January Version Update Schedule Revealed! (12/15/2014)

[Ligray]

http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...3431/13431.jpg

The next version update is scheduled for Thursday, January 15, 2015.

Sink your teeth into the lore of Adoulin with quests featuring unexplored aspects of the main scenario, the addition of more Unity Wanted battles, and puppetmaster adjustments.

Also scheduled is the long-awaited ability to equip two linkpearls at once, along with other content that had been pushed back from December.

Steel yourself for an action-packed January!

[Sechs]

Puppetmaster adjustments ==> they're resolving the skill bug, fixing Attuner and Target Marker and supposedly adding new attachments? This reminds me I still have to buy Vivi Valve 2, but until they raise the elemental capacity there's very little purpose to that attachment.

BRD adjustments ==> Tier 2 Etudes finally becoming viable?


They do not mention them but I sure hope they have more BPs coming for SMN as well (Fenrir, Diabolos and Caith Sith! And also tweaks to the old BP wards or fix how SMN skill affects wards)

[Kainstryder]

I hope to god there's more planned than just 1/2 of what December was supposed to get, which was barely anything to begin with.

So we have:

- More Unity NMs that will die in >1 minute with meh or somewhat ok gear drops.
- 1-2 new "quests" which involve go here->here->here->watch cutscene, this took 10 minutes to do. PLEASE ENJOY
- PUP bug fixes

Fuck.

[Treize Kordero]

So far PUP adjustments and Linkshell change are the only things I'm looking forward too. Seems like January is gonna be a content light update. As to be expected I don't think they would have much after the holiday season.

[Toth]

I hope to god there's more planned than just 1/2 of what December was supposed to get, which was barely anything to begin with.

So we have:

- More Unity NMs that will die in >1 minute with meh or somewhat ok gear drops.
- 1-2 new "quests" which involve go here->here->here->watch cutscene, this took 10 minutes to do. PLEASE ENJOY
- PUP bug fixes

Fuck.

Yeah pretty much.

[Kainstryder]

I'm sorry, but I hate how they say "lore of Adoulin with quests featuring unexplored aspects of the main scenario", which basically says "we rushed the story missions so you can get a cool ring and hopefully people stay subscribed for, please enjoy ^_^"

The Adoulin missions as is are garbage, easy as shit and mostly just cutscenes or "go fetch tomatos" because reasons.

I really, really want another CoP style mission story expansion that is 1. nightmare mode 2. makes you excited and happy to clear it and be able to explore content you WORKED for, not just "here's a rush of missions, with some cool characters, story and lore that has awesome potential, but we're not gonna flesh anything out and resort to anime stereotypes, we also kind of skipped like 4 chapters of content, but this will be side stories you can view in the next 4-6 updates". 3. Isn't just cutscenes of Arciela's hair up, then it's down, she's happy, she's sad, you're creepily hitting on a princess that in most countries would get your hand chopped off, then Leafkins, then tsundere exorcist, then kawaii ditzy anime maid.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I did enjoy the final chapter of Adoulin, granted it would've been a bit more epic had the characters/story been drawn out a bit more, or we see/fight more villains and not just like 5 seconds/then a battle with one, you know, something of substance.

[Ophannus]

Pup adjustments also include being able to lock which ws the Auto uses they said. Looks like RoZ unity, inb4 ilvl skygear. Feb will be ilvl sea and cop zones unity so maybe ilvl torques/heralds/homam. Unity and ilvl all the things.

[Damane]

Pup adjustments also include being able to lock which ws the Auto uses they said. Looks like RoZ unity, inb4 ilvl skygear. Feb will be ilvl sea and cop zones unity so maybe ilvl torques/heralds/homam. Unity and ilvl all the things.

soboro ilvl version for SAM, calling it now allrady ahead of time (because its SAM of course).

[JSHidaka]

Finally empy gear revamp... Oh wait...

[Spira]

I'm sorry, but I hate how they say "lore of Adoulin with quests featuring unexplored aspects of the main scenario", which basically says "we rushed the story missions so you can get a cool ring and hopefully people stay subscribed for, please enjoy ^_^"

The Adoulin missions as is are garbage, easy as shit and mostly just cutscenes or "go fetch tomatos" because reasons.

I really, really want another CoP style mission story expansion that is 1. nightmare mode 2. makes you excited and happy to clear it and be able to explore content you WORKED for, not just "here's a rush of missions, with some cool characters, story and lore that has awesome potential, but we're not gonna flesh anything out and resort to anime stereotypes, we also kind of skipped like 4 chapters of content, but this will be side stories you can view in the next 4-6 updates". 3. Isn't just cutscenes of Arciela's hair up, then it's down, she's happy, she's sad, you're creepily hitting on a princess that in most countries would get your hand chopped off, then Leafkins, then tsundere exorcist, then kawaii ditzy anime maid.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I did enjoy the final chapter of Adoulin, granted it would've been a bit more epic had the characters/story been drawn out a bit more, or we see/fight more villains and not just like 5 seconds/then a battle with one, you know, something of substance.

kinda wish what you said wasnt true.. but it really is..

sadly, the SoA storyline is ridiculously weak.. tho i think its got a lot to do with the fact that they really only introduce him in the last update, only to have you kill him later. I really wanted to see what the real deal with Hades was and much more about him and a direct causal relationship between him and what was happening in Ulbuka.. but we don't see much of any of that at all. The "landshudders"was a nice touch in the cutscenes.. except that its only limited to that. Not much in way of fleshing out the story. Its definitely a lot weaker than older story missions. CoP stood out as the most powerful because it was truly epic and even tho there was an ensemble cast everyone did manage to get their moment.

here it simply didn't happen. it felt like they wanted to shine the limelight on some of the maesters.. but ultimately didnt.

