Track this topic | Email this topic | Print this topic

It was two years ago today that Final Fantasy XI launched in Japan. Playonline has taken the opportunity to compile a massively detailed census of the activity occuring on the game's servers.

To begin, the number of FFXI active customers has broken the 500,000 mark. The 500,000+ figure does not include those accounts using their free trial. It is just paying customers. These 500k customers have accounted for over 1,200,000 registered characters, or an average of about 2.5 characters per customer. Exploring this deeper, it can be seen that Japanese customers average 3-4 characters while their North American counterparts only average 1-2.

34% of these characters are at level 1. The vast majority of these level 1 characters are used for item storage, synthesis, or gardening. (Note: Maybe some of the CoN's FFXI players could explain this in further detail). 60% of the game's characters are level 20 or lower (this is not including the level 1 characters discussed earlier even) . Over 51% of the characters have the warrior job class chosen as their main job. The warrior class is also one of the most popular support jobs as well.

One final note of interest that the census displays is that there is never really a downtime for the game. There is always a numerous amount of players to venture out with no matter what time one wants to play. This is because North America and Japan playing levels peak at different times, the former peaking at noontime of the latter.

-------

What I found most interesting about the census is the vast amount of people playing the game. I'm sure I'd find the other data more engaging if I actually played the game. I recommend checking out the link posted at the beginning of this update to those who found this interesting. The playonline site features much more in depth data than I went into here.

This post has been edited by Neal on 17th May 2004 04:18

--------------------

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

Quote (SSJ_Cloud @ 16th May 2004 21:34)

34% of these characters are at level 1. The vast majority of these level 1 characters are used for item storage, synthesis, or gardening. (Note: Maybe some of the CoN's FFXI players could explain this in further detail).

Storage is what you would think, a place to store extra stuff.

Synthesis is crafting, as in, you make items. A fire crystal + bronze ingot = bronze sheet. The bronze sheet can be used to create various items.

Wow... I never knew that much people played FFXI. I hate synthesizing but love gardening. I and one of that 51% that has my warrior as sub job I'm so proud of myself.

Quote (FraudulentTommah @ 17th May 2004 07:01)

Quote (SSJ_Cloud @ 16th May 2004 21:34)

34% of these characters are at level 1.  The vast majority of these level 1 characters are used for item storage, synthesis, or gardening. (Note:  Maybe some of the CoN's FFXI players could explain this in further detail).

Storage is what you would think, a place to store extra stuff.

Synthesis is crafting, as in, you make items. A fire crystal + bronze ingot = bronze sheet. The bronze sheet can be used to create various items.

So, I guess you can swap items between your characters(?)

--------------------

"I had to write four novels before they let me write comic books."
-Brad Meltzer

Interesting trick, maybe when I get the game, I may do it, ....if my dad doesn't go insane about the online fees.

Yeah, you can send items between characters and use the character that is level one, commonly called a "mule" because of the fact that it's used for carrying items, to sell the items, and then send the money from the sales to your main character.