From the log
1 of 21The launcher keeps itself current
Open the launcher, press Play. Updates to the launcher and to the DriftwoodXI addons now arrive on their own — the only thing ever asked of you is a restart.
The website is open
xi.driftwoodgaming.com is live — make an account, download the launcher, reset a password you have lost, and read everything posted here without installing anything first.
Start here — the nine addons, and how to open them
Almost everything DriftwoodXI adds to Final Fantasy XI is reached through nine addons written for this server. Eight of the nine open a window you click through. Here is what each one is, the one word that opens it, and what to do when nothing happens.
One expansion at a time — where DriftwoodXI is going
Thank you for playing here. What's open today, why the rest of Vana'diel opens one expansion at a time, and a promise — DriftwoodXI is free, and there will never be a cash shop.
The mercenary board — your characters keep working after you log off
List one of your characters on the mercenary board with an hourly rate and the gambit sets you wrote for it. Other players hire it as a trust — your gear, your levels, your rules, synced to their level — and the gil lands on your ledger while you sleep.
Close the wiki tab
The quest tracker is in. Open a quest and see its steps, with the one you are on lit up — read from your real progress on this server, never from a wiki.
Every swing counts — combat skills without the grind
Every swing rolls for a skill-up — hit or miss — and every roll under your cap lands. A fresh weapon catches up in a session, and your main is never the weakest member of his own party.
One account, sixteen characters
One account per player is the rule on DriftwoodXI. It is not a limit — your sixteen characters are a full squad, a mercenary roster, and all the storage you will ever need.
Treasure caskets, reworked — rarer chests, augmented gear
Chests are a quarter as common as retail, but three in four are the locked kind — so roughly one kill in fifty-three hides a chest full of randomly augmented gear, rolled fresh for you.
Combat rebalance — magic, weapon skills and items
All magic and weapon skills at 1.5x, items at a deliberate 3x, retail-accurate character stats, and a full sub job's worth of MP — your squad is the power fantasy, not your character sheet.
Content unlocked — Dynamis, Garrison, Sky and friends
Dynamis on a six-hour clock, Garrison restarting every ten minutes, the road to Tu'Lia — and the gates lowered so a handful of people can actually run all of it.
Crafting with an identity, gathering that never breaks
Every craft reaches 70, three of them can reach 110, HQ chance is doubled, harvesting tools never break, and the auction house keeps its fees honest.
Custom commands and what happens when you make a character
Every command a player can type on DriftwoodXI in one place — the squad, your account's shared bags, gambit rule sets, per-member job tags and the small quality-of-life ones — plus what a brand-new character is handed on day one, and where merits, job points and trusts come from.
Drops, gil and a rewritten Treasure Hunter curve
Double drop rates, gil from every mob, rebuilt treasure caskets — and Treasure Hunter exactly as retail tuned it, on top of it all.
How DriftwoodXI plays — the numbers at a glance
Progression at 3x, drops and gil at 2x, combat at 1.5x with items a deliberate 3x, movement at 4x retail so you never commute, and death that still costs something. The whole server on one page.
Rates and progression — the full table
Triple gil, experience, capacity and tabs; FOV and GOV pages at 1.5x; death costs half of what retail charged; and movement at 4x retail, so you never spend an evening commuting.
Rule sets — write how your squad fights
Final Fantasy XII's gambit system, in Vana'diel, on your own characters. Ordered rules of the form "ally under 40% HP → cast the biggest Cure I can afford", written by you, obeyed by your squad — with fourteen ready-made sets if you would rather not.
One inventory across your whole account
Search every bag on every character you own from the one you are playing, move items between them without logging in and out, and let your squad members dress themselves out of their own bags.
The Squad — bring your own characters as trusts
Register up to five of your own characters and summon them as party members. They wear the best gear they own, fight on their real jobs, and earn real experience back to their own rows.
The DriftwoodXI launcher
Multi-account auto-login, addon loadouts you can toggle without editing scripts, per-account graphics settings, live server status and automatic updates — the whole server in one window.
Welcome to DriftwoodXI
A small, unhurried Vana'diel for friends — launching with the base game and Rise of the Zilart, generous rates, and no cash shop, ever.