[Kainstryder]

Spoiler: show

Forgot to add how people die or sacrifice themselves either epically or just "what the fuck am I watching" (tiger rolling around scene with happy music) only to have everyone brought back with the Dragon Balls.

[Ophannus]

Spoiler: show

The problem with the ffxi story is everything returns to the status quo. All heroes killed are revived. There's no sense of sacrifice because people are always saved via a last second deus ex machina. Soa would have been heart wrenching and memorably if those who Hades killed stayed dead because they died in a really gruesome and humiliating way, but nope, revived. If there was more permanent death after good character development the story becomes more memorable in most cases. If morimar and the tiger remained dead would have been more fitting imo. Too bad every expansion ends with "they all lived heavily ever after"

[Spira]

Spoiler: show

heck. even Hades lives.
its like the story was pointless.

[Sechs]

I'm sorry, but I hate how they say "lore of Adoulin with quests featuring unexplored aspects of the main scenario", which basically says "we rushed the story missions so you can get a cool ring and hopefully people stay subscribed for, please enjoy ^_^"

Felt much less rushed than ToAU to me, and not ridiculously watered down with stories written by different authors who didn't talk to each other like WotG.
Agree to disagree? I wish Adoulin could've gone on for at least 2 or 4 more patches adding more stuff in the background, but all in all despite all the short ends and the stuff that makes no sense, I really loved the attention dedicated to the story and side stuff.
Even outside of the game.
Quality of cut-scenes and direction also reached its top in this expansion (altough that's totally unrelated to the quality of the story of course)

I really, really want another CoP style mission story expansion that is 1. nightmare mode 2. makes you excited and happy to clear it and be able to explore content you WORKED for, not just "here's a rush of missions, with some cool characters, story and lore that has awesome potential
[cut]

You're asking for the impossible, not even sure if you're aware of that, seems to me you still have your nostalgia goggles on and you want to feel again those awesome experiences you felt during CoP, but it's impossible to repeat that.
1) It wouldn't be the first time anymore, wouldn't feel the same
2) The game is too much different
3) The player base is too much different, you included
4) Game standards have changed too much

It's not just a matter of difficulty or experience. CoP wasn't even THAT hard, it was mostly people who were whining and were greatly unprepared compared to today. I did all missions from RotZ to WoTG with the same static of 5-6 people and we managed to do them all despite our loljobs and our lol gear. When I completed CoP 3 of us weren't even level 75 yet. Our PLD was level 73 (yes, when PLD was lolPLD and everybody was about NIN tanking) and me (MNK using AF1 ^_^) and the WHM were level 72.
Try to play with shit gear without swapping anything with no addon whatsoever, and see how more a "NIGHTMARE" the game is.
Try avoiding the plethora of information overload, strategies threads, youtube videos and everything else, and see if stuff is harder.

[Rooney]

I think the main thing people miss about CoP is the story. It was epic in scale, coherent, and actually flowed pretty evenly throughout. There weren't any major wtf out of left field moments (iirc, could be wrong here) and all the characters got some background, exposition, and closure.

We all know it wasn't really that hard, but I've not felt like the stories since have been even close in quality or execution.

Thinking about it, I also miss the music from CoP. I still remember setting foot in my first promyvion and feeling genuinely creeped out. And hearing distant worlds at the end of the expansion was perfect for closure.

[dasva]

Pup adjustments also include being able to lock which ws the Auto uses they said. Looks like RoZ unity, inb4 ilvl skygear. Feb will be ilvl sea and cop zones unity so maybe ilvl torques/heralds/homam. Unity and ilvl all the things.

ilvl keeper of halidom!?! Man I camped that thing so hard back in the day. Time for an ilvl Daihannya with 90str that still wont be as good as a gkt you can get in 30 minutes in a shout group

[Sechs]

I think the main thing people miss about CoP is the story. It was epic in scale, coherent, and actually flowed pretty evenly throughout.

You couldn't find me more agreeing with that (despite CoP having his issues too, and very confusing metaphors/stuff, we discussed about them for quite a lot in another thread on this forum).
The thing is: it's impossible to do better.
RotZ and part of CoP were planned from the beginning of FFXI.
The same didn't happen to ToAU, WoTG and SoA so they had to resort to retcons and all sort of fixes to fit them in. Usually very convoluted and specious things to justify the base storylines.
Who do we want to blame here, their lack of foresight because they didn't think the game would have expanded so much when they started planning it in 1999?
I mean, in light of the short time AND budget given to them, and in spite of the arguable final results, I'd rather say they did a better job with Adoulin than they did with WotG and ToAU.

