New Vanafest incoming.

[Shenrien]

This could be good, they didn't have one last year probably due to financial crippling blow that 14 left behind, keeping my fingers crossed for a new expansion with the huge partition opened up for the PS2 there is some hope for that, don't really care how long it takes to come out, as long as the content is like aht urghan where you have access to every area from day 1, and the slowly feed the content out like assaults, and missions then I'm all game.

[calinz]

What in the ever-loving fuck would make you believe that considering the Near East and Far East are not even remotely similar? The Far East would be more 'East Asian' like Japan and such, its where Tenzen comes from buddy. Samurais and Ninjas and shit jumping out at your ass and looking all wrecked up by Emptiness and such.

Because there's clearly no similarities between tenzen's armor and the armors of the near east amirite? I'm not saying it's not possible that we'll get original areas, but it's highly unlikely. The best you'll get is ToAU looking areas, with emptiness all over them. Think promyvion, ru'hmet, hu'zoi... where there's structures and columns half-disintegrated by the emptiness.

And also, even within ToAU, they overused the same tilesets: Wajaom Woodlands, Bhaflau Thickets, and Caedarva Mire use the same textures and models with the only difference being that Caedarva has darker lighting. The same applies to Al Zabhi/Whitegate and Nashmau - they're exactly the same texture-wise with no hint of anything distinguishing other than lighting. This is what I mean by the statement that the Far East will use ToAU's textures - you'll get a city looking like whitegate, and probably some woodland areas like wajaom but with a brownish/darker color to represent the ravaged land by the emptiness.

[Toth]

Hmm...I see several scenarios playing out if an expansion is indeed in the works:

1. New roadmap is scheduled to be shown in April (or May since everything seems delayed by about 2 weeks) but is proceeded by the unveiling of a new expansion. Expansion parts are teased in roadmap. At Vanafest, the expansion is formally shown off and playable to attendees. New jobs possibly shown or revealed. Release of expansion will coincide with 10th anniversary.

2. Expansion revealed at 10th anniversary. Details galore are revealed. Expansion then released late summer (September?).

3. Scenario 1 happens and VITA port is announced as well. New trailer for both revealed.

4. Lame 10th anniversary celebration, minor adjustments and changes announced, nothing exciting.

Obviously, scenario 3 would be the best :D Revives major publication interest in the game, adds a new playerbase, and shows off a bright future for the game.

Also of note, celebration is 2 days so they must have some good stuff planned. The last Vanafest was only a few hours wasn't it?

[Vandalhart]

Clearly they should just do a PS3 port!

[Cairthenn]

sweet, I'm in japan during those dates.

Take me with you, we can have so much fun together.

[Pharaun]

If the do announce a new expansion I hope they learned that taking 3+ years to finish the expansion story line was a bad idea...

[Sepukku]

Clearly they should just do a PS3 port!

This would re-boost my faded but not yet dead interest in the game. PS2 user and my PS2 is a freaking tank and still works but even tanks wear out eventually and my USB Keyboard and PS2 controller are old and my PS2 has a layer of seemingly permanently-caked dust on top of it upon which a second temporary layer builds.

But new content would be great. Voidwatch and all these other small things don't hold a candle to what more jobs or a new expansion and new areas would do for the game's activity level.

[Fereydoon]

If the do announce a new expansion I hope they learned that taking 3+ years to finish the expansion story line was a bad idea...

Only took 3 years to make the base expansion this time! 4+ for the story line! Go team go!

[Not Kuno]

Hell yeah. I can't wait for this. I'm pumped about Voidwatch: The Expansion and more bullshit Twitter games.

[Spira]

my predictions for the year would be...

1. no road map announced until Vanafest, because the end of the voidwatch saga was delayed a little and pushed up till maybe april/may. a good plan for what the year ahead has will be shown - like job enhancements in the near future (new 2hr abilities, special spells/ja/etc)

2. a major announcement regarding the game will be made at Vanafest due to 10th anniversary. I expect this to be a new expansion or new add-on content. Personally I'd go with a 3 part add-on content not unlike Abyssea, but one that is functionally easily integrated. Alternatively I see it as a medium size between full expansion and add-ons. It'd deliver a new mini-expansion within 3 (traditional) update cycles and be done. It'd also feature far less zones, but more content focused within the zones...

