New Vanafest incoming.

Sagacious Sundi · 2012-06-16 17:00

The city doesn't look very Mithran. I'm betting Adoulin Isle or whatever it's called in the Far West. The condom cap exorcists and the Elvaan DRG Campaign freelance would fit the city aesthetically.

Also, for whatever reason, they dislike connecting different expansions, so I always figured Port San d'Oria would connect to the North, Selbina->West, Bastok->Far East, and Windurst->South.

**Spira** · 2012-06-16 17:14

its really hard to say because neither of the town zones appear finished..

prontera itself is currently using a mix of jeuno and dummy textures and stairs town appears to be using sandy's. i didn't realize that was the sandy church lol.
I'm guessing this is just how they build their zones.. they use a somewhat close template and that swap it out for an original set that uses similar shape, designs or placement area.

the map director could have planned the city in advance but hadn't received the new texture set from graphic team. instead of waiting until it arrives they could just substitute with similar pieces and then swap em later before proceeding with more touch-up work and so on. thats what i think they do anyway.

**Kaisha** · 2012-06-16 17:20

It kinda makes me wish they'd do a more indepth look at building zones in XI. We had that one article from years ago that barely touched it. From these dats it's pretty obvious they work out using basic chunks (which seems to be how FFXI displays its terrain, in large modelled chunks at a time), and then slowly detailing each one individually as seen fit. Buildings and such I'm assuming are props imported into the zone, rather than being built 'into' the zone. Makes sense to start rough, get a feel for the scale of the zone is and get the general layout done before you start asking your artists what precisely your vision is for the assets that'll replace the placeholders.

Flatland seems to be how they start off some zones at any rate. Just a bunch of square tiles for the terrain and extracting/extruding from there as they figure out what they want for the general layout, or in the case of the Beaucedine w/ Waterfalls zone, using big prefab chunks and then detailing from there to hide that fact, unlike XIV's efforts at trying to do the same...

This kind of shit is very interesting to me. Hardly any game developers actually describe their workflow for games' with custom engines like XI. Concept art doesn't do it any justice how many hours get put into these areas.

**detlef** · 2012-06-16 18:01

The waterfall zone reminds me of Secret of Mana.

**Kaisha** · 2012-06-16 18:23

SE file any new trademarks btw? I can't navigate that site that shows 'em worth a shit.

**Elestial** · 2012-06-16 18:32

Originally Posted by Kaisha

SE file any new trademarks btw? I can't navigate that site that shows 'em worth a shit.

I had just been searching for a BG post I remember seeing a while back about something SE had trademarked, and somebody had speculated that it could be a new expansion name. I can't seem to find the post, though. Searching "trademark" or "copyright" doesn't narrow things down at all.

Edit: Found the post, but Eurell beat me to it

**vadre** · 2012-06-16 18:35

I believe the last trademark people speculated on was 'A Realm Reborn', which seems like to be related to FFXIV 2.0 (I think the legacy site hints at it, and theyve recently added a quest to the game called 'A relic reborn' which seems to be a sly pointer at the future title).

I'll be really tempted to return to the game for a bit if this is a full blown expansion, ToAU's release was close to if not my favourite time in an MMO.

**Eurell** · 2012-06-16 18:42

"Blood of Chaos" earlier this year. Not sure if this has been revealed as a game yet or anything, but would fit the naming scheme of expansions.

**Greyman** · 2012-06-16 18:56

Originally Posted by Eurell

"Blood of Chaos" earlier this year. Not sure if this has been revealed as a game yet or anything, but would fit the naming scheme of expansions.

I'm having flashbacks to when "Blood of Bahamut" appeared.

**Kaisha** · 2012-06-16 19:50

Figured the damn site out (other than finding out how to link it up). Seems to be nothing new, with the most recent entries still being A Realm Reborn and Blood of Chaos. Neither still don't feel to me like they'd fit as an expansion pack name for XI.

I still want them to localize Blood of Bahamut at any rate. Game looked like fun.

For 11 zone dats though, it's got to be an expansion. That's roughly how many explorable zones ToA came with initially if you ignore Salvage and the BC/Assault area.

