Well, I’ve checked the Internet for guides to the two tasks I had. (I normally wouldn’t, but, well, it seems okay because this is a beta, somehow.) For the mission, I was being an idiot – I’d completely forgotten to check one part of the city, which – obviously – turns out to be where I need to go. The quest, though, really needs the Internet FAQs. There’s no way in-game of knowing that it’s actually a level 20 quest – and after the initial conversation, there’s no way to know that it’s set in a mine that isn’t the one that’s in the town where you get the quest.

Maybe that’s been purposely been designed to get people to work together, but it just seems like rubbish game design to me.

But then in MMOs I’ve generally been a lone wolf who teams up with people now and again when the circumstances fit, but who generally likes exploring alone. (Mainly because I often have short play sessions and need to leave at a moment’s notice.) So I sense that FFXI might not be the game for me, which is a shame. Okay, it does seem to do some things very wrong (from my point of view) but there does seem to be a nice game there.