New Vanafest incoming.

[Kaisha]

Looks like their building process is to sculpt out very basic meshes and recycle as much as they can from existing assets until they get new ones built to get plugged in. Another zone map uses SanD's outdoor church model along with that one church'ish building from Upper Jeuno.

Makes sense though. Lets you get the map built to scale, figure out if the pathing of it works/what fits into PS2 RAM, then get down to the real business.

[LiquidFriend]

Have they ever mentioned much or anything about this new "Dungeon Crawler" system yet? Could possibly be related to that.

[Septimus]

Took any pics? I'm too lazy to update the test server client and then manually add that shit to the zone viewer I use atm.

I used PoLUtils, so I didn't get any pictures. I could tell it was a zone from the assets (like sky, clouds, moon, and plants) and file size.

interesting.

i never bothered to check if any of those files in ROM9 were zone dats because its such a hassle for me to use EWHviewer.
were you using that?

i did notice the orcish conquerer model tho.. it seems to be the default model or something. its happens to be the very first monster dat on the list if you sort by ascending rom folder / file number.

screenshots or video would be nice.

I don't have EWHviewer, would have to install Japanese and set it as the default language for my computer to make it run apparently.

Looks like their building process is to sculpt out very basic meshes and recycle as much as they can from existing assets until they get new ones built to get plugged in. Another zone map uses SanD's outdoor church model along with that one church'ish building from Upper Jeuno.

Makes sense though. Lets you get the map built to scale, figure out if the pathing of it works/what fits into PS2 RAM, then get down to the real business.

[EDIT] Oh jeez. Large jungle-like zone complete with its own beach...

The outdoorish zone Sept mentioned appears to be made of Gustaberg-like walls. Interestingly, it'll have a lot of waterfalls and small rivers......and has a section of land using the same texture of the parts of Beaucedine/Batallia/Sauro do for the part where the large explosion occured that cut out a chunk of the land.

Isn't really much else to see otherwise. It's all so very, very work-in-progress. Sign of a new add-on perhaps? Or the devs fucking with us/training new folks the tools perhaps that just somehow slipped on into the test server update.

That pic was interesting, any chance we can see some of the other areas? (Like the charred section.) And if they are fucking with us, they are putting a LOT of effort in to it, to the point where it would be an epic troll. (If you were training people to texture zones, why would you go with an outdated format (PS2) when you could instead have them slaving away on XIV2.0? But I am refusing to get my hopes up.

One thing that I find interesting about this is that there are eleven zones in Rom9, but there are only 7 spaces left in the zone table. I wonder if this means that they are going to be able to expand the zone table.

[bungiefan]

Yeah I got a buddy in Japan who was going to get tickets but they wanted him to prove he had a JP account.

My POL account is still Japanese, I just got it linked to an American SquareEnix ID. As I can't physically go to Japan, I may be able to swing something...

[Miroku_Asura]

Spoiler: show

Placeholder art assets/geometry everywhere.

First thing I thought of when I looked at that picture was Hyrule Castle Town...

As for the weird sun texture, isn't that the face of the clock in upper jeuno?

[Kaisha]

That pic was interesting, any chance we can see some of the other areas?

I'm afraid to inform you there was never any pics, nor did I take any pics. Nope, just your imagination...

Spoiler: show

N64 time

[Septimus]

I'm afraid to inform you there was never any pics, nor did I take any pics. Nope, just your imagination...

Spoiler: show

N64 time

Well, if they did exist, they would look really, really neat.

[Tarage]

Holy jebus that stairs town that doesn't exist.

[Chamaan]

They wouldn't want all of the nice Japanese to get self-conscious about their poor English in the presence of an outsider. Alternatively, they may suspect we're going to leave early without warning and/or have trouble navigating our way to our seats and sitting quietly.

Even if they let non-JP players into the event. The Japanese would just be the first people allowed in line for everything, they'd refuse to tell you what the line is for, and when you finally get near the front they'll cut back into line ahead of you to preserve the rarity of the thing at the end of the line.

[Spira]

Lol it's interesting how we never spent this much attention on the mysteries of ROM9 until now...

Good self-hyping lol. Will check it out when I get home later

edit: looking at it from a pc instead of phone.

to FFXIV devs.. THIS is what you call a town, not the sorry excuse that Gridania/Limsa/Ul'dah (tho not so much) is.

Spoiler: show

also.. based on what we see. it doesnt give a very strong clue as to where those places might be if hypothetically they could be found in game.

- it seems safe to rule out the far-east, if only based on the architectural style of the placeholders (if thats what they are).
- it could be Yhoh, of the Gha Naboh Matriarchate in Olzhirya, which is said to be a great nation. the architecture doesn't quite fit what you'd expect from mithras based on kazham and windurst waters, but the climate of the zones does match up somewhat.
- the last known possible region is Ulbuka, or the far west. we know next to nothing about it, but it supposedly has native american influences.

[Fereydoon]

Lol it's interesting how we never spent this much attention on the mysteries of ROM9 until now...

