Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Snprphnx]

There's a lot of "wish we'd seens" in Vana'diel.

I wanted to explore the ruins of Tavnazia and battle the beastmen lurking within. See the Mithran homeland. Explore the Far East.

Heck, I still want a FFXI-2 at this point.

careful what you wish for. FFXI-2 may be like FFX-2, and be all female characters playing dress up chasing orbs over vana'diel

[Draylo]

Was the 'far east' really ever intended to be more than backstory/fluff? I can't imagine a japan theme is interesting grounds for an expansion in a fantasy game to japanese players/developers.

Well I would think it would be based on old-world Japan with Samurai's/Ninja's and shit. I don't think many JP players can connect with that directly but I don't know their culture well.

[arus2001]

careful what you wish for. FFXI-2 may be like FFX-2, and be all female characters playing dress up chasing orbs over vana'diel

Irony being it'd play better than XI.

[Sechs]

Far-east being japanese inspired would've been so awesome. I've always missed the lack of a japanese-inspired setting in FFXI, which was a bit ironical considering it's a JP game.
Would've loved to see Olzhyria too QQ, but less than the Far East I guess.

It's really a shame they never felt they wanted to spend more resources in FFXI when it would've still mattered.
Where would FFXI be now if they decided to allocate long-term resources 5 years ago instead of releasing cheap recycled expansions (WotG) which got way too watered down over time?
Real expansions instead of the 3 mini-exps?
Real resources instead of the "let's milk it down fast since game it's gonna die in 1+ years" (which I think was their approach when they initially released Abyssea)
All the things they've been doing to the interface and QoL changes over the last year, done well (and even more) 5+ years ago?


It's like they were the first who didn't believe in FFXI and got surprised people stayed on boat this long and had to change their plans (in a cheap way) to accomodate players.
Such a shame, but it's useless to discuss it now, only leaves a sour taste in your mouth and doesn't change anything.

[Keme]

It looks Like new bestiary is added to the new zone, according to the new chacharoon cheer.

[Sechs]

I think that's just the model they chose to go for "baby fafnir" honestly.
Kinda makes sense that this time it's gonna be the third missing king that you can rear in your mog garden.

[Spira]

probably just a baby wyrm

[Draylo]

It looks like Spyro the dragon.

[Kanriel]

I think if you get started on a "I wish we'd have gone..." in this game you might never stop. They did a great job giving small details about the entire world that we'll never get to see. Which is extremely sad. I absolutely would go for a FFXI-2 if they kept similar mechanics to the battle system but without the shitty coding (getting stuck when trying to move and a spell lands on you and such).

And yeah my TH15 comment was a joke. DW gift would also be shitty for THF. Honestly not sure what would be worthwhile for THF, though, especially in comparison to what OPness some other jobs get. I doubt they have any way to code it but a talent I liked in theory in WoW was a rogue one where certain "normal" attacks would reduce the cooldown on your long cooldown abilities. So maybe like each critical reducing cooldown on an ability by 1s per 1min of cooldown (so 1s for SA/TA, 5s for mug, etc.) But I doubt they could code that in, but it would be really neat.

[Hirronimus]

I've always suspected why they never did a full Far East expansion with lore and culture drawn from Japan's own history is because Japanese people in general are overly protective of their cultural traditions and past.

[Isiolia]

It's really a shame they never felt they wanted to spend more resources in FFXI when it would've still mattered.
Where would FFXI be now if they decided to allocate long-term resources 5 years ago instead of releasing cheap recycled expansions (WotG) which got way too watered down over time?
Real expansions instead of the 3 mini-exps?
Real resources instead of the "let's milk it down fast since game it's gonna die in 1+ years" (which I think was their approach when they initially released Abyssea)
All the things they've been doing to the interface and QoL changes over the last year, done well (and even more) 5+ years ago?

Chances are, at least some of that stemmed from supporting the PS2. Adoulin came not too long after they were finally able to increase the partition size. Also seems like we started getting a lot more in terms of QoL once the console versions got an expiration date. Probably a lot more okay if a feature doesn't work, or doesn't work as well on a platform that won't be supported in half a year anyway.