**Qeomash** · 2012-06-16 20:06

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-g5uu9449bc...E/s1600/3b.jpg

If not for the obvious water bridge/dock/whatever in one of the other pictures, I would have pegged this as Tavnazia, on one of the sides of the rock arch. The mansion at the top could've been the cathedral.

**Apelila** · 2012-06-16 23:27

Mother fucker if this is Tavnazia .... fuck. Fuck cubed, that is Fuck³.

It would be the longest troll if for what will likely be the last expansion to be what we've all wanted since the god damned opening movie.

**Tsuneo** · 2012-06-16 23:58

They're not identical, but that waterfall map is definitely based on glacier. The ridge in foreground is identical for both of these pictures;however that seems to be all that's the same for that picture.

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/6281/aimimg9.png

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/6461/aimimgd.png

The similarities for this next set are pretty obvious.

http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/795/aimimgf.png

http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/2439/aimimg11.png

That being said, it seems that new map only used elements of glacier because it's not even close to the same layout as glacier.

**Tarage** · 2012-06-17 00:30

And then SE scraps it because the English players found out about it and made the Japanese players mad they didn't find it first.

**Guitarman** · 2012-06-17 01:20

Qeomash beat me to it; I'm guessing Tavnazia. Wasn't it said at one point they would like to revisit Tenzen's homeland or something along those lines? He was a pretty popular character during CoP, and alot lore-wise could be done with his blade.

**Suteru** · 2012-06-17 01:28

Aren't those crystalized cliffs a remnant of the explosion that pushed Al'Taieu out of our realm? So that zone would most likely be along the northern sea where it used to be. Unless the cliffs are just a place holder.

**Septimus** · 2012-06-17 01:35

Originally Posted by Tarage

And then SE scraps it because the English players found out about it and made the Japanese players mad they didn't find it first.

There is no way the Devs put it in there without them wanting us to find the zones, they know that we go though dats with a fine-tooth comb. If anything, they are probably surprised that it would take us over 2 weeks to sniff them out.

But it is odd that no one thought to look at them for so long, news like this would get out quickly.

**Spira** · 2012-06-17 02:04

haha you might be right about that.. but it also makes you wonder...
we've consistently sniffed out most if not all the new stuff each update, you'd think if the devs really wanted it to be a surprise they'd have decided to keep it much more under wraps than this?

granted it seems pretty clear a lot of this stuff is WIP, its existence alone is enough to foreshadow any kind of future announcement they make (especially at vanafest).

it seems this news is spreading like wildfire lol. its pretty much everywhere now. ffxiah, guildwork, petfoodalpha, somethingawful (lol), fb, twitter and the usual japanese blogs / bbs. (edit: everywhere except the OF XD )
if this isn't something SE had foreseen i just hope they don't throw a C&D at me lol.

the JP seem a lot more optimistic tho.. most think its likely a new disc (expansion), whereas the NA side appear to be slightly more lukewarm / skeptical lol.

speculation i've seen seem to favor these 3 possibilities..

1) mithran southern lands (olzhirya / tsahya)
2) far west (ulbuka / adoulin isle)
3) tavnazia

**Damane** · 2012-06-17 02:47

expansion seems more and more likely to me. I mean whats the reason behind all this UI revamps we got lately, and the expanding of the PS2 harddrive, zone limit abolishement etc. and now those new .dats zones? I think they are prerparing for a new expansion.

I mean you dont put development time into a new UI/icons whatever, when your old playerbase was ok with the old one. Unless you want to attract some new players on maybe a new platform that has higher resolution?

**Tarage** · 2012-06-17 04:23

Originally Posted by Septimus

There is no way the Devs put it in there without them wanting us to find the zones, they know that we go though dats with a fine-tooth comb. If anything, they are probably surprised that it would take us over 2 weeks to sniff them out.

But it is odd that no one thought to look at them for so long, news like this would get out quickly.

See, you put far too much faith in developers.

I'm a developer, and I can't even tell you how many times I've committed something I shouldn't have to a repository. It happens to everyone. If anything, the 'here are the files to upload for the latest patch' is probably nothing more than another branch of their repository for the game. One dev accidentally includes an incomplete build of some files, boom, they wind up shipping.

Thread: New Vanafest incoming.

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