Good self-hyping lol. Will check it out when I get home later

edit: looking at it from a pc instead of phone.

to FFXIV devs.. THIS is what you call a town, not the sorry excuse that Gridania/Limsa/Ul'dah (tho not so much) is.

Spoiler: show

also.. based on what we see. it doesnt give a very strong clue as to where those places might be if hypothetically they could be found in game.

- it seems safe to rule out the far-east, if only based on the architectural style of the placeholders (if thats what they are).
- it could be Yhoh, of the Gha Naboh Matriarchate in Olzhirya, which is said to be a great nation. the architecture doesn't quite fit what you'd expect from mithras based on kazham and windurst waters, but the climate of the zones does match up somewhat.
- the last known possible region is Ulbuka, or the far west. we know next to nothing about it, but it supposedly has native american influences.

I've always wanted to see the far west the most. IIRC it was both native american influenced, and further in the continent had a higher technological level than the middle lands.

Also I liked Ul'Dah's design a ton, and enjoyed Limsas for what it was, a spire by a rock.

Gridania I hated though, it's worse than Windurst to navigate, and you don't even get the giant flat expanse outside the door, no, you get a maze.

[Spira]

I'm not saying they're not visually impressive, it's just that they dont really come across as nations/city states, which they're supposed to be. They seem more like outposts in comparison. There are no houses or districts.. They just don't feel alive as a city.

Uldah is the most believable of the 3, but the visuals do take you out of immersion. Everything looks new and shiny in this old city. For a place that supposedly has a lot of underground dealings, it's just very "clean".

I suppose my art history background makes me slightly more particular, but so far FFXI has never disappointed wrt this.

[Damane]

oh god I really hope for a new expansion ._.

[Khamsin]

How long has this all been in the dats? Is it a recent addition, or been there a while and no one has looked too much until now?

As far as the zone table, they did respond once to speculation that there was a hard cap at 255, and they said they were fully capable of adjusting it so they can add more beyond that. Which doesn't mean they ever will, but at least it wasn't silence on the topic, or "It doesn't matter because we have no plans to add new zones past 255."

[Fereydoon]

I'm not saying they're not visually impressive, it's just that they dont really come across as nations/city states, which they're supposed to be. They seem more like outposts in comparison. There are no houses or districts.. They just don't feel alive as a city.

Uldah is the most believable of the 3, but the visuals do take you out of immersion. Everything looks new and shiny in this old city. For a place that supposedly has a lot of underground dealings, it's just very "clean".

I suppose my art history background makes me slightly more particular, but so far FFXI has never disappointed wrt this.

That's true, Limsa felt more like a shipping town that was a bit more cultured, but there was also a section we couldn't get to, no? Northern or some such? And wherever the wards were.

I agree with the shiny, that's the engine though, the whole game is just chock full of bloom.

[gairaiden]

well the whole hard cap for zones too could have been in part also to the amount of hd space that can be used by ps2. now that SE added 9GB to that the other day with the update they should have no problem adding new areas and updates for ps2 for a long while.

very interesting pics. certainly can see potential expansion announcement incoming next week. too many red flags signaling it the last few weeks.

[Slycer]

How long has this all been in the dats? Is it a recent addition, or been there a while and no one has looked too much until now?

ROM9 was added relatively recently, maybe two or three updates ago. I think it was empty at first, they must have populated it with some of the test server updates. I can't really imagine that not being a full expansion, it looks like at least five totally unique areas (not textures, most of those look reused, but the physical structures). Maybe they're just reusing old textures as placeholders until they develop the new ones? Even so, "stairs town," or whatever you want to call it, is already looking great.

[Spira]

pretty sure i was the first to notice Rom9. that was in march, and i made it a point to mention it too.

but just looking at the date modified / file sizes alone (and you can tell because zone dats are way bigger), the zones were only added in the May 25th test server update.

gonna try to take a look at these now

edit: derp ewh doesnt work on this laptop because my windows is 64bit and it changes the file path to FFXI and ive no idea to change it
what prog u using kaisha?

[Kyte]

I wouldn't be too surprised if it was the Far West- a lot of the gear that has come out recently has had Native American (albeit not so much North American) influence. They did a similar thing with TOAU- they released Homam and Nashira gear shortly before its release (I think Limbus was added right after the announcement? Had to of been, considering the Blue Mage in the cutscene for obtaining the gear off the Protos). If you look at the 7th notscreenshot, there seems to be a small fenced encampment- sort of like an Indian Reservation.

The city doesn't really look Native-Americanish though, but that could just mean that there's merchants colonized there too.

In my mind, the Far East is out of the question right now- not just because of those screenshots that don't exist, but because I think it would be too hard to develop. The expansion would need to not only include the Far East itself, but include the eastern half of the Aht Urghan Empire, including a second capital city. Considering the state of conflict that exists between Aht Urghan and the Far East, it would also be difficult to explain our involvement (or is that conflict just with the Yagudo there? I was never too clear on that).

[Lordender]

Have to make sure its a proper expansion, would be epic fail if they got everybody's hopes up only to drown you in campaign 2.0 or something similar in nature. A new area is only as cool as the stuff to do in it, something SE still has trouble with these days.