New Vanafest incoming.

[Azuark]

Can someone link me to the info so I can see how these new jobs work? 2 new jobs really makes me want to come back to the game!

[Eurell]

Probably gonna be on the official forums sometime this week. Lots of info that the NA guys still need to translate for us.

[Septimus]

Can someone link me to the info so I can see how these new jobs work? 2 new jobs really makes me want to come back to the game!

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/event/vanafest2012/

Click on the "Event Report" link. Geomancer was on Day 1, Rune Fencer was on Day 2. Red Mages hopes and dreams were crushed on both days.

[fantasticdan]

I skimmed through that and saw this:

Their exceptional magic defense and elemental resistance put them squarely in the tank category, along with paladins and ninjas.

lol

[Lordender]

Don't really understand the point of a new tank, the whole system is pretty limited until they revamp the enmity system, lol.

[Gwynplaine]

I know that they make maps by having big "chunks" of pre-made stuff put together in a different order for different parts of a zone, (or something like that) but all I could think about when I saw the trailer was them cutting up yuhtunga/terrigan/valkurm and re-arranging it, not very exciting for me. Considering the age of FFXI it's understandable, but if they don't add some unique zones later on I don't think I'll be back.

Well as long as you're going there, if you really stop and think about it, you might be shocked how many FFXI zone's are the same "pieces" and same textures cobbled together in different ways.

Of course there's certain areas that are split into two parts, your ronfaure/saurta/gustaberg, and places like yhoator/yuhtunga, molvopolos/riverne, etc.

There's the bland "porcelin-bone" zilart based zones that get a ton of reuse varying very little: lower/middle/upper delkfutts/romave/ve lugannon palace/shrine of ru'avitau/

There's the beach zones: valkurm dunes/cape terrigen/valley of sorrows.

There's the sewer zones: bostinoue obliette/phomiuna aqueducts/sacrarium.

There's the promyvion zones: dem/holla/mea/vahzl/temenos

There's the sea palace zones: huxzoi/ruhmet/apallyon

There's the near east wilderness zones: bhaflau/wajaom/caedarva mire - Yes without the fog, the darkness, the rain, Caedarva is the same zone pieces.

There's the PvP areas: ghelsba outpost/diorama ghelsba, bibiki bay/diorama purogano isle (explicitly reused and untouched with pink lighting)

There's the alzaadal zones: undersea ruins/nyzul/silversea/arrapago/bhaflau/zhayolm remnants.

The list of totally unique zones in FFXI is quite small.

Ideally new zones would be completely new maps. I hope and expect there will be some of that going on. But frankly at this point new maps even with old textures is still a step forward from a total recycling. All I asked was a damn proper expansion with no time-dimension bullshit and I'm satisfied with that for now.

[Kyte]

Look outside. Does what you see outside contain all totally unique elements that aren't present anywhere else? No, no it doesn't. A pine forest in Virginia is going to look pretty close to a pine forest in Georgia. Beaches along the east coast of the U.S. all look pretty similar. I could go on but I think the point has been made.

Motifs exist in the real world, and there's no reason to not expect to see some in a fantasy one.

[Yugl]

If tank is code for "useless", they may be correct about that.

[Tarage]

If tank is code for "useless", they may be correct about that.

Please, the only useless job out of all this is RDM. =P

[Spira]

Unique zones, at least CoP on, usually come at the end of an expansion too. Sea, Sky, WoE. ToAU is the main exception.

Every expansion does seem to retain a zone or region of pretty unique flavor.

For Zilart we have Ru'Aun as the most distinct one, but I do believe there isn't any zone like Zi'Tah even now. The inner palace of Tu'Lia really uses the same cermet bone palette, except that they throw in some new see-through floors and footstep effects.

CoP came with a few. Riverne is unique because of the floating natural islands, and Al'Taieu for its trippy colors and terrain. The collective Promys are unlike anything else in the game, and so are the palace zones.

ToA's main distinctive zones are the Alzadaal Undersea ones, which cover all of Salvage and Nyzul. All 3 beastmen strongholds are fairly unique. Arrapago Reef being the most, and halvung/mount Z being somewhat a rehash of Ifrit's Cauldron.

WotG was mostly a reskin fest. Grauberg and Vunkerl did have some unique elements to them tho you get the feel they were not meant to stand out that much. Walk of Echoes is the most unique feature.

..so basically, lotsa zones are different, but people don't really feel it unless they're totally anomalous. nature is nature, and FFXI eschews the cartoony fantasy feel, so you can imagine why most areas aren't meant to catch your attention. that said, they're still awfully pretty.

