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    FFXIV Tokyo Fan Fest Translations

    Been a long time since I've translated anything...work's been ridiculous the past six weeks and will continue to be for the next month or so, but I felt like checking in on some of the details from the Tokyo Fan Fest which happened a few weeks ago (edit: and then I spent way too freaking long translating every article that was posted, heh). In this post and the following several posts, I've translated summaries and interview transcripts garnered from a few articles on the Game Watch site written about the Fan Festival 2014 event that happened in Tokyo on December 20 and 21. All original Japanese language sources are linked at the top of each post.

    Post #1: Summary of Keynote Announcements (all things Heavensward)
    Post #2: Developer Panel: Part 1 (item design), The Minion Alliance
    Post #3: Developer Panel: Part 2 (creation of ninja)
    Post #4: "Welcome to Naoki's Room" (interesting Q&A session between fans and Yoshida)
    Post #5: Producer Letter LIVE XIX (focused primarily on patch 2.5 details), Developer's Corner with Soken (Q&A about FFXIV sound design)
    Post #6: Japanese Fan Festival Summary (general overview of the event), Closing Interview with Yoshida

    As stated above, for all articles below - original copy is from Game Watch (with occasional input from Famitsu in cases where the transcriptions or summaries from Game Watch weren't clear), images are also from Game Watch.
    Translations are mine, so any inconsistencies between the original copy and the translation are on me.

    -----

    Source: http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs...20_681289.html

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    Keynote - Heavensward Announcements

    The Latest Information about Final Fantasy XIV Heavensward from FFXIV Fan Festival
    New race Au Ra, new jobs astrologian and machinist, and new raid Alexander are among the highlights.

    The latest information about Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward was released during the keynote presentation at the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival Tokyo 2014, currently being held at the Big Sight in Tokyo.

    The keynote presentation was made by Naoki Yoshida, producer and director of Final Fantasy XIV, who also served as the keynote speaker at the previous two fan festivals. He started by showing off a digest trailer summarizing the content that was already discussed.

    Yoshida said that for Heavensward, the graphics style is darker and worn compared to the brighter field areas in Eorzea. The previously announced highlights were shown at a quick pace - the new story will begin with the Dragonsong War. For the first time in four years, counting the original FFXIV, the level cap will finally be raised to level 60. There will be new dungeons and raids, new equipment, new beast tribes, new primals, and flying mounts.

    Announced for the first time at the Tokyo Fan Festival was the composer of the main theme of Heavensward - Nobuo Uematsu. Uematsu was selected to follow-up his original composition "Answers," the main theme of Final Fantasy XIV. In a pre-recorded video message, Uematsu appeared with his face swollen from a toothache. The main theme of Heavensward is a "slow composition with primarily piano, and will end on a good note so please look forward to it."

    From here on out came new announcements. First, the sixth playable race, Au Ra, was announced with a trailer. This race is distinct with the horns on its head and hardened scales on some parts of their skin. According to Yoshida, many different patterns and shapes were prepared for the faces, so distinct new looks can be created. Men have a strong character from lean to burly physiques, while women have a mysterious beauty to them.

    The looks have roots from Doma on the Othard continent, where Yugiri's tribe comes from in the main scenario of A Realm Reborn. It seems that Yugiri's face will be revealed in patch 2.5. The Au Ra male character was shown as a dark knight, and it was a pretty good match to the face patterns available. Yoshida said that playing dark knight as Au Ra looks pretty good as they tank and fight using the forces of dark magic.






    After that, it was announced that Alexander will be the new raid dungeon to follow the Coils of Bahamut which came to an end with patch 2.4. Since Alexander is a familiar summon in the Final Fantasy series, groans were heard from across the crowd. According to Yoshida, while the content is meant to be played after completing the main scenario of Heavensward, you'll probably be able to enter a bit earlier than that. He did not mention the specific location, but he said that its presence would be visible from the field areas.

    Speaking of the setting, we were told that the primal Alexander is an unusual one who was summoned by the Goblin beast tribe and assembled from debris. Warriors of Light will gradually go deeper and deeper into the mechanical beast. The reasons behind the summoning of the primal will be revealed in the main scenario of Heavensward.

    As far as the specifications of the Alexander raid were concerned, two modes will be provided: a normal difficulty and a hard difficulty. Normal difficulty is scaled to be easier than the Coils of Bahamut, specifically mentioned to be about the same as the Binding Coil after application of the echo buff, while hard difficulty will be more difficult than the Coils of Bahamut. Yoshida mentioned that not enough players were participating in the Final Coil of Bahamut, so by creating a "normal" version, everyone should be able to participate.




    Next, Yoshida reviewed the long-anticipated new jobs to be implemented. "You can't make a party with only tanks," he said, "you'll also need support." From here, the talk suddenly cut to video. This was probably unintentional because it seemed like he intended to talk first before the video.

    "The second new job of 'Heavensward' will be Astrologian," Yoshida said with a laugh, "and it doesn't shoot guns," quelling the rumors that the second new job would be a gun wielder. As a healer, the main weapon used is the Star Globe, which will allow recovery of allies using the power of the stars. It will normally be folded up compactly on the character's back, but when the stance is changed, the astrolabe will emerge from their hand. Their abilities are card-based, like Corsair from Final Fantasy XI, and it seems like a variety of support effects can be brought to the battlefield by drawing from the constellation-based divining deck. The astrologian's design was shown with the mysterious female Au Ra, with healing animations different from those used for White Mage and Scholar.




    At this point, Yoshida finally announced details about a Collector's Edition of Heavensward. So far it was only announced that a Collector's Edition would be released with the only other detail known that there would be some kind of figure along with the game. The collector's edition of Heavensward will have artwork featuring illustrations of the Dragonsong War from Yoshitaka Amano decorating the package, and it will come in a large box which contains a figure of the flying dragon mount. In addition to the game software, there will also be an art book and a bonus video disc. Additionally, there will be an exclusive in-game griffin mount, a helm reminiscent of the dark knight Cecil's helm from Final Fantasy IV, and a wind-up Kain minion. A digital version of the collector's edition will also be available for gamers who aren't interested in the physical exclusives.

