Changes Scheduled for the March Version Update (03/04/2008)

[Max™]

<Latent>
<Trigger>

Yes please.

[Kenji]

Hey, I'm attached to the game too. Otherwise I wouldn't still be playing after 4 years. And you're absolutely right, when they say "we're considering adding this" or "we're going to add this" it's not unreasonable to think that they might ACTUALLY fucking "add this". The gap between our viewpoints is simply that I believe that they will "add this" eventually, whereas the vast majority of people posting in this thread seem to believe that they will "add this" right fucking now, simply because they mentioned it recently. I know we may have some newer players here, so let me share some observations over the last 4 years with you, to help set expectations.

The FFXI Update Schedule
New Expansion: Approximately once every 12-18 months.

Initial Fixes to New Expansion: Will occur anywhere between 2-10 times for up to 1 month after initial release of new expansion.

New Quests & Missions: Initially are added with each expansion, and are added 5-10 times over the life of each expansion. Mission (story) updates are always small chunks of the story, i.e. no more than 5 discrete "missions" that go into your log. There will be no more than 1-3 mission-related fights per update. It will take at least 6 updates until the story for each expansion is complete. People think the ToAU mission update scheme is a new annoyance? You are wrong-missions have been delivered in this manner all the way back to Zilart and even the original Country missions, it's just that many of us were either too low level or not even playing yet for that to be relevant to us.

New Content (events, bc/ks/enms, new NMs, etc): Will occur 2-6 times for each expansion. Ones you care about (because nobody cares about them all) will occur 1-2 times per expansion. Additionally, endgame content will almost always be delayed until 6-12 months after the initial release of the expansion (Sea, Salvage, Limbus, Dynamis, lolEinherjar, virtually anything endgame people care about was NOT released until several months after expansion release).

New Gear: Will be added at the beginning of each expansion. Will also be added over the life of each expansion 1-4 more times. Overall, at best there will be 1-3 new endgame-worthy pieces of gear per job. For some jobs there will be 0.

In-game Events: Will occur every 1-3 months. Unless this is your first trip through FFXI, you will generally not care. You may find 1-2 events per year you enjoy. Regardless, this is considered an "update" and generally takes the place of development you would prefer being done.

Bug Fixes/Rebalances/Game Mechanic changes: This refers to Ulli/AV/Salvage/Besieged/Assault etc. fixes, anything that isn't working right that the player base is bitching about. This will "officially" occur no more than 1-2 times per year. Unofficially (the ninjafixes) will occur at least every update, but then we have to fucking figure out that LBC is no longer suicide by biting the bullet ourselves, for example. Additionally, these changes will NEVER occur less than 6 months after initial release & initial bug fixes. Unless something simply doesn't work at ALL, SE prefers to implement and see if it's "really" a problem before addressing it.

And finally, the ever-popular...

Job Fixes/Rebalances/Buffs/Nerfs: At BEST this will occur 1-2 times per year. It will NEVER occur more than that, and it will ALWAYS take at least 6-12 months after a significant change (a new job is added, 2 hand weapon calculations are changed, merits are added, etc) for further "refinements" to be added. The only exception is if it is a nerf. Because by god, if something gets buffed too much, we can't Possibly let the playerbase enjoy it for more than 3 days.

This is how it is. Yes, you'll get what you want. If you're willing to wait 1+ years. I enjoy the game, I have stuff I can do while I'm waiting, so I'm ok with that. Should it be this way? I think we'll all argue that with the $ they've made off of us they should be able to assign more than 2 developers and a retarted monkey to work on FFXI, but that's simply not the case. Either reset your expectations or move on, because it's not going to change.

Quoting for Mother Fucking Truth.

[neochaos]

Where the fuck is the stuffed moogle cait sith normally rides on?

Uh, is the only FF you've played FF7?

I was just making a sarcastic comment to deviate from the bitching of yet another nearly worthless update :/

And no, I've played nearly all of the FFs, not just ff7. Pretty sure outside of FF7-related games/movies, there's no fucking cait sith either. (except 11)

[Lordender]

thats why SE is lolSE in most playerbase minds.

[Trigun]

heres my pipe dream of their bombshell. Aht Urgan avatar will be Yojimbo instead of watered down Odin w/o Horse, and Siren and Brothers in WotG area. AlsoAlso rock salt will be worth millions in the past. Let's go Doc.