[Lordender]

Doesn't really matter to me about the lands "feeling unique" they're going to have to really pull out all the stops. WoTG was a boring shitfest that caused entire LS's to quit. Story was good, but there was crap for endgame LS's to do for a long time, my entire LS had quit over how bad the expansion was. Most people were merit capped in LS, had all the jobs they wanted leveled, sure some leveled dnc/sch but after that it was pretty boring. Months of campaign(at the start) was really bad, ToAU at least had an awesome start, assaults were rewarding, Cerberus was popular to kill, Besieged was popular due to the astral candy.

What matters are the things to do in the new place rather than the look/feel of them to me.

[Savanah]

Agreed, LE. At this point, the main thing that would draw me back to FFXI would be content. The fact that they appear to be putting a serious effort into *new* content impresses me so far, but we'll have to see.

[Slycer]

Even the zones in Aht Urhgan which weren't necessarily a totally new ecosystem still felt new. Bhaflau Thickets/Wajaom Woodlands, for instance -- there are plenty of forest areas in the game, but those felt unique. Similarly with Mount Zhayolm and Halvung vs. Ifrit's Cauldron - similar idea, but felt unique. I'm pretty sure the game has already explored every type of realistic or quasi-realistic area, so outside of fantasy areas like Al'Taieu, sky, etc., all of the outdoor regions they add are going to at least feel somewhat similar to past areas... but I'm fine with that. You can't really have a cohesive world where every single outdoor area is completely different from the rest.

And yeah, if you looked at what they talked about at Vana'fest, basically everything they talked about with Adoulin was content-related. New zones will be there, but they were not at all the focus, and really they only showed two, maybe three actual zones in the trailer, the rest was just concept art. Everything else they talked about was content... new jobs, guilds, the whole enemy lair system, FFXI farmville islands, etc. I guess we'll have to wait to see how endgame finds its way into the new expansion, but I'm sure it will.

Edit: I'm imagining some horrifying area that's like the inside of a giant beehive for the insect lair, that could be pretty cool.

[Spira]

lol i'm gonna call a CN/Boyahda style dungeon for the vermin and plantoid
Some dry/ice cavern for beast/lizard (ordelles/leujaoum)
watery SSG cave for aquan and amorph
and a foresty maze for bird

lol.. randomized of course.. maybe each type can have 2 different terrains or something..

[Chamaan]

I want a big ass Pre-Columbian step pyramid in this new zone. Since the theme is colonial/New World, there's gotta be some Hume Natives there battling the invasive Elf Conquistadors. This expansion appeals to my Aztec bloodline.

[TheDangerousDave]

"Rune fencers will possess versatile abilities like one that cuts the duration of the next enhancing magic spell cast on them by half, but in turn amplifies the spell's effect 1.5 times, and another that erects a barrier that reduces magic damage." I hope that's a trait or a long lasting ability cus that will be annoying to keep rebuffing.

[Squah]

Zones may be rehashes, but each one feels unique to me. For example, Valkurm and Terrigan are "beaches" but they feel totally different. To be fair, Terrigan and VoS are similar, but they are adjacent.

Imo a zone I would like to see is an open area, but with a very low tree canopy. Like if the tall tree cover in Zi'Tah was lowered to around 10-20 feet, giving it a more tropical rainforest-y feel that I don't really get from Yuhtunga. That zone felt populated, with paths cut out of forest for ease of travel. I want one that has been untouched prior to our arrival there. Sort of like exploring the Amazon, per se.

[SephYuyX]

Welp.
Guess I'll have to log back on.

[Deader2818]

Why come back now though if the expansion isn't for another 6 + months? Just going to be doing the same boring shit till then anyways. Rest of the year according to the timeline given us isn't going to be really bringing anything that great.

[Slycer]

I've actually been looking through the content updates over the past few years helping Byrth put something together for the Wiki, and although this last year of content hasn't been so great, it's not nearly as bad as the abysmal year that was 2009. The only things that were added in 2009 were the expansion scenarios, which took all of 10 hours each, SCNMs, which were pretty lol, and ANNMs, which were really lol. That's a terrible year. Even 2008 was pretty crappy, it only seemed decent because it was riding the coattails of a new expansion (WotG), but WotG kind of sucked from the beginning as far as content is concerned, and never really got better. I think there was a four or five month period in there somewhere that people actually cared about campaign, but that's about it. 2011 only sucks in comparison to 2010 because 2010 was the level cap increase and Abyssea, etc. So far this year has been a bit of a dud, but there's at least been an update every month since February, with actual content added in all but one of them. As long as dungeon crawling is fairly cool and involving with good rewards, I think there's enough coming to keep people around until 2013. If you've been out of the game for years, it's going to take at least a couple months to get caught up with levels and gear, so now doesn't seem like a bad time to get back into it.

But yeah, it really does change things knowing that there's an expansion on the horizon. Without that set for 2013 (and I'd have to assume early 2013, like February or March), the rest of this year's planned content would seem like a path to nowhere.