[Kainstryder]

Felt much less rushed than ToAU to me, and not ridiculously watered down with stories written by different authors who didn't talk to each other like WotG.
Agree to disagree? I wish Adoulin could've gone on for at least 2 or 4 more patches adding more stuff in the background, but all in all despite all the short ends and the stuff that makes no sense, I really loved the attention dedicated to the story and side stuff.
Even outside of the game.
Quality of cut-scenes and direction also reached its top in this expansion (altough that's totally unrelated to the quality of the story of course)



You're asking for the impossible, not even sure if you're aware of that, seems to me you still have your nostalgia goggles on and you want to feel again those awesome experiences you felt during CoP, but it's impossible to repeat that.
1) It wouldn't be the first time anymore, wouldn't feel the same
2) The game is too much different
3) The player base is too much different, you included
4) Game standards have changed too much

It's not just a matter of difficulty or experience. CoP wasn't even THAT hard, it was mostly people who were whining and were greatly unprepared compared to today. I did all missions from RotZ to WoTG with the same static of 5-6 people and we managed to do them all despite our loljobs and our lol gear. When I completed CoP 3 of us weren't even level 75 yet. Our PLD was level 73 (yes, when PLD was lolPLD and everybody was about NIN tanking) and me (MNK using AF1 ^_^) and the WHM were level 72.
Try to play with shit gear without swapping anything with no addon whatsoever, and see how more a "NIGHTMARE" the game is.
Try avoiding the plethora of information overload, strategies threads, youtube videos and everything else, and see if stuff is harder.

I did CoP back when it was brand new and people struggled with every fight, because there was no solid wiki or anything other than "WAR/NIN or NIN/WAR, everyone /NIN, meds out the ass, pray for miracles" and I'm glad you were lucky with your runs, but I've done multiple runs to help people clear the missions way back, not everyone is amazing or "LOL BATS AGGRO HELP WHAT ARE SILENT OILS IM DEAD RAISE ME IM SURROUNDED BY UNDEAD NOW IS THIS BAD?"

Has nothing to do with goggles either, I want quality, as in stories with actual thought and effort placed into them, actual battles. The difficulty can vary, but add these two and make them fun or gimmicky, you know, rope us into playing.

The problem is Adoulin was nothing more than cutscene, go here, cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, go to AH and buy some buffalo horn, cutscene, get tomatoes, cutscene, cutscene, battle, cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, cutscene, wait a game day, cutscene, repeat.

The standard of gaming is becoming graphic shows and pretty imagery, instead of solid content or memorable characters/stories with them. The CoP ending showed everyone you met and just felt great when you finished. Adoulins

Spoiler: show

Fremilla acts like a ditz, Acriela is all yay we're ok *rides tiger* and you stare off into the distance... oh and she can berate you if you dont hand over her ribbon, and you steal her skirt because your character has a clothes fetish now. Then the Forever Tomorrow song plays to images with characters standing there lazily, where as CoP and such had amazing cutscenes and characters reacting to each other or things. Hell, even Lilisette's goodbye was better.

Overall, the problem lies with Square and their inability to see the obvious and instead do asinine things and believe people really, really, really want stuff like monster rearing (fuck you on the key item update for that SE, really. Monstrosity would've been a much better fit), countless pointless Trusts, which I think of like the last 10+ 2 have been amazing (Koru-Moru and Karaha-Baruha), seasonal events and various costumes. There was that interview where they stated they pulled everyone to help with Adoulin story to push it out. If that was the best they could do, it really shows they have a skeleton crew at this point. Sit down and fix inventory, the ability to store or do something with these 22+ augmented capes and other shit, fix glaring bug issues (Blue Magic for starters) and countless other things. No one would complain if we went 2-3 months without some Trust NPC, Adoulin "quest", Unity NM or other "fun-packed" content people are unsubscribing for faster than they have people returning, and just fixed things in general or listened to people instead of "we can't or won't do that, because it doesn't match our vision of the game. Please enjoy for now (JP face)"

[Mefuki]

It was epic in scale, coherent, and actually flowed pretty evenly throughout.

I don't know anyone, either RL friends who've done CoP 2+ times now or anyone in my LS, who can confidently explain what exactly was happening in CoP. I'd argue it's probably the LEAST coherent story in FFXI. Heck, even thinking back to things my static was saying all those years ago: "So, Prishe was cursed with having to release Promathia? She says so herself, right?" "You guys know where this Louvurance clone came from? Did I miss a CS?" "I thought Tenzen was a good guy. Why are we fighting him?" Umm, is there any rhyme or reason to these Tarutaru? As if it wasn't hard enough to follow the other characters motives and desires as it is...", etc.

[Dotsudoku]

Sounds like your friends weren't paying attention