RPGamer FFXI Wings Dev. Interview

[Gwynplaine]

A short interview with a few interesting questions. Much of it is known, or has been asked before.
http://www.rpgamer.com/games/ff/ff11wog ... rview.html

RPGamer recently attended Square Enix's Final Fantasy XI Fan Festival last week. During this event, we had a chance to sit down with the developers of Final Fantasy XI and discuss the game, the final touches of Treasures of Aht Urhgan and the newest expansion, Wings of the Goddess.
With Wings of the Goddess now released, is there already talk of another future expansion?
Our focus is 100% on what is currently out.

-Is there talk of a PS3 version of Final Fantasy XI in the works?
-If we were to start developing a PS3 version now, it would likely take about 5 years to complete. By then PS4 would be out and there would be talk of a PS5 before we could release it. It would be too much work, so we have no plans to create such a version. The PS3 can play the PS2 version, though.

-Is a DirectX upgrade still in the works?
-For us to upgrade to the latest version would also take too long to develop and then to debug, so we are just working on improving the existing DX8 setup.

-Any word about a fix for the problems with the nVidia Series 8 graphics cards?
-Yes, but the problem is not with Final Fantasy XI. For the longest time Microsoft and nVidia were saying that it wasn't them, but now nVidia claims to be working on something to fix the issues.

-With Treasures of Aht Urhgan now complete and Wings of the Goddess now out, are uses for the Nyzul Isle weapons going to be explained?
-Yes, yes. *laughing* The Aht Urhgan story is not complete, the missions that are part of the main story are finished, but there are still going to be additions. These will be released in future patches.

-Should gamers expect any changes to relic weapons and are we going to see relic armor for the three Treasures of Aht Urhgan jobs and the Wings of the Goddess jobs?
-Yes, some relic weapons will be adjusted in the future. Also, relic armor for the three Treasures of Aht Urhgan jobs is in the works, but we can't specify a time frame.

-Are there going to be new Dynamis zones?
-There are currently no plans to add more Dynamis areas. A different method will likely be used to get relic armor for the Treasures of Aht Urhgan jobs.

-What needs did you see in Vana'diel when creating the new Wings of the Goddess jobs?
-For Dancer, we saw the need for another good healer, but not just a healer, a front line healer. Dancer can fill that role. With Scholar we noticed after we added the three Treasures of Aht Urhgan jobs that another pure backline job would be useful. We wanted it to have more than just magic, so we added a lot of abilities as well.

-Fans everywhere have been asking, why not another tank class?
-I knew you were going to ask that question. The way we see it, there are two types of tank type jobs, evasion like the Ninja or damage soaking like the Paladin. We didn't see anything that was original enough, and we didn't want to just clone these existing jobs. We know that there is a tough time to finding tanks, so we've decided to adjust existing jobs to be able to tank in certain setups. Expect to see job adjustments coming soon.

-Are there plans for more avatars for Summoners?
-Yes, there are plans. We cannot say anything else right now, but there are plans.

-What kind of level range are the new areas of Wings of the Goddess?
-In the new Allied Campaign system most battles will be for higher level characters, level 60 and above. The new Campaign Ops can be very high, though some can be handled at level one, just depends on the Ops. The new areas will range from about level 30 to 75.

-Is it possible that players can gain experience by Ops or through new quests for more solo friendly play?
-Ops can allow for experience gaining for doing things other than just fighting battles.

-Are any of the new jobs considered a soloable class?
-The Scholar is not likely to be able to solo except in some cases. Dancer is front line job and has healing potential, so it might be possible to solo. It was designed for smaller parties of two or three.

-Do you see people actually forming three person parties?
-These folks (the development team) always form parties of two or three *laughter* The reason Dancer was developed is to give more options to form smaller parties.

-About anniversary rings, when they are burned up are they gone for good? Should we expect to be able to recharge them or is there other stuff coming?
-There is probably no chance of recharging them, so people can throw them away if they want. I would likely expect new items to come around.

-A big challenge for new players starting out is getting to level 30, what is a realistic level for people to expect to get the new Wings of the Goddess jobs?
-Like the existing jobs, players will have to get to level 30, but they are not difficult to obtain at 30. They will not be as difficult as the Treasures of Aht Urhgan jobs were.

RPGamer would like to thank those at Square Enix who made this interview possible. Final Fantasy XI: Wings of the Goddess is now available in stores with a suggested retail price of $29.99 for the expansion alone. The Final Fantasy XI: Vana'diel Collection 2008, which contains the original game plus all of the expansions to date, is also available for $49.99 for the Xbox 360 and $39.99 for the PlayStation 2.

[Ryko]

Summary: Theyre stuck in 2005, can't even agree with themselves and don't have time to do anything whatsoever.