    The previously announced Spring 2015 was mentioned again for the release date, and it seems that development has been moving along at a rapid pace in parallel with the patch 2.5 series.




    At this point, the keynote was about to end, when a familiar voice was heard from backstage. Square Enix President Yosuke Matsuda, nicknamed "Uncle Headshot," took the stage with a rifle in his right hand. The third new job was then unveiled as a surprise.




    The third job is a firearm-wielding DPS called Machinist, with no corresponding class. Unlike Corsair from FFXI, it will be exclusively a gunner. In battle, it will be a physical ranged attacker which can manipulate the strength of its firearm using attachments and deploy mechanical turret-type field installations.


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    Source: http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs...21_681340.html

    _____

    The large-scale offline event for A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV – “Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival Tokyo 2014” was held at the Big Sight in Tokyo.

    The staff behind the events collaborated to come up with a number of stage events which drew from a variety of guests to entertain the fans. In this article, we’ll be summarizing the first chat with Yoshi-P [“Welcome to Naoki’s Room Part 1”] and Part 1 of the Developers’ Panel which were held on the first day.

    Developer Panel: Part 1

    In Part 1 of the Developers’ Panel, Yosuke Hayashi talked about the development process for things like adding equipment. Also, some of the mysteries of the Minion Alliance which has often been a hot topic at the Producer Letters LIVE were unraveled.

    In “Welcome to Naoki’s Room,” participants were able to ask a variety of questions directly to Yoshida within a time limit.

    How Allagan Equipment Was Developed

    In the Developer Panel Part 1 which took place on the first day, the talk was from Mochizuki from the community team and his guest Yosuke Hayashi, lead planner from the item team. Although he was quite nervous in front of such a large group of fans, he started off by talking about items that appear in A Realm Reborn, using equipment from the Binding Coil of Bahamut as an example.




    In creating items, the first step is to know the schedule of the version updates. Once the road map for content implementation is set, he checks whether the content requires item rewards as part of the plan for implementation. Then, the practicality of the cost for designers to create the models for the new armor and weapons needs to be determined to decide how items are implemented into content. For example, the hard Ifrit battle has weapons, but the Binding Coil of Bahamut has full outfits of gear.




    “While ideally there would be unique graphics for all content, since there isn’t infinite funding for the designers, our focus is to add new graphics for end-game content as much as possible. You can see the cost trade-off, for example, when black mages and white mages have armor that is the same model with color swaps.”

    On the game design side, it’s desirable to optimize the number of models added in a single patch to limit the amount of work to be done, so in some cases they look to see if items can be recycled from other titles. That said, in comparison with the original FFXIV, there have already been three to four times more new items created.

    Once the schedule is set for item implementation, they begin to look at the design itself. In the Coils of Bahamut, the rough basis for the design of Allagan equipment came from the general look inside the satellite Dalamud, since it was supposed to be the architectural style of the ancient empire of the Allag. The Allagan Tomestones themselves have a similar design from the dungeon.




    The basic structure of the dungeon was that it was in the ancient Allagan style, with geometric designs like blue patterns on a cube, so this style was incorporated into the weapons that were created.




    In the Final Coil, the design of the weapons were made based on the image of Bahamut himself.




    For gear which is exchanged for Allagan Tomestones of Soldiery, Hayashi said that the designs were created by having the design team draw concepts for armor which would have been crafted by the master crafter Gerolt if he made original equipment. Mochizuki asked Hayashi about the asymmetry in the dragoon helm, and Hayashi mentioned that maybe Gerolt was trying to be original.

    “Regarding those wings, since we had different opinions about keepings things symmetric, we talked with Kazuya Takahashi’s art team one day to determine whether we want to add those types of things.” However, that may not have been something that Gerolt would have made himself.

    Although items are made based on the advance plans for the schedule, since things change on a day-to-day basis, some items have to be made more quickly. For example, the new artifact equipment which was prepared for introduction in the keynote for Heavensward was prepared on a quicker timeline. "Originally, we planned to develop everything together so that it would be ready for implementation with the expansion pack, but since we had these kind of announcements to make, they were developed on a one-off basis."

    [In an off-topic note, Mochizuki also asked Hayashi about new glamour equipment for in-game events. The popularity of headgear and minions was found to be about the same in a questionnaire to the venue and live viewers.]

    Next, the name of the item and its attributes are determined. The item’s attributes are determined based on instructions received from the battle team. After creating temporary names, the names for Japanese and English are finalized, which then go to the localization teams to come up with the translations for German, French, and Chinese.

    Then, a unique icon is created for the item. About 400 new icons need to be created for every patch, so the UI designers struggle with this. There were some ideas to have general purpose marks, but the team was committed to push forward with the icons since that would have been a downgrade from the original FFXIV. Sound effects are prepared by Soken and the sound team staff. In some cases, a variety of effects are given to the same model, such as for Zodiac weapons.

    Finally, he announced “Bunny Girl” equipment which would be implemented in patch 2.5. There were two types of bunnies shown, with screenshots shown of player characters with the armor equipped, and a new hairstyle announced by surprise.




    Secrets of the “Minion Alliance” Revealed!

    On the development team of A Realm Reborn, there is a mysterious group with an affinity for minions which came together and formed the “Minion Alliance” beyond the framework of their respective teams. Hayashi himself is actually a member of the group and at the time of this story he already has about 50 that he’s prepared.

    Since the minion alliance is not an officially approved organization, they communicate through a dedicated mailing list. Some members of the team are involved with designing the minions outside of work. Some core team members are also members of the alliance. Even minor details that are developed for A Realm Reborn are play tested by Yoshida, but for the minion alliance specifically, he has no part in confirmation.

    Colibri
    Although the colibri minion was actually completed by patch 2.2, it wasn’t implemented until patch 2.4 because they wanted to have it as a reward from the hard mode of Sastasha.

