FFXI Interview August

[kearnsy]

Ask him what the hell Nidhogg Scales are for.

[SephYuyX]

The owner of a hockey team would be interested if his employees sucked balls.

I've spent the last 2 years forwarding code, tools, and advice through various SE channels(snail mail, phone, email, GMs) only to be ignored and at one point threatened with a ban.

Well, it's not a perfect analogy. The point is that a guy like Sundi probably has more important things to be concerned about than the intricacies of high-level itemization, such as making sure the art department is on schedule for the next live update, or revising a design document, or something.

Or making sure the front page of the website gets an unwanted make over.

[Septimus]

The rampant botting of Kings and Ulli does need to be mentioned. The fact that things like Cerebus and Tiamat are camped proves that there needs to be more end-game content in this game.

Since people took care of the big concerns already, here are some questions I am interested in.

1 Are there any plans to add in new content for NPC Fellows, like a new quest storyline, raising the level cap, or even Fellow merits? How about things like solo BCNMs, ENMs, and Assaults that people could do with their Fellows?

2 Why is there such a bias against solo activities in the game? The only real event that is designed to be done by one person, the level 60 solo ENM, has no rewards of decent monetary value and only sometimes drops a job specific item that is not even useful for every job. (Such as Enchantment: MP recovered while healing +3.) It is an MMORPG, but that does not mean that people should only be able to accomplish things by begging 5 to 17 other people.

3 Is there any chance that there could be a follow up quest for people who have achieved Rank 10 in all three nations, like the Shadows of the Departed and Apocalypse Nigh for people who completed Rise of the Zilart and Chains of Promethia? Or maybe a special CP item like an EX Duchy Aketon.

I am sure I will think of more later.

[hammy]

Lets say there is 2million people playing. At maximum they have 7 AH slots, 60 inv slots and 80 MH slots. and lets say for shits and giggles each slot is 1mb.

2,000,000*(7+60+80)*1 = 294,000,000GB

And that calculation can be adjusted, maybe its 5m that are playing, and maybe it takes 5mb per slot. Thats 3,675,000,000TB which is a fuck ton of data.

I think your numbers are a little off. First off, that's not 294,000,000 GB, it's 294,000,000 *MB*, at your quoted number of 1 MB per item, which makes ~294,000 GB.

Further, I think SE would store a central copy of each item, and just reference it from your account (with maybe a few bytes of data referencing the creator for customized items), so it would be more like 1 KB per item, if that... probably just a 1 or a 0 (yes or no) most of the time which is ~1 byte...

294,000,000 KB = ~294,000 MB = ~294 GB

Which is still a lot of data but not as much as you postulated.

[divisortheory]

Tell him there are over 500 pages of forum posts asking how to pop Goblin Wolfman, and to reveal the fucking secret or else.

[genome]

Can they do something better with the seek comments and search function? I know I often would like to be able to "seek" as one job while playing as another. Or be able to search for all people at a certain point in missions or assault (e.g. all SP people) like you could do with rank for missions. And when looking for items being able to search for specific item name would also be nice.
All this would help a lot in setting up xp PTs, mission alliances, assaults, BCNMs, and any other group activity.

[TsingTao]

1 Are there any plans to add in new content for NPC Fellows, like a new quest storyline, raising the level cap, or even Fellow merits? How about things like solo BCNMs, ENMs, and Assaults that people could do with their Fellows?

I'd honestly be satisfied if they merely let us call our NPCs in any zone that wasn't level capped or has a BCNM (Ghesba). Being able to use our NPCs everywhere after taking the time to level them would be greatly apreciated. Anything else is gravy.

If SE simply adresses the incredible overcrowding/demand for Sky & King gear as well as 24x7 gilsellers I'd be happy though. Would sure be nice to get people past 3 year old content and on to new things.

[VoiceOfReason]

Can they do something better with the seek comments and search function? I know I often would like to be able to "seek" as one job while playing as another.

(Ninja) Srry g2g, i got an invite on my DRG
Ninja: Praise Allah!
*Mijin Gakure*
(Ninja) lol
*disband*

[Norelco]

Can they do something better with the seek comments and search function? I know I often would like to be able to "seek" as one job while playing as another.

(Ninja) Srry g2g, i got an invite on my DRG
Ninja: Praise Allah!
*Mijin Gakure*
(Ninja) lol
*disband*

LOL

[Uzor]

2. Characters:

Many of us have been playing the same character for years and it is a lot to ask to lvl a whole new character as that can take forever. Are there any plans to allow a one time race/toon change for those who are sick of having to look at the same toon day in day out? Or along those lines are there any plans to ever make a 6th race and would old players get a chance to change their toon to that race as a one-time-only option?

