I promised myself when Square released Final Fantasy XI in Japan that I wouldn't be interested in it. Certainly, it's Final Fantasy, and I'm an unrepentant Square fanboy, but regardless - I loathe massively multiplayer online RPGs. Early brushes with the genre, in the form of the hideously ugly looking EverQuest and the even uglier effects it had on those of my friends who chose to play it, convinced me that this genre was not for me. The ability to turn a previously pleasant and interesting individual into a complete bore who could speak intelligently about nothing but his latest exploits in Norrath didn't strike me as much of a selling point for the game, and everything I heard about the gameplay sounded tedious and uninteresting.