    Enkidu
    Enkidu, who appears with Gilgamesh, was able to be implemented directly as a minion. When I was initially shown the green chicken, I was told that we would use it as a minion, but we decided to postpone it since we thought it might be better to put in place later to increase activity for that battle. Enkidu is scheduled to be implemented in the future.

    Zu Chick
    We plan to add a zu chick minion to the boss of Pharos Sirius, but we’re not yet satisfied with it. We’re expecting to implement it around patch 2.5.

    Didn’t Know about the Minion Guide
    The minion guide was referred to as the “notebook” during its development. The UI team prepared the Minion Guide, and the Minion Alliance members didn’t even know it existed until it was added in a patch.

    The Length of Nanamo’s Neck
    He seemed especially enthusiastic about how cute the Nanamo minion is. It took about three days of discussion to determine the final length of her neck to the millimeter.

    Cats and Dogs
    The wolf puppy and tiny coeurl were decided to be added as quest rewards as far back as the beta test. Originally they were unrelated, but as people have noticed they like to fight with each other. As a result, I asked the scenario team if they could incorporate a bit of that into the story of the two quests.

    Staff Wants to Implement a Dung Beetle
    A lot of minions are characters from FF games or monster models, but some have gone in totally different directions such as the Blue Bird, pillows, or the Tiny Tapir. A Dung Beetle was another one that some staff members had adamantly pushed for at one time.

    We might actually add a poodle…
    The designers of the Fat Cat also pushed for its implementation since there has already been a Fat Chocobo implemented and there are fat cats in the world, so why not? We’re also debating about whether or not a poodle might be something people would like to have.

    Hmm… these minions.
    Apparently to be implemented in patch 2.5 will be minions of the detectives. It will be a pair of the two of them (Hildibrand and Nashu).


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    Source: http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs...21_681351.html

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    Developer Panel: Part 2

    The second day of the Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival 2014 Tokyo began with the 19th producer letter LIVE and various stage events. In this article, we summarize the Developer Panel Part 2 discussion.

    The guests for this panel were lead designer Takeo Suzuki and assistant director Hiroshi Takai. Both of them are core members from the team going back to the Square era. The panel was facilitated by Mocchi from the community team.

    The theme of the discussion was the new job, Ninja, which was introduced as a centerpiece of the content in patch 2.4. They discussed the order of the processes which led to the implementation of Ninja into the game. A series of working art from the development was published. Suzuki described the content while going through the development documents while Takai added in some commentary from time to time.




    Surprisingly, the timeline for the Ninja goes all the way back to July of 2013, before A Realm Reborn was released and during its initial beta testing. Even though A Realm Reborn hadn’t been released, Yoshida still wanted to start working on a new class and new job which would be later added in a patch, so the art team began some rough artwork to go along with those plans.

    Takai mentioned that this isn’t just limited to jobs like Ninja, but a lot of new content often starts with artwork, like ninja AF, relic armor, and PvP equipment. At this point, Suzuki showed some rough sketches of ninja AF from that time. Although the designs were not far off from the one that was implemented, there is no samurai sword carried on the back, and there were different variations of shuriken. Takai said with a laugh that he was glad those illustrations actually got to see the light of day. There’s a lot of artwork like that which needs to be created for important equipment such as AF, so the art team has an especially large burden in those cases.




    After the art was finalized, the regulations were determined. Regulations are things like job settings, whether or how weapons are held on the character, how the character runs, etc. Then the type of weapons or equipment are determined. On top of all that, the art group then has to make designs based on these regulations.
    According to Takai, when looking back on it, going through and checking the operation of the equipment was a time-consuming task. It’s easy to casually say that you want to use a certain item, but from the designer’s perspective, it’s not that simple.




    After the regulations are finalized, they move on to basic operation. Here they showed a video of the prototype which solidified how the movement of ninja would look. Once this was all determined, they moved into producing all of the different weapons. This was around October 2013, so this had all been completed in about three months’ time.




    Then, they entered a phase where they had to work on content with other teams like the battle group and scenario team. The battle group would come up with certain actions, and the team would come up with the corresponding form in response to those instructions, but this was a time-consuming task.
    Since it is Ninja, the art team had to work on Ninjutsu and make a prediction as to whether the job would use shuriken or makibishi.

    After finishing the coordination with other departments, one of the tasks that remained before entering full scale production was recording the motion capture. Sometimes this is performed by Square Enix employees, such as for normal walking animations, but for ninja actions, a professional actor was hired for the acrobatics. By the way, Suzuki has previous animation experience with motion capture that was performed with The Bouncer and Final Fantasy XII. The recorded data is passed along to the animation group to translate into the in-game animation.




    The hardest animation was, surprisingly, the one that plays when you fail at Ninjutsu. The first thought of the art team was like falling in a tub, but this was too playful. They also thought of something like the watering can motion from gardening. Finally, the planning team settled on Mysidian Rabbit to be displayed on the character’s head.

    The other thing they talked about was the “final attack” move. With that move, you would jump onto the enemy’s head with a ninja-like attack, and this action was shown at E3 where it became a hot topic. To go along with this, a new parameter had to be set for monsters called “on head,” and they began to set this parameter for all monsters. Takai mentioned that he had no good memories of the final attack, and explained why. Although it was exciting for the art staff, with the initial specifications of the attack, the enemy’s brain was sprinkled about. This was in conflict with the game’s CERO rating, so ultimately it had to be modified.




    To have something to announce at E3 in June of 2014, the timing for the new class and new job was set to be a patch, and a trailer for rogue and ninja was shown at E3. According to Takai, when this trailer was created, they still weren’t really sure what to do with the class at that time, but they were also struggling to create material for publicity. In response to this, Suzuki mentioned that with the Heavensward announcements that took place the day before, the art team was still working on what Alexander would look like inside. Takai said that you can do anything with art, but it’s his job to determine what’s actually plausible to develop based on the available resources.

    During all of this, a lot of things were going on in the background simultaneously – class and job settings, development of the ninja hideout and rogue’s guild, etc. Class and job quests were also created at the same time. The art team which was working on the ninja hideout and rogue’s guild originally had a pretty flashy idea in mind for a ninja guild, but ultimately after the scenario team had come up with a quieter setting, it was decided that it should be more of a hidden away base, considerably different from the original design.