[Fhqwghads]

Hmm... have to think hard before I toss that aniversary ring. Wonder if citing this interview should they change their minds get a free restore on the item if people do throw them away.

As far as DX9 is concerned, apparently it = too hard. Like math and women.

[Zilong]

Summary: Theyre stuck in 2005, can't even agree with themselves and don't have time to do anything whatsoever.

Dead game ->

[Ryko]

->

[Maxxthepenguin]

Summary: Theyre stuck in 2005, can't even agree with themselves and don't have time to do anything whatsoever.

Dead game ->

It's been pronounced dead for 3 years now. For some reason, I doubt it's really dead this time.

[Ryko]

It's a joke, maxx.

[Alistaire]

-Are there going to be new Dynamis zones?
-There are currently no plans to add more Dynamis areas. A different method will likely be used to get relic armor for the Treasures of Aht Urhgan jobs.

And yet the only really viable solution to this remains to add toau armor to existing dynamis areas. People on toau jobs have travelled back in time and participated in the crystal war, completely obliterating SE's excuse of toau armor not being in dynamis "because those jobs didn't participate."

Adding another way to get toau job relics that's neither easier nor more difficult than other relics won't get the participation levels needed unless you add other relics and then you end up outdating dynamis.

[spooky]

I like how they say that they can't see any other way to tank except evade dmg or soke it up. What about a parry or counter tank? Or something that makes a mob attack insainly slow. All you need to do is couple one of those ideas with a way of generating hate and away you go.

[Ryko]

I like how they say that they can't see any other way to tank except evade dmg or soke it up. What about a parry or counter tank? Or something that makes a mob attack insainly slow. All you need to do is couple one of those ideas with a way of generating hate and away you go.

Yeah i kind of wish that they made something that stacks with slow and is actually more powerful, why didn't they think of something like that. I just find it funny that they still think paladins are facetanking shit.

[Xno Kappa]

-Are there plans for more avatars for Summoners?
-Yes, there are plans. We cannot say anything else right now, but there are plans.

Another avatar would definitely fix SMN's.

[fndragon]

-About anniversary rings, when they are burned up are they gone for good? Should we expect to be able to recharge them or is there other stuff coming?
-There is probably no chance of recharging them, so people can throw them away if they want. I would likely expect new items to come around.

That is the sound of thousands of people gaining yet another inventory slot!

[Izzy]

This interview actually asked a lot of really fucking good questions.

It's nice to get a few straight answers like "fuck no, no dx9, too lazy"

[Amele]

Hmm... have to think hard before I toss that aniversary ring. Wonder if citing this interview should they change their minds get a free restore on the item if people do throw them away.

As far as DX9 is concerned, apparently it = too hard. Like math and women.

what really astonishes me is that it's really not *that* hard to update from 8 to 9. even if you don't do anything to optimize for 9 specifically, 9 will still run better than 8 on non-legacy hardware.

SE just doesn't want to let the PC graphics get too far ahead of the ps2.

[spooky]

-Are there plans for more avatars for Summoners?
-Yes, there are plans. We cannot say anything else right now, but there are plans.

Another avatar would definitely fix SMN's. :roll:

Maybe one of the BPs would give AoE refresh. :P

[Khamsin]

-Are there plans for more avatars for Summoners?
-Yes, there are plans. We cannot say anything else right now, but there are plans.

Another avatar would definitely fix SMN's.

It doesn't have to be about "fixing" SMNs. It never hurts to add another toy into the mix, but it'll still be fun to play around with. And the best thing is, no amount of additional avatars will overpower SMN. Not unless they add an avatar that's more powerful than existing ones, but its more likely they'd just "sidegrade" the avatars like they do with equipment. Even if they copied Garuda, renamed it's BPs and gave it a different model, it'd still be something for SMNs to amuse themselves with without affecting balance.

[Redshift]

Hope Nvidia fixes their shit. I can't play FFXI on my laptop because of it.

yay for 2-3 FPS at the fucking auction house.

[Maxxthepenguin]

It's a joke, maxx.

Ok, what is it I'm not getting about the fucking arrows

[Ryko]

It's a joke, maxx.

Ok, what is it I'm not getting about the fucking arrows

It's a gameFAQs reference to all the people who talk about how XI is dying (or dead) and how wow is the second coming of christ. For some reason Yangsing started adding a -> at the end of his one liner posts (I'm pretty sure it's in his sig here too) and about 90% of his more recent posts refer to the dead game. Some people think it might mean to move on from XI, or for XI to gtfo, I honestly think it has absolutely no meaning or significance whatsoever. No one takes it seriously but whenever a slight inconvenience or the smallest hint of incompetence shows, people usually follow it up by saying that XI is a dead game.

...

->

[The Q]

Ultimate facepalm on the DirectX part. SE seriously needs to stop writing checks with their mouth that their ass can't cash.