Flip side of that is wondering how successful the game would have been in Japan (particularly) had it been PC-first.

Larger problem, at least with some of that, was not ensuring that the zones and all they did add were fully useful. Way too many areas that were largely empty outside of people doing missions due to level caps (at the time), or when Campaign was happening, and so on. Essentially, the opposite of what we later saw in Abyssea, where a handful of zones pretty much fueled XP'ing and gearing jobs from 76-99.
It could have been a budget thing there, but again, it seems like all it took were resolving technical issues for the PS2 and we got a new continent for post-99 stuff, more or less alongside ARR. To me that doesn't indicate not believing in XI, or wanting to drive players to XIV, but instead doing what they could under platform constraints.

I'm hoping we see a small island or something instead of just one zone in November. Having a single large-ish outdoor area, a villa or port town a la Kazham/Norg/Selbina/Mhuara/etc, a dungeon area and a battlefield doesn't seem like it'd be asking too much. I think it'd make sense for them to try and drop in more areas that they can copy/paste content into, like new instanced area like those that Adoulin events take place in. Goal should be to make this last area or set of areas something we use the hell out of.

[Fwahm]

They said we'd be getting three new areas with RoV when they announced it, so I wouldn't get my hopes up for more thsn one new area this update.

[Sechs]

The Company choice of wanting to please the PS2 playerbase probably played a big part, along with the Dev kits issues which appearently are bigger than we ever thought (I'm still a bit skeptic on that and not sure if I wanna buy it, but in the end it might be true).
But still, what is in 2015 "more effort than it's worth", when it comes to renewing dev kits etc, would it have been that hard 5 years ago as well? I'm willing to bet it would've been easier/worthier to think about a long term plan back then.

And about the PS2... announcing to drop PS2 support 5 years ago to make the game better (which is part of the long term investment I was talking about), would it really have been a loss for them? Was it a matter of reputations, of keeping promises, of making Sony angry and losing their support for future project? Would they have lost and angered more players than they would've kept/gained?


We'll have to live with the doubt, but I still think that deep beneath, they didn't believe in FFXI as much as they could've, and that the game lasted much longer than they expected/planned it to.

[FaeQueenCory]

I've always suspected why they never did a full Far East expansion with lore and culture drawn from Japan's own history is because Japanese people in general are overly protective of their cultural traditions and past.

Not that that really stopped them.
There's three "Japans" in this game:
Windurst, The Yagudo Theocracy, and The Sacred City of Adoulin.
Windurst+Yagudo are the two sides of WWII Japan.
Windurst being the "modern" Japan, and the Yagudo being the "old" Japan.
Adoulin is strait out of Japan's history: isolationist seafaring nation, opens borders for the first time in centuries, nature-themed.
While GEO, a principle flavor of Adoulin's milieu, is Daoist inspired; the use, standing, presentation, and stylings of it are more Shinto.
You could even view Adoulin's colonization dissent as the constant struggle with westernization (the fact that the police and priests are the big proponents against gives massive credit to this idea).

People need to stop thinking so literal.
That's the great thing about analogies and stories: they're not equivalencies.
Symbolism and metaphor reign and are exposed when you examine the work.

(Could also probably say that there's a bit of Japan in Aht Uhrgan... But... It's not as solid of a connection as Adoulin is. There was never a struggle with the end of isolation, and AU was always more Chinese and Indian than Japanese. Basically no more than everywhere else because Japanese people made the game.)

[Fwahm]

Don't forget Norg.

[Kyte]

Not to mention how much other story-telling media from Japan that draws on Japanese culture and history. I don't really understand how you could possibly come to the conclusion that the Japanese as a whole are at all coy about creating a fantasy setting with Japanese myths.

[scaevola]

Man, am I the only person who's happy they went with Ulbuka, a place we knew nothing and had no preconceived notions about, freeing them to do whatever they wanted without having to hit a series of points for overall continuity?

[arus2001]

FFXI had a good story?

/duck

[dasva]

FFXI had a good story?

/duck

Not sure was too busy smashing the enter key

[Draylo]

FFXI had a good story?

/duck

Not sure if you are serious...