    Incidentally, since it wasn’t possible to increase the number or size of field areas, the hideout had to be placed somewhere in the current field areas, with the only condition being “somewhere around Limsa Lominsa,” so they were running around looking for vacant area. Finding a location was even harder than it was for the beast tribe daily quests.




    For class and job quests, the cutscene team was responsible for taking the text-based plot from the event planning team and determining which parts of it would be turned into cutscenes. For ninja, this included a special cutscene with The Crow which made full use of motion capture.

    After all that, ninja was finally finished. According to Takai, even in the final phase, it’s still possible that things change, such as how ninja was originally assumed to be STR-based as a melee attacker, but the battle group ultimately decided that it should be DEX-based and it was difficult to respond to.

    Takai summarized by looking back at the discussion at London, saying that he was glad to be involved with the development of ninja and that he will look back on it nostalgically, and hoping that everyone enjoys ninja. Suzuki mentioned that although users find new classes and jobs to be fun, they are challenging to developers, and this challenge will be even greater with three new jobs in 3.0. He said he would do his best to deliver on everyone’s high expectations and looks forward to the feedback once 3.0 is released.

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    -----

    Welcome to Naoki’s Room

    Yoshida received a variety of questions and revealed some new information about patch 2.5

    In “Welcome to Naoki’s Room, Part 1” fans were able to ask questions freely to Yoshida within a time limit. This is the second time this type of event has been held with Yoshida. A total of 11 people were selected from among the participants who came to the venue in advance that day to challenge Yoshida with their questions.
    Each person was allowed two minutes to chat with Yoshida. Whether Yoshida or the questioner “won” was determined by survey at the venue and on the live Nico stream, and a T-Shirt was presented to the winners while Yoshida bowed to them.

    Can you acquire free company points in instanced dungeons right now? It doesn’t look like they accumulate.

    Yoshida: It would be difficult to calculate FC points in instanced dungeons because they are across servers, so you don’t earn credits at the moment. There will be new FC features in patch 2.5 like the aetherial wheel and the basement workshops, but we will try to add the points for instanced dungeons.


    The final form Kaiser Knuckles Zodiac weapon for monk is surely strong because of the spikes, but is there any way you can make the shape match fists a bit more?

    Yoshida:Since we want to keep clear of interference with equipment with cuffs, we’ve steered more towards having shapes which are attached to and past the hands. We’ve received a lot of requests for the designs… I would like to create a weapon that more closely matches the form of hands, but we would have to allow some degree of interference with the geometry.


    Compared to other secondary stats, skill speed feels like it is less important. Wouldn’t it be more usable if it was improved a bit?

    Yoshida: I understand the usefulness of skill speed, but as skill speed continues to increase and the tempo of the game gets faster, we have to be cautious since the DPS is likely to strengthen beyond what we’re expecting. Service has been going on for a year now, and I think the usefulness of skill speed is going up little by little. I will be talking more about this after the release of 3.0.


    Since the Striking Dummies have, as an example, about 100,000 HP, and you can see how much damage you’ve done, is there any way that people can see their DPS in the game?


    Yoshida: We don’t want to add something where a whole party can see each person’s DPS. It’s taking a while, but when we add the Training Hall, we hope to include this. There will be a particular training challenge which will work on maximizing DPS, and I think this will be in patch 3.1.


    You’ve said that the drop rate of horses from primals went up significantly, but it doesn’t see much different than before.

    Yoshida: It was doubled, but the original drop rate was already low, so I’d like to adjust this further. There will be something unique you can obtain in patch 2.5 once you’ve obtained all the primal horses, so I think people will be more encouraged to gather up the primal horses if we make them more easily obtainable.


    Zodiac Weapon quests are becoming boring since they just have players repeating existing content. It would be cool if there was something at the end like defeating a dedicated boss, where that boss could be used as a way to set it apart, something like Hydra or Dhorme Khimaira from earlier.

    Yoshida: Although the concept for Zodiac Weapons is that they would approach the strongest equipment in the game, they were meant to require perseverance to obtain. That said, we could still have a boss to clear as one of the requirements since the story involves many aspects. We will definitely take this into consideration.


    I love the history of the Final Fantasy series, and I’m enjoying my first opportunity to now enjoy it online. However, the order for the introduction is “Doga and Unei,” and they are referred to as “Unei and Doga” in a story quest. I think when a CD is finally issued from Soken, the track title will be “Doga and Unei,” so surely you won’t allow this incongruity?

    Yoshida: I’ll make sure to slip in a fix for this.


    With the seasonal events going on right now, why are there no dedicated event NPCs in the subdivisions?

    Yoshida: That was certainly a mistake, so I’ll try to get that fixed as soon as possible.


    When playing as white mage, although Benediction is supposed to be instant, there are some situations where you use it and the tank dies anyway. Can you make it so the effect isn't applied to the user if the target is KO'ed first?

    Yoshida: When you activate Benediction without a target, it gets expended on the player. So you may not be aware of it, but I think there are some cases for which this can actually be helpful, for example if you are solo doing an Alexandrite map and casting Holy, you can quickly use Benediction when you need to heal yourself, so I don’t want to change the specification too much since we may unintentionally make some things harder. So there are some situations where players may purposefully want it to target themselves. Also, it would be difficult to change the specification of the ability so that it can't be used when not in battle, since that could also reduce some of its utility. We just want it to be something to be used by healers at any time when tanks may get hit by a strong attack or miss a buff.


    I would very much like to experience the Eternal Bond. However, rather than through party recruiting, I’d like to nurture a friendship with someone through adventuring together. You should come up with events that encourage this type of relationship.

    Yoshida:Like something specifically for matchmaking? I’m sure the community team can come up with something.


    There are currently four different minions you can purchase from optional services, but if you buy just those for all characters on an account, it’s around the same as 9 months of billing for playing. Will you have something like a cheaper plan for people who want to buy the minions across their account’s characters?