[neochaos]

Where the fuck is the stuffed moogle cait sith normally rides on?

Uh, is the only FF you've played FF7?

I was just making a sarcastic comment to deviate from the bitching of yet another nearly worthless update :/

And no, I've played nearly all of the FFs, not just ff7. Pretty sure outside of FF7-related games/movies, there's no fucking cait sith either. (except 11)

Hey, I'm attached to the game too. Otherwise I wouldn't still be playing after 4 years. And you're absolutely right, when they say "we're considering adding this" or "we're going to add this" it's not unreasonable to think that they might ACTUALLY fucking "add this". The gap between our viewpoints is simply that I believe that they will "add this" eventually, whereas the vast majority of people posting in this thread seem to believe that they will "add this" right fucking now, simply because they mentioned it recently. I know we may have some newer players here, so let me share some observations over the last 4 years with you, to help set expectations.

The FFXI Update Schedule
New Expansion: Approximately once every 12-18 months.

Initial Fixes to New Expansion: Will occur anywhere between 2-10 times for up to 1 month after initial release of new expansion.

New Quests & Missions: Initially are added with each expansion, and are added 5-10 times over the life of each expansion. Mission (story) updates are always small chunks of the story, i.e. no more than 5 discrete "missions" that go into your log. There will be no more than 1-3 mission-related fights per update. It will take at least 6 updates until the story for each expansion is complete. People think the ToAU mission update scheme is a new annoyance? You are wrong-missions have been delivered in this manner all the way back to Zilart and even the original Country missions, it's just that many of us were either too low level or not even playing yet for that to be relevant to us.

New Content (events, bc/ks/enms, new NMs, etc): Will occur 2-6 times for each expansion. Ones you care about (because nobody cares about them all) will occur 1-2 times per expansion. Additionally, endgame content will almost always be delayed until 6-12 months after the initial release of the expansion (Sea, Salvage, Limbus, Dynamis, lolEinherjar, virtually anything endgame people care about was NOT released until several months after expansion release).

New Gear: Will be added at the beginning of each expansion. Will also be added over the life of each expansion 1-4 more times. Overall, at best there will be 1-3 new endgame-worthy pieces of gear per job. For some jobs there will be 0.

In-game Events: Will occur every 1-3 months. Unless this is your first trip through FFXI, you will generally not care. You may find 1-2 events per year you enjoy. Regardless, this is considered an "update" and generally takes the place of development you would prefer being done.

Bug Fixes/Rebalances/Game Mechanic changes: This refers to Ulli/AV/Salvage/Besieged/Assault etc. fixes, anything that isn't working right that the player base is bitching about. This will "officially" occur no more than 1-2 times per year. Unofficially (the ninjafixes) will occur at least every update, but then we have to fucking figure out that LBC is no longer suicide by biting the bullet ourselves, for example. Additionally, these changes will NEVER occur less than 6 months after initial release & initial bug fixes. Unless something simply doesn't work at ALL, SE prefers to implement and see if it's "really" a problem before addressing it.

And finally, the ever-popular...

Job Fixes/Rebalances/Buffs/Nerfs: At BEST this will occur 1-2 times per year. It will NEVER occur more than that, and it will ALWAYS take at least 6-12 months after a significant change (a new job is added, 2 hand weapon calculations are changed, merits are added, etc) for further "refinements" to be added. The only exception is if it is a nerf. Because by god, if something gets buffed too much, we can't Possibly let the playerbase enjoy it for more than 3 days.

This is how it is. Yes, you'll get what you want. If you're willing to wait 1+ years. I enjoy the game, I have stuff I can do while I'm waiting, so I'm ok with that. Should it be this way? I think we'll all argue that with the $ they've made off of us they should be able to assign more than 2 developers and a retarted monkey to work on FFXI, but that's simply not the case. Either reset your expectations or move on, because it's not going to change.

So true..so true. Kinda sad knowing we're hooked on a game run by lazy fools. At this point most of us have primarily accepted the fact that updates will usually suck/take forever (pretty sure AV video was prime example of something good being total trash). All the QQing is just venting, since yeah people could move on, but 4+ years of playing a game..that's a lot of work that plenty of people don't wanna give up. I enjoy this game, I just simply wish SE would do something to make the game more fun and make that 30 bucks i spent of WotG worth it.

[Max™]

I dunno, I'm optimistic here.

