, but still - at the end of it.

I want to kill a monster in the Konschtat Highlands quite badly. More than want - I aspire to it.