    Yoshida: We already have things where the account is treated like one unit, so we’ll consider this... I think it would have been difficult otherwise. The expensive mounts are already treated as account units.

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    -----

    Producer Letter LIVE XIX

    The large-scale offline event for A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV – “Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival Tokyo 2014” was held at the Big Sight in Tokyo. As the opening event of the second day, Naoki Yoshida, producer and director of A Realm Reborn, held the 19th Producer Letter Live, revealing a bunch of new details about the next large-scale update to the game, patch 2.5.

    Here, the title and logo of patch 2.5, "Before the Fall," were announced. Beyond that, they introduced images of some of the content of the patch which was previously only discussed verbally. Additionally, a video-comparison of the long-awaited DirectX 11 version was introduced.

    In the "developer's corner," sound director Masayoshi Soken appeared as the special guest. In this article, we introduce some of the information from patch 2.5 as discussed in the Producer Letter Live.


    Video Introduction of Patch 2.5 Content

    The title of patch 2.5, "Beacons of Hope" (English: Before the Fall), was announced. The Meteor mark was brought back in the logo for the first time since 2.0, and a meaningful Holy Grail appears in the background. From the English title, "Before the Fall," we get the feeling that this will culminate in a story climax leading up to the story of Heavensward. Patch 2.5 is going to be implemented in three parts - Parts 1 and 2, and patch 2.51.



    The new dungeon "The Keeper of the Lake" will play an important role in the story of Part 1 of Before the Fall. The object is to penetrate a tower in Mor Dhona.



    Additionally, Wanderer's Palace and Amdapor Keep will be brought back as hard dungeons. We had a quick glimpse of the tonberries who will be returning in Wanderer's Palace (Hard). Compared to other instanced dungeons, Amdapor Keep (Hard) will have a different pacing and see the return of not one, but four Demon Walls.





    Other new content will include "The World of Darkness" (the final chapter of Crystal Tower storyline), the primal battle against Odin at Urth's Fount, and a hard version of the Gilgamesh battle. Additionally, there seems to be at least one other piece of battle content to be implemented which hasn't yet been announced.

    Also to be introduced will be a new rule set for Frontline using the existing battlefield, as well as addition of Frontline to Duty Roulette with the corresponding daily bonus and new achievements. For the housing system, a new play element will be added with the Aetherial Wheel, and the conclusion (for now?) of the Hildibrand storyline will be in patch 2.5 as well. Whether or not Hildibrand will show up in the future will depend on player demand. New recipes will also be added for crafters, including weapons which can be crafted using materials dropped from Crystal Tower.

    In part 1, about 1/3 of the main story of patch 2.5 will be added. The story will be divided into two parts, with the likely intent to create a smooth transition and reduce the waiting time between the story's climax and the expansion pack's release.




    In patch 2.51, which will be implemented between Parts 1 and 2, Gold Saucer will be added along with the next step in the Saga of the Zodiac Weapons. Finally, in Part 2 of patch 2.5, the remainder of the main story will be implemented along with a mysterious content tentatively referred to as "Ishgard Battle."


    Crystal Tower

    For the final chapter of Crystal Tower, the "World of Darkness," locations inside the area were shown and the BGM was previewed.



    In Syrcus Tower, materials to strengthen Soldiery tomestone equipment could be received, but the weekly restriction on receiving these items was on the same flag as the restriction to receive equipment, so many people chose to not take the equipment drops. Yoshida admitted this was a failure on their part, so this time, the flag for Poetics equipment upgrade items will be a separate weekly restriction.



    Additionally, by using materials dropped in Crystal Tower, new Crystal Tower weapons can be created by crafters, such as Phlegethon's sword.




    Gold Saucer

    The new Manderville Gold Saucer content to be implemented in patch 2.51 was introduced via video. The main components of Gold Saucer will be Triple Triad and Chocobo Racing, but a variety of minigames can be enjoyed at this location. In response to a question about whether there would be billing aspects associated with the Gold Saucer, the response was that since A Realm Reborn serves the global community, cash will not be involved since it could then be considered an online casino, so it should be considered more of a game center.

    In Gold Saucer, games will be played with a special currency known as Manderville Gold Saucer points. Although it's possible to buy up to 2000 points using gil, any more than that will need to be earned with the mini-games at the location. The currency is not marketable and cannot be traded. Since there is no item that can be received for as few as 2000 points, everyone will need to play some games in order to accumulate more points. Yoshida's idea behind this was to make the content enjoyable for all players so that they could build up points over time without having to think about pouring large amounts of gil into it.



    For the Chocobo Racing game inside, chocobos will be raised separately from the current Chocobo companions. Racing chocobos have stats such as Stamina and Speed which can be allocated by players. Also, it's possible to mate a fully raised retired chocobo with another chocobo to hatch new chicks - by doing so, you'll be able to make the best racing chocobos.

    The other main game is the "Triple Triad" card game which was well-received in Final Fantasy VIII. Although only NPC opponents were playable in Final Fantasy VIII, in A Realm Reborn, players will be able to play against each other. At first, about 80 cards will be implemented which can be received from NPCs around the game. By defeating the NPC, you can receive a card. NPCs who have cards will be marked with special icons, but apparently there will also be some hidden cards to be found from unmarked NPCs as well.



    A development video was shown at this time, and although the lighting of the area looked unfinished, you could still get a sense of the fun space, unlike anything else in Eorzea at the moment.




    Zodiac Weapons, New Instanced Dungeons

    For the rest, questions and responses are summarized below.

    Zodiac Weapons take the names of famous equipment used throughout the Final Fantasy series, but there are names which are now associated with different types of weapons than they were originally. Why was this changed?
    Yoshida: In the first stages of planning the Zodiac Weapons, we made the final decisions for what to call each weapon. For example, it was easy to decide on the name Excalibur for the sword as a lot of swords were named Excalibur. However, it was different for other main jobs. Since this is a new game, we didn't want to completely follow convention. For example, "Ragnarok" is a word from Norse mythology that means "final battle," not a particular weapon's name, but when Sakaguchi and co. chose the original name, they might have been thinking along the lines of the strongest weapons that would be used in that final battle. For each weapon and each job we came up with the frontrunners for naming, and in the end we decided to call the axe Ragnarok. By naming it Ragnarok, perhaps we can create a new tradition and have future axes in the series also known as Ragnarok.