News
Announcements, patch notes and the reasoning behind them. These are the same posts the launcher shows you on its Home panel.
The website is open
xi.driftwoodgaming.com is live — make an account, download the launcher, reset a password you have lost, and read everything posted here without installing anything first.
Start here — the nine addons, and how to open them
Almost everything DriftwoodXI adds to Final Fantasy XI is reached through nine addons written for this server. Eight of the nine open a window you click through. Here is what each one is, the one word that opens it, and what to do when nothing happens.
One expansion at a time — where DriftwoodXI is going
Thank you for playing here. What's open today, why the rest of Vana'diel opens one expansion at a time, and a promise — DriftwoodXI is free, and there will never be a cash shop.
The mercenary board — your characters keep working after you log off
List one of your characters on the mercenary board with an hourly rate and the gambit sets you wrote for it. Other players hire it as a trust — your gear, your levels, your rules, synced to their level — and the gil lands on your ledger while you sleep.
Close the wiki tab
The quest tracker is in. Open a quest and see its steps, with the one you are on lit up — read from your real progress on this server, never from a wiki.
One account, sixteen characters
One account per player is the rule on DriftwoodXI. It is not a limit — your sixteen characters are a full squad, a mercenary roster, and all the storage you will ever need.
Treasure caskets, reworked — rarer chests, augmented gear
Chests are a quarter as common as retail, but three in four are the locked kind — so roughly one kill in fifty-three hides a chest full of randomly augmented gear, rolled fresh for you.
Content unlocked — Dynamis, Garrison, Sky and friends
Dynamis on a six-hour clock, Garrison restarting every ten minutes, the road to Tu'Lia — and the gates lowered so a handful of people can actually run all of it.
How DriftwoodXI plays — the numbers at a glance
Progression at 3x, drops and gil at 2x, combat at 1.5x with items a deliberate 3x, movement at 4x retail so you never commute, and death that still costs something. The whole server on one page.
Rule sets — write how your squad fights
Final Fantasy XII's gambit system, in Vana'diel, on your own characters. Ordered rules of the form "ally under 40% HP → cast the biggest Cure I can afford", written by you, obeyed by your squad — with fourteen ready-made sets if you would rather not.
One inventory across your whole account
Search every bag on every character you own from the one you are playing, move items between them without logging in and out, and let your squad members dress themselves out of their own bags.
The Squad — bring your own characters as trusts
Register up to five of your own characters and summon them as party members. They wear the best gear they own, fight on their real jobs, and earn real experience back to their own rows.
The DriftwoodXI launcher
Multi-account auto-login, addon loadouts you can toggle without editing scripts, per-account graphics settings, live server status and automatic updates — the whole server in one window.
Welcome to DriftwoodXI
A small, unhurried Vana'diel for friends — launching with the base game and Rise of the Zilart, generous rates, and no cash shop, ever.
The launcher keeps itself current
Open the launcher, press Play. Updates to the launcher and to the DriftwoodXI addons now arrive on their own — the only thing ever asked of you is a restart.
Every swing counts — combat skills without the grind
Every swing rolls for a skill-up — hit or miss — and every roll under your cap lands. A fresh weapon catches up in a session, and your main is never the weakest member of his own party.
Combat rebalance — magic, weapon skills and items
All magic and weapon skills at 1.5x, items at a deliberate 3x, retail-accurate character stats, and a full sub job's worth of MP — your squad is the power fantasy, not your character sheet.
Crafting with an identity, gathering that never breaks
Every craft reaches 70, three of them can reach 110, HQ chance is doubled, harvesting tools never break, and the auction house keeps its fees honest.
Custom commands and what happens when you make a character
Every command a player can type on DriftwoodXI in one place — the squad, your account's shared bags, gambit rule sets, per-member job tags and the small quality-of-life ones — plus what a brand-new character is handed on day one, and where merits, job points and trusts come from.
Drops, gil and a rewritten Treasure Hunter curve
Double drop rates, gil from every mob, rebuilt treasure caskets — and Treasure Hunter exactly as retail tuned it, on top of it all.
Rates and progression — the full table
Triple gil, experience, capacity and tabs; FOV and GOV pages at 1.5x; death costs half of what retail charged; and movement at 4x retail, so you never spend an evening commuting.