Starting off in Final Fantasy XI can be quite overwhelming. Up until recently there was no tutorial whatsoever to introduce yourself to the game mechanics and because of this, you were forced to learn the game almost entirely on your own. Quite a lot of curious would-be Vana'dielians are sometimes intimidated by the size of the world and the intricacies of the game play and drop out of the game before things get interesting. Indeed, like certain things in life, Final Fantasy XI can almost feel as if you must engage on a long and frustrating, sometimes tedious, journey before you can bring yourself to begin to fully enjoy, even simply understand, the game. I hope to provide a general resource on character creation and the beginnings of the game, including the starting areas, classes, quests, among other things.
Beginning the process of character creation, you'll realize there are five races: Tarutaru, Mithra, Galka, Elvaan, and Humes.
The Tarutaru are masters of magic, possessing the highest base MP of any class, as well as the best charisma and are tied for the greatest agility with the Mithra. They make for perfect mages. This, however brings with it some incredible downsides, including being far weaker in melee combat than other races. The Taru have the lowest HP, strength, and vitality. This makes being a melee job difficult as a Tarutaru, for even well geared Taru will be outclassed by well geared competitors of a different race.
The Mithra reside right along with the Tarutaru, and are a mostly balanced race, much like the Humes. They have the highest dexterity (by far) and are tied for the highest agility with the Tarutaru. Aside from the lowest charisma in the game, their stats are generally average, with only slightly fewer combat abilities than their all-around average Hume counterparts. Mithra best make Thieves, Rangers, and Ninjas, because of their high agility and dexterity, and make decent mages as well, because of their average HP and MP pools. They do however; have some difficulty playing Beastmasters or Bards, due to the lack of charisma.
Humes are the most balanced race, possessing unspectacular, but by no means poor, stats in virtually everything. From intelligence to vitality, a Hume is balanced all around, including the amount of HP and MP, and do well with any job. They're neither deficient nor excellent in any one thing.
Elvaan characters are geared more toward physical encounters than magical ones, but are not entirely magically underdeveloped. This race has the highest strength, is nearly tied with the Galka for highest vitality, and possesses the highest mind out of all the races, by a significant amount. They make excellent melee damage dealers, but this hurts their magical abilities, as they possess the second lowest MP pool in the game. They can, however, pass as reasonably well White Mages, due to having the highest mind in the game, which is the skill linked to the amount of damage cured.
Galka are the melee powerhouses of the game, possessing very few magical capabilities on their own. The highest vitality, second highest strength, and by far the largest HP pool in the game allow the Galka to deal and take massive amounts of damage playing almost any melee class, and their reasonable dexterity and agility allow them to play more agile and less strength focused melee jobs as well. Unfortunately, they possess the second lowest intelligence, average mind, and significantly lower MP than all the other races, leaving much to be desired for the more mage oriented player.