This would contradict the storyline.

I fought with prince trion in the rank 10 sandy mission, and he doesn't recognize me in toau. The storyline is already contradicted.

every expansion continues from after rank 5 in the normal nations, meaning all span from rank 5 and onwards, and not after the end of rank 10.

Pretty sure I've already seen interviews where they addressed a few of these questions. The inventory issue comes to mind, as well as the thing about more AH slots.

Yes, they already covered those previously.

Both questions are answered by server space. I think an example they gave was something like: Imagine (a really big # here representing the number of people that are playing FFXI) times 7, plus their inv, storage, and MH safe, and you can realize how much data that is being held on the servers. Now add 3 more per each onto the (really big #) of players.

Or something, too much extra data to be blunt.

*bored*

Lets say there is 2million people playing. At maximum they have 7 AH slots, 60 inv slots and 80 MH slots. and lets say for shits and giggles each slot is 1mb.

2,000,000*(7+60+80)*1 = 294,000,000GB

And that calculation can be adjusted, maybe its 5m that are playing, and maybe it takes 5mb per slot. Thats 3,675,000,000TB which is a fuck ton of data.

Honestly, I say get rid of the storage and that stupid ass toau rent a closet, and add that shit onto inv and MH.

Which actually brings up a question.
Maybe its dumb, maybe its not.

But, ask him something like, will there ever be a way to subtract storage from other places (storage, toau room) and add it to your mh or inv?

It wouldnt be so bad if rent a closest was a one time fee, but screw paying once a week.

Its not because of server storage limit, its because of the limitations of the PS2. This has been said many times, and in an attempt to give the players more storage space, they added the ToAU mog lockers and the storage NPC's.

Anyway, I'd like to see questions like the ones Lordwaffik mentioned, or maybe

Will PC players ever get an option to improve their graphics to that of the Xbox 360? Most players have good computers that are not put to use.

And the obligatory useless question out of interrest.

Will the green teleporters in Ru'Aun gardens ever be put to use?

[Fornax]

Why does FFXI scale up so poorly or not at all in response to player demand? Many in-game "resources" are provided at a constant rate, or up to a fixed constant rate, and no amount of demand pressure will increase them.

As a consequence, the amount of work required to obtain items has increased dramatically, because supply has remained constant while demand and thus competition has gone up. There was a time when the 3 kings could be found up and roaming, and the challenge was in organizing a group of players high enough to defeat them, and then in actually defeating them. Now, the competition for these beats is insane, and cheating is rampant.

Was it intended that players who reached the endgame early (say 2004) would have a much greater chance of obtaining top of the line items than players who reach the endgame now? And if not, what measures are being planned to make the endgame "elastic" in the sense that more demand will create more supply?

[Khamsin]

Ask him what the hell Nidhogg Scales are for.

They're used to pop Goblin Wolfman and make Dragon Mail +1.

[Septimus]

2. Characters:

Many of us have been playing the same character for years and it is a lot to ask to lvl a whole new character as that can take forever. Are there any plans to allow a one time race/toon change for those who are sick of having to look at the same toon day in day out? Or along those lines are there any plans to ever make a 6th race and would old players get a chance to change their toon to that race as a one-time-only option?

This would contradict the storyline.

I fought with prince trion in the rank 10 sandy mission, and he doesn't recognize me in toau. The storyline is already contradicted.

every expansion continues from after rank 5 in the normal nations, meaning all span from rank 5 and onwards, and not after the end of rank 10.

Actually, the events that start CoP follow directly from the fight in Celestial Nexus from the Zilart expansion, so it is not like there is not precedent for basing missions off of other missions.

[Uzor]

2. Characters:

Many of us have been playing the same character for years and it is a lot to ask to lvl a whole new character as that can take forever. Are there any plans to allow a one time race/toon change for those who are sick of having to look at the same toon day in day out? Or along those lines are there any plans to ever make a 6th race and would old players get a chance to change their toon to that race as a one-time-only option?

This would contradict the storyline.

I fought with prince trion in the rank 10 sandy mission, and he doesn't recognize me in toau. The storyline is already contradicted.

every expansion continues from after rank 5 in the normal nations, meaning all span from rank 5 and onwards, and not after the end of rank 10.

Actually, the events that start CoP follow directly from the fight in Celestial Nexus from the Zilart expansion, so it is not like there is not precedent for basing missions off of other missions.

Either way, its not after rank 10 in the nations, meaning he still wouldn't remember

[Ryko]

The rampant botting of Kings and Ulli does need to be mentioned. The fact that things like Cerebus and Tiamat are camped proves that there needs to be more end-game content in this game.

