i never played ff11 what was the story like?

[papichulo123]

can any1 summarize what happened?

[Akuryu]

It's going to be difficult for anyone to summarize nearly 15 years of story.

I will say that, IMO, Chains of Promathia had the best story of any MMO, including FFXIV.

[Tagihi]

It has a very good story, And telling whole story gona take longtime. Beside best is to play it.

[Ruri]

It's going to be difficult for anyone to summarize nearly 15 years of story.

I will say that, IMO, Chains of Promathia had the best story of any MMO, including FFXIV.

I completely agree. COP was amazingly epic in every way.

And yes its impossible to explain the whole history of Vanadiel (probably spelled wrong) since its been out for so long. But I am sure there is a webpage or something that explains it pretty well.

[Lewtskie]

XI's story at the majority was very solemn and somewhat melancholy. You are confronted much like Eorzea's, but on a much less positive scale. Everything is in turmoil, all nations have just been beaten down by endless struggles from many different points. Honestly where as XIV kinda plays out halfway like a saturday morning cartoon sometimes, I'd probably compare XI's story to maybe a HBO light-drama. Still some humorous moments, but they played them out much better than some of the ham-fisted scenes in XIV. Plus when that game tugged some heart strings, it really hurt.

[DragonSlayer45]

I'll just explain the basics and say that the game is set twenty years after the end of the Crystal War that ravaged Vana'diel. The three nations of Vana'diel: San d'Oria, Bastok and Windurst militarized to meet the threat posed by the beastmen led by the Shadow Lord. They sought adventurers (the player) to bring peace to the land and drive back the beastmen.

That's only the prologue. A simple google search can better summarize each expansion's plot and the overarching story of FFXI.

And yes, COP's story is amazing. I really think its one of those stories that you have to experience for yourself.

[Enkidoh]

The thing is, arguably FFXI's story truly finished at the end of Chains of Promathia (the second expansion) - everything else that came after was just either side-stories not directly connected to the main storyline (like Treasures of Aht Urhgan), or completely retcons and invalidates everything in the story that you did previously (Wings of the Goddess, Abyssea), to the point the story ran well and truly off the rails.

And from what little I've played of the final expansion Seekers of Adoulin, it's clear the FFXI team has been sneaking around the FFXIV team cubicles and 'borrowing' story and concept ideas, as I'm seeing a lot of similar ideas from FFXIV popping up in odd places in Adoulin (the GEO Job being seemingly lore wise a thinly disguised CNJ), the 'Twelve Orders of Knights', a sentient forest that frustrates intruders and even claims them as it's own, aetheryte camps, sorry, bivouacs... yeah...

However, FFXI's story was still amazing and had many twists and unexpected revelations occurring throughout it's narrative. It just started to fall into retconning in later years sadly.

The other problem with FFXI's story is unlike here in FFXIV where the story does actively involve you as the main protagonist (the Warrior of Light), FFXI... you were treated generally as more of a sidekick to the real stars of the narrative like Aldo, Lion, Prishe and Lisette. A nameless adventurer that just happened to be in the right place at the right time to become involved in battles for Vana'diel's future, and who never really was given the proper credit, the story npcs always taking the lion's share of the narrative time. We were there just along for the ride basically. Ah well, I still loved FFXI's story either way, despite these brickbats.

[Twilite]

The main plot ended @ZM18. CoP explains the story of a really pissed off God that Altana punished.

[NebulaRose]

What I wanna know is if it's still worth playing for the story alone? I've been looking at it for a while and hear a lot of good stuff about it, but am unsure due to how old it is.

[Taika]

There were some crystals that resonated and some gods that wanted to chain people and also a couple of brothers you had to kill like 3 times.

Edit: This guy seems to have at least some of them uploaded: https://www.youtube.com/user/kaoz1024/playlists

Shadowlord is the first one, then Rise of Zilart, then Chains of Promathia. That's the "main storyline", I guess.