    Is there any reason you decided to create the hard modes of Wanderer's Palace and Amdapor Keep before Aurum Vale and Dzemael Darkhold?
    Yoshida: Dzemael Darkhold and Aurum Vale are left over from the days of 1.0, which is why they haven't been made hard yet. When we made A Realm Reborn, we had to recreate the dungeon designs. For example, the way rooms are connected and laid out, the polygons and textures used, and the camera's field of view all had to be considered. The old dungeons were designed based on the view angle from 1.0, which didn't necessarily match up. Since it would cost almost as much as making an entirely new dungeon, I doubt you'll see hard versions of these in the future.


    -----

    DirectX 11 Version

    Regarding the DX11 version, previously only general information was discussed that it was in development, but a video was published here. The video showed how some of the improved functionality of the DX11 version, such as tessellation, made the game look more detailed. The DX11 version will be introduced at the same time as Heavensward, and players will be able to choose whether to install the DX9 or DX11 version at that time. In either case, UI settings will be maintained. Since there are many advantages to the DX11 version, you should definitely select that one if your video card and PC specs are compatible.



    -----

    Developer's Corner with Masayoshi Soken

    Soken Tells Untold Stories and Plans for a New Soundtrack Release

    In the developer's corner, Masayoshi Soken, sound director of A Realm Reborn, appeared as the guest. As a sound engineer, Soken creates not only the BGM for the game, but has also been in charge of everything related to sound, such as sound effects and environmental sounds.

    Would it be possible to add BGM specific to mounts like Sleipnir?
    Soken: If we have the time. There are some themes which are still left unused, so I'll try to get them in somewhere.

    Can you create a furnishing like a jukebox for housing so that you can change the BGM there?
    Yoshida: I saw the item name Orchestrion somewhere. There are a lot of songs people like from various places.
    Soken: We'd need to come up with the specifications for it.
    Yoshida: I feel like we can definitely do this by around 3.0 or 3.1.

    I like the way the battle song in the field changes for each area. Will there be a newly added version of the song for Ishgard, or will it be a completely new one?
    Soken: It's a completely new song.

    I've heard many people say they really like the Ultima song. Can you tell us about the language and the lyrics in the song?
    Soken: Sorry to burst your bubble, but the lyrics were generated randomly by a program. I chose one of the preset Latin standards, so it's probably Latin...

    Which song was the craziest one to work on?
    Soken: Probably one of the songs that plays at the end of the third turn of the Final Coil of Bahamut since it had to be set to the imagery developed by Visual Works which could not be changed. It was a finished product so I couldn't make any changes to it, and not being able to edit and cut isn't something that people who make music can deal with easily (laughs).

    Have there been any songs you came up with yourself and then proposed for the game?
    Soken: There haven't been because there hasn't been any time for that.

    Tell me your favorite bands and genres.
    Soken: Rage Against the Machine.

    Tell us about your favorite BGM from games other than A Realm Reborn.
    Soken: I think the music from Sega's "Burning Rangers" is really cool.

    The environmental sounds and sound effects from A Realm Reborn are very detailed - is there any particular sound you like most?
    Soken: I like the environmental sounds we made for the areas around Gridania. The environmental sound staff worked really hard driving around with multi-channel handheld recorders in our pockets to record sound. However, there isn't any place for the cars of Japan in our environmental sounds.... Also, if you really pay attention and you have 5.1ch surround, the 3D algorithm can simulate the sounds of up to 600 birds around you in all directions.

    I really enjoy the BGM from Snowcloak and would like to listen to it more. When will the next soundtrack be released?
    Soken: We're in the final stretch for patch 2.5 now, so possibly after patch 2.51 is complete?

    Do you try to stay thematically consistent with Final Fantasy when you create new songs, or do you create them freely?
    Soken: I'm completely aware of the Final Fantasy history, but I'm also aware that there are times where deviating from that is also fine. I definitely do consider the FF feel to the music, though, and I totally love Uematsu's work.

    I really like the seamless transition from ambient music to battle music in the Crystal Tower BGM. Can you tell us how that works?
    Soken: Actually, we spoke about this recently at a game developers' conference (CEDEC) in a tech talk. Since past CEDEC lecture material is archived, if you search for "Dynamics Plus" on Google, you should be able to find some more info. We're also using the latest technology in songs where the tempo increases gradually, such as where you defeat the moogles in the hard Moggle Mog battle. It takes experienced sound programmers to be able to work on things like that, so if you're interested, please check it out.

    How much music for 3.0 has been completed so far?
    Soken: Perhaps I'd better not say.... Some of it.

    Do you plan to create long versions of each individual dungeon track in the future like you did for Pharos Sirius?
    Soken: Because of the man hours it takes to create the music, the original idea was to create unique songs which would play for about the first 30 seconds after entering each dungeon, and then the standard battle song and other environmental sounds for the rest. This doesn't seem to have been too popular, though.
    Yoshida: Depending on timing, it might just be the intro. However, just because it's released like that, doesn't mean we can't add the long version in the future if people request it. If everyone is looking forward to the longer versions, we can try to implement them if we have time.

    Are there any songs that you particularly struggled with as composer?
    Soken: I can fondly look back to "On Westerly Winds." I also got quite emotional yesterday at the piano when I played "To the Sun" with Keiko. The song "Torn from the Heavens" came to me while I was taking a bath, and I recorded it on my smartphone.
    Yoshida: Oh, that's nice to hear. (laughs)

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    Source: http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs...22_681353.html

    -----

    Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival Tokyo 2014 Wrap-up

    Thousands Gathered for the FFXIV Fan Fest in Tokyo

    The large-scale offline event for A Realm Reborn: Final Fantasy XIV – “Final Fantasy XIV Fan Festival Tokyo 2014” was held at the Big Sight in Tokyo over two days. Although the first day was unfortunately rainy, thousands of fans with platinum tickets still filled the venue.