This man speaks truth in ways that no mortal could normally accomplish.

Waffles hit the issue I'm having though, it's like they go "Oh, this is how it is, and if we dont give it within [see: a year] then it's working find and we dont need to change it". It's stubborn retarded thinking like that which will make the content that people STILL spend 90% of their time around (even as it gets bastardized day by day by day) dominate this game even with new shit coming out.

Uh... less rambling, more real questions.

"Why did you guys assfuck endgame cluttering so bad but then didn't add much of anything to make it more accessible to end game players? Do you hate yourselves that much? Assholes"

... yeah

Actually, the events that start CoP follow directly from the fight in Celestial Nexus from the Zilart expansion

Tbh I doubt that, they just didnt want a continuity fuckup with kam'lanaut being there on the (not so off) chance you actually did zilart when you started COP so for all intents and purposes he's just not there, the reason left up to the player's interpretation.

[SephYuyX]

Lets say there is 2million people playing. At maximum they have 7 AH slots, 60 inv slots and 80 MH slots. and lets say for shits and giggles each slot is 1mb.

2,000,000*(7+60+80)*1 = 294,000,000GB

And that calculation can be adjusted, maybe its 5m that are playing, and maybe it takes 5mb per slot. Thats 3,675,000,000TB which is a fuck ton of data.

I think your numbers are a little off. First off, that's not 294,000,000 GB, it's 294,000,000 *MB*, at your quoted number of 1 MB per item, which makes ~294,000 GB.

Further, I think SE would store a central copy of each item, and just reference it from your account (with maybe a few bytes of data referencing the creator for customized items), so it would be more like 1 KB per item, if that... probably just a 1 or a 0 (yes or no) most of the time which is ~1 byte...

294,000,000 KB = ~294,000 MB = ~294 GB

Which is still a lot of data but not as much as you postulated.

Har, yeah, forgot to take those 0's off.

[vudoodoodoo]

It's pointless. They'll just dance around questions and not answer anything directly.

[Talint]

I only have one question:

Why do the developers feel the need to implement new content or adjust old content as a reactionary measure against the players?

CoP Dynamis comes to mind. The original six zones are still congested to high hell; but in comparison to the CoP Dynamises (Dynamii?), they're much more appealing.

Sea also comes to mind. The artificial difficulty of having low drop rates is borderline nonsensical. What invariably happens is that the players simply have to repeat the exact same process over and over again for gear that rarely compares to an abjuration or god/king drop.

And lest we forget the RNG nerf, a measure that smacked an entire class down for no other reason than the fanbase complaining. It wasn't one nerf, but a series of nerfs all at once that made an entire class useless.

All of these seem reactionary against the playerbase. It's not that I don't necessarily understand the need for such changes, but I don't see why the playerbase has to be penalized for them. Why does Square Enix feel the need to do this?

[Uzor]

Tbh I doubt that, they just didnt want a continuity fuckup with kam'lanaut being there on the (not so off) chance you actually did zilart when you started COP so for all intents and purposes he's just not there, the reason left up to the player's interpretation.

Yeah, I higly doubt they'd base the other expansions off of something that happened in Zilart considering SE's strong "We don't want expansions to be based on eachother!" stance.

It is possible though. SE isn't known for being smart.

[Septimus]

[quote=Uzor]

2. Characters:

Many of us have been playing the same character for years and it is a lot to ask to lvl a whole new character as that can take forever. Are there any plans to allow a one time race/toon change for those who are sick of having to look at the same toon day in day out? Or along those lines are there any plans to ever make a 6th race and would old players get a chance to change their toon to that race as a one-time-only option?

This would contradict the storyline.

I fought with prince trion in the rank 10 sandy mission, and he doesn't recognize me in toau. The storyline is already contradicted.

every expansion continues from after rank 5 in the normal nations, meaning all span from rank 5 and onwards, and not after the end of rank 10.

Actually, the events that start CoP follow directly from the fight in Celestial Nexus from the Zilart expansion, so it is not like there is not precedent for basing missions off of other missions.

Either way, its not after rank 10 in the nations, meaning he still wouldn't remember [/quote:316e2]

But he asked me personally to go to Fei'yin to check on the seal of the Shadowlord. And he also told me to go kill the Shadowlord.

Trion, we've had such good times together, why don't you remember me?!?!

But seriously, I really wish they had a big quest that you could do after getting Rank 10 in all nations that rewards you with an e-peen Rare/EX item that says "I'm better than all of you mission slugs".