3. FFXI will get HD treatment similar to FFX. Because FFXI already has a PC/XB360 version that utilizes higher quality textures/etc than the PS2 version, it should be relatively simple to transfer to a new HD capable platform like PS Vita, and also PS3. More HD GUI/HUD enhancements will work its way into the PC versions as well.

i hope a few of these come true.

edit: looking back at Voidwatch...
i've come to see it as its own era as well..
like we had Zilart era -> CoP era -> ToAU era -> WotG era -> (story addons didn't have much impact, so) Abyssea era -> Voidwatch era.

it does come with a story, so its kinda like a mini expansion that spans all existing ones thus far. If SE structures it like Abyssea, we'll probably see some kind of VW last boss or something...

but now that the 1 year they took to polish the game is done, they shd be focusing on other things now.. and so I think Voidwatch will not last past the roadmap they plotted out for us last year.

[Slycer]

I think Voidwatch will not last past the roadmap they plotted out for us last year.

After CoP and ToAU VW there'd be nowhere else for it to go anyway. I do hope the expansion theory is true, but the whole thing could be nothing more than a formality, considering this is the 10th anniversary. Guess only time will tell.

[Kaisha]

Does anyone genuinely believe that they're going to bother with a full expansion at this point given the precedents set in the past few years? It's a nice thought, but I really wouldn't get your hopes up.

Well from what I read they apparently doubled the FFXI partition size on PS2 recently (which includes PS3, which explains that JP-only notice about HD space for 20gb PS3 users being fucked). It would be a waste of space if they didn't plan on doing something full scale with it.

[Fievel]

Take me with you, we can have so much fun together.

Fuck you Sol's taking me!

A new expansion may actually bring me back, depending on what it is. Hopes are definitely not high though as I seriously doubt they'd put out a new expansion.

[Zag]

Fuck you Sol's taking me!

A new expansion may actually bring me back, depending on what it is. Hopes are definitely not high though as I seriously doubt they'd put out a new expansion.

The only thing that would interest me is if one or more than 1 of these happened.

-Announcing a new road map for the entire year of 2012-2013.
-Announcing that the game is free to play, lower monthly fee, or free to play when you have a ff14 subscription.
-Announcing a new expansion.
-Announce a new level cap.
-Announce brand new zones.
-HD version of ff11 for VITA and PS3.

Every single one of these is unlikely to me. Vanafest is about ff11 and maybe ff14 this year too (Even though is called VANAfest, Vanadiel.)

They would probably show ff14 version 2.0 and annouce some crappy stuff for ff11 like the new merit job abilities and the meteor spell again.

To make this vanafest make me shit my pants though... They would have to

1.annouce a VITA and PS3 HD port, announce that the game is free to play now (which will flood the servers with plenty of returning and new players to create huge alliances with) and we can actually do big content like legion and revamped einherjar with those numbers. Being able to play ff11 wherever you go is amazing and being free to play would also boost sales to the game and to the PS VITA. If the game was free to play, I would even pay 40 bucks for a VITA ff11. (with all expansions), Which is a good profit for an old game.
Or

2. They can still charge for the game, make a VITA and PS3 HD port and discontinue ps2 support for the game while making a brand new disc based expansion, as big as TOAU. (highly unlikely).

[xopher]

Vita port ain't happening. You guys need to understand the difference in "could/would like to" and "have plans to".

[Tsuneo]

I couldn't care less about a Vita port. What I want to know is why SE can make high res icons and text for PC/360, but they can't make the rest of the game high res for PC/360.

[Stromgarde]

Oh, it's possible. High-res textures on models have been made for some time now, but very few modders do it. Why? A) It's a huge timesink and B) if you only do it for a few pieces here and there, they wind up looking horribly out of place.

[6souls]

Level cap raise isn't happening (no main FF game that I remember has ever gone past level 99).

Except this is a Square Enix game now & Enix games cap at 250, also the original plan was to cap out XI @ 250. I don't see a level cap raise in the near future with all the BS they went through with this last one and the limit break nerf in the coming update.

[Colenzo]

Pretty sure they said they werent putting out new expansions when they announced ACP but who knows maybe they changed their mind.

[InsaniacTHF]

I wish the JP had the courage to rip the dev team a new asshole when they did Q&A but they will probably just ask a bunch of "cheese sandwich" questions.