    Fan Festivals had previously been held in Las Vegas and London. The last event in Tokyo was the biggest event with the highest number of participants. Thousands of fans gathered in the cold to fill the floor, and the venue and queues were constantly packed with crowds from morning through night, despite the marathon of events going on.



    One of the main events was the keynote, with new information revealed about Heavensward to be released this spring. Producer and director Naoki Yoshida announced at the event and on the paid livestream the new race Au Ra and new jobs Astrologian and Machinist. For more details, please see our keynote report.

    On the second day, lots of new information was revealed about patch 2.5 in the Producer Letter LIVE. Please check out that separate article for more information. After the keynote, the opening ceremony was held with Square Enix president Yosuke Matusda and Square Enix Holdings senior executive managing officer Shinji Hashimoto greeting the crowds. It was clear that A Realm Reborn is an important title for Square Enix.



    Afterwards, the other events such as the Odin primal battle challenge, stage shows like the cosplay convention, product sales areas, games and other activities that visitors could participate in and sponsored exhibition booths opened and allowed visitors to immerse themselves in the world of the game from morning til night.

    On the second day at the closing ceremony, the lead designer Nobuaki Kawamoto broke down into tears by the end of his greeting. Yoshida was also fighting back tears, looking away from the audience. For both the development staff and the fans, this event was truly a memorable one.

    In this article, I have a general summary of the event that took place over the two days. I also had the opportunity to hear from Yoshida after the event, so I want to deliver those comments here as well.


    Eorzea Brought to Life – Two Full Days of Game World Immersion

    At the back center of the venue, three huge monitors were installed above the stage that was built. The battle challenge corner and sponsors’ booths were to the right side, and on the left side were the activity area, product sales, and a traveling version of the Eorzea Café with menu items named from the game.



    There were two types of battle challenges – primal roulette, and the Odin primal battle, which will be similar to the new primal battle planned to be implemented in patch 2.5. Since Odin was tuned for the event, the difficulty will be adjusted when it is added to the game. The primal roulette was like a real life version of Duty Roulette. To determine the primal, a big wheel was spun. Although the overseas Fan Fests had similar events, the Japan one had new rule twists such as “all first-person view,” “limited to four actions,” or “walking only.” Odin t-shirts and illustrations of parties winning in battles were given to party members who were victorious in battle.



    At the Eorzea Café, a traveling version of the café in Akihabara, menu items like Leviathan Kaisho Noodles, Bahamut Gigaflare Curry, and special alchemist concoctions were available for purchase. I tried the chilled Leviathan noodles – they were a delicious chilled seafood ramen if you could overcome the shocking blue color. I also tried an X-Potion which was a pink carbonated drink.



    In the rear left of the venue, there were various activities and product sales. The activities were playable for free. One was called Landslide, which was like curling, where players competed to knock off adventurers for score. Another was shooting at monsters with toy crossbows where players aimed to complete their Hunting Log. There was a fishing event where players had to catch as many fish as possible. In all, there were eight types of mini-games based on gatherer and battle classes from the game. Players were also able to create original accessories and pendant charms and place thermal transfers of characters onto tote bags. When you played activities, you received a play stamp. By collecting stamps, players got prizes such as neck straps, stickers, and the ability to participate in the raffles for prizes.




    The Cosplay Contest was a Tour de Force of Ideas from the Game

    While a number of stage events were held, the cosplay contest with players participating was also held on the first day. 48 people participated in the contest, 15 of whom passed through the initial round to the final review. The four judges were Hiroshi Takai, Kazetoyo Maehiro, Hiroshi Minagawa, and Takeo Suzuki. One woman who had Allagan healer equipment was selected to be the grand prize winner. Although he had fallen out after the primary screening, one unique cosplay was a player who cosplayed as a crystal. The special jury prize went to a chocobo costume, and the excellence awards went to a player who created a poetics bow with LED-glow and another who cosplayed as the Shiva primal.



    At the end of each day during the closing, Soken performed live. On the first day, Keiko and Soken performed live piano arrangements from the Final Fantasy XIV Band and Piano Arrangement Album. Soken also played the track from the Lost City of Amdapor. On the second day, the heat was turned up as The Primals, who only play primal songs, performed.




    Closing Interview with Naoki Yoshida

    Impressions from Yoshida Immediately after Closing

    After the event ended and as clean-up began, I had the opportunity to speak with Yoshida and hear what he felt about event. I spoke to him about some of his impressions and future goals.

    The end of 2014 is coming up, and this will be your last event of the year. How’d it go?
    Right now I’m just glad we were able to see it through. The development team and I were encouraged by all of the support we got from players at the Fan Festival. For that, we are very grateful.

    With all the fans here today, it seems like you’ve really turned up the heat and come out with a lot of details. What was your aim?
    Since no one here today is not familiar with A Realm Reborn, we were able to skip over some of the more general aspects and get right into the deeper details without having to worry about people not knowing what we were talking about. Since we had a full two days about A Realm Reborn, everyone was able to express their feelings.

    I know it just ended, but can you compare the Tokyo Fan Festival to the overseas ones that happened earlier?
    It wasn’t very different. It seems to me that there isn’t much relationship between people’s nationality and the games they like. With regards to having a live show, it was a little different with the Japanese temperament, but with events like the live performance from The Primals, we were able to excite people all around the world.

    Someone told me that you were truly touched by this event.
    Yeah, well, I am pretty emotional. I’m also the kind of person who cries at the movies.

    Do you feel like all the struggles over the past year have been worth it?
    The hard times were really difficult, but I think we came out stronger because of it. I got to speak to a lot of people at the venue today, but there were so many people and events of the past two days that I didn’t get a chance to speak with everyone at the venue, and then of course there are all the people on the other end of the live broadcast. This barrage of Yoshida might be a little weird. I’m happy that people are getting used to seeing me at the events, but I think it might be hazardous to your health so let’s take a break for a while. (laughs)

    Now that you’ve gone around to three different countries for the Fan Festivals, would you plan to do them again?
    Well, although I’m really tired from all of the promotion and fan festivals, I would like to do them again when the time is right. Since these are the first game events we’ve had like this, we needed a lot of people to come out. These are also the first Final Fantasy events that many people have been out to so we hope we get a lot of feedback. That’s why there was some disappointment from some people who could not attend because the venue was too small, so I think it might be fun to have something like a bigger FFXIV band event in a larger space. To keep things exciting, I wouldn’t want to have just game events.

    With things like the lottery, you brought everyone here some happiness. With Christmas coming up, what’s the one thing you want most?
    Right now, the one thing I want is more time. I don’t think I’m the only one, I think everyone feels this way. That said, I want it to be full of things to do. Hiroshi Takai mentioned this also, but with all of the development going on, I haven’t had any time to gather poetics. I also want to do Final Coil, but the item level of my jobs isn’t high enough yet, and in real life I want to go snowboarding. This past November, I got to go for the first time in a long time, but I fell because it had been so long, so I want to go again. After all that, I really want to deliver a 3.0 packed with content, since it may sound a bit greedy for me to say I want time when you ask me what I want. Although I think with the amount of sleep I’m going to miss, I’ll have earned it (laughs).

    With the new information about “Heavensward” that was released, there have already been a lot of reactions on the internet – have you seen anything you didn’t expect, or was it mostly as expected?
    We weren’t really sure what to expect with reactions to the new jobs, it’s good to see that there are a lot of people who gave positive feedback and are looking forward to them. As far as the Au Ra goes, I think a lot of people were expecting Viera. We thought about it at one point, but we thought it might be too close to Miqo’te and overshadow it. Also, one characteristic of Viera that would be hard to implement would be the height of the women’s heels, but also it would be hard to design how the bunny ears attach to the head especially on male Viera. When we looked at the five races we have now, we thought a lot about the pros and cons of each of them. So when we designed Au Ra, we also looked at the pros and cons and we tried to have it be balanced with the others so not everyone feels like they have to become Au Ra.

    Between Heavensward and patch 2.5, Before the Fall, the announcements here were pretty huge compared to past announcements. Will there be anything like that next year for FFXIV?
    Well, here, since I was allowed to announce a variety of information over two days, we were able to show a lot of things, so we hope we can meet the expectations. Since what we showed needs to be done by spring, we’ll have more to talk about as we get there. Once we’re past that, we’ll ramp up the PR for FFXIV all over the world to show that this expansion pack is more than just a simple extension of the MMO so that players who still haven’t experienced the game yet will be interested in starting. We would like to welcome even those players who aren’t familiar with Final Fantasy to the FF online world. Since this is a good opportunity to deliver FF to those kind of people, my next goal is to get a lot of new people playing in 2015 after the release.

    Any final message to the fans?
    Well, I’m a little embarrassed with the way we ended the show. A little while ago some players who were leaving told me “it’s always good to cry” (laughs). Kawamoto also said this, but we’re not making this game just for ourselves, and I wanted people to know how I felt from the bottom of my heart. I’m really happy that we are blessed with such great fans. I want FFXIV to be something special that we can all create together. As we are moving towards 3.0 and beyond, we will still have events on a regular basis where we can talk and have fun with the players. When I see people shouting “Yoshidaaaaa!” in the game and screaming the same thing at the events, it excites me to keep making this game for everyone. I hope that everyone enjoys their Christmas and the end of the year. After the dawn of the new year, with 2.5, momentum will build rapidly as the 2.0 series comes to an end, so I hope players continue to fight as beacons of hope until the end.

    Thank you very much!

  7. #7
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    I was really worried you died

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    Please have all my Likes/Upvotes.

  9. #9
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    Added a couple more translations since my original post (part 2 of the developer panel from the second day focusing on rogue/ninja, and the first part of the informal Q&A with Yoshida).

  10. #10
    Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
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    Thanks for doing this Slycer, interesting stuff.

  11. #11
    YOU BLACK, MIDNIGHT, EVIL MOTHERFUCKERS!!! BLACK MAGIC, DARKNESS!!! YOU RAW, DARKNESS!!! YOU, FUCKING, DELIRIOUS MOTHERFUCKER!
    You were cold as ice.

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    Slycer the hero. I actually believe you're the only person doing transcribe-translations now.

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    Thanks Slycer, very cool stuff.

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    Dankeschön for the translation.

  14. #14
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    Kind of translating this stuff out of order - added in the conclusion article from Game Watch with a brief special interview with Yoshida in post #6 above.

  15. #15
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    the last bit of that interview says "Beyond the Fall" instead of "Before the Fall" was it intentionally/super specific that way in JP? just curious since it seems like he should be talking about the patch but he threw out a similar but different phrase

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rocl View Post
    the last bit of that interview says "Beyond the Fall" instead of "Before the Fall" was it intentionally/super specific that way in JP? just curious since it seems like he should be talking about the patch but he threw out a similar but different phrase
    That was me trying to correct what he said so it made sense in English, and messing up the English name of our patch in the process. His translation has the JP name for the patch which is something completely different. I'll fix it and just put it back to what he said - JP patch 2.5 name is something along the lines like "beacon of hope" or "light of hope" or "ray of hope," etc. JP name for Heavensward is also completely different btw, means something like "Ishgard of the Blue Sky."

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    Oh that makes sense now, since I had seen "ishgard souten" or something along that thrown around before

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    Not that surprising, as we seen different names e.g. with Wings of the Goddess

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rocl View Post
    Oh that makes sense now, since I had seen "ishgard souten" or something along that thrown around before
    2.5 is:
    Code:
    希望の灯火
    Kibou No Tomoshibi (Lights/Beacon/Ray/etc. of Hope)

    Expansion is:
    Code:
    蒼天のイシュガルド
    Souten No Ishugarudo (Ishgard of the Blue Sky)

  20. #20
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    Shouldn't be anything new, but added keynote summary to the first post. Still a couple more things to go through.