Let's look at some things here, 2h adjustment/rebalancing turned out great, I no longer get funny looks for my gaxe. Byakko's haidate are being crapped out constantly after years of drought, RMT are where? I've seen Sky with only my LS up there many many times.

ToAU chugged along and produced some massive win overall, WoTG has started slow but shows signs of awesome potential, and the recognition that not every LS does things with 40 people, and that not everyone has a job which gets merit invites seems to have been taken into consideration.

Even jobs that do get merit invites, might not enjoy it as much, before I capped out on rank I accumulated 60 merits in Campaign, just hangin out, beating things up, watching TV/talking with friends. I'll happily dive back in when more ranks come out to shoot for.

The CoP team might have produced some epic ass failures, yes, AV being the key cocktease, but man...

You just know the story is going to ROCK, don't you?

[Charismatic]

Well since SE added an emote to the /dance , there will probably be alot of new "dance emotes" custom made out in the .DAT community.
Hopefully the dance animation dats won't be as complex as the dancers actual animations and be easier to modify O_o

In before Thriller .dat is released

Couldnt find the better picture... but
http://content.ytmnd.com/content/7/e...14352f7c11.jpg

That actually has nothing to do with thriller, but everything to do with Kujo Jotaro

[Not Kuno]

Let's look at some things here, 2h adjustment/rebalancing turned out great, I no longer get funny looks for my gaxe. Byakko's haidate are being crapped out constantly after years of drought, RMT are where? I've seen Sky with only my LS up there many many times.

On Bahamut Despot gem is 1m+ here and so is always camped by a ton of people. Sky isn't as empty as you say when I'm up there.

[Max™]

Yeah, Despot is almost always camped by a shell or two, especially the whores who just want to solo him to sell the Gem, but I've had weeks where my sky shell got 6 Despots over our two farming days, and actually had to stop camping because we were running out of room to hold gems due to the crappy Dio drop rate.

Gem's sell for a mil or so on Carby too, and yeah it always sucks to be up there for 2 hours performing a holocaust like cleansing of alcove dolls, just to have a Rdm show up, kill three and get Despot, but I still regularly get up to Despot to log there early before farming runs, and see noone but an afker or two.

[Kaslo]

Where the fuck is the stuffed moogle cait sith normally rides on?

Uh, is the only FF you've played FF7?

I was just making a sarcastic comment to deviate from the bitching of yet another nearly worthless update :/

And no, I've played nearly all of the FFs, not just ff7. Pretty sure outside of FF7-related games/movies, there's no fucking cait sith either. (except 11)

FFII: Monster Cait Sith
http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy...th-ff2-gba.gif

FFIV Monster Cait Sith
http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy...nther-ffiv.gif

FFVI: Cait Sith Esper
http://www.ffonline.com/1_ff6gfx/6-esper-stray.gif

FFVII: Character on Moogle Doll Cait Sith
http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy...Nomura_art.jpg

FFX: Cait Sith Doll (Lulu)
http://www.ffonline.com/1_ff10gfx/weapon-doll5.gif

FFX-2: Mascot Costume Cait Sith (Rikku)
http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy...fx2-mascot.jpg

FFXI: Cait Sith ???
http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy...-Cait_Sith.png

Moreover, The Cat Sìth or Cat Sídhe is a fairy creature from Scottish and Irish mythology, said to resemble a large black cat with a white spot on its breast.

EDIT: Fixed image addresses

[Gunslinger]

Served, I believe.

[Priran]

FFX-2: Mascot Costume Cait Sith (Rikku)
http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy...fx2-mascot.jpg

why does cait sith have a pikmin

[SeraphusRagnarok]

Thats not a Pikmin that's Pupu from FF8.
http://www.ffcompendium.com/misc/pupu8-b.jpg


By the way Cait Sith is pronounced: "Ket-Shee"

[Intense]

By the way Cait Sith is pronounced: "Ket-Shee"

KATE SITH!

[Kyreth]

The traditional QQ cycle of updates continues.

I figure if we get one more minor news post before the update, it'll hit 12-15 pages from sheer "Waaah, where's the beef?" whine.

You get the so-so stuff in small bits leading up to the update, and the good stuff at the end so you smart guys can't fuck with the game before the update. That's all there is to it, and that's all there EVER will be to it when it comes to updates.

It's getting to the point of me attempting to reach through the screen to choke people, as this is a touchscreen monitor I'm on right now, that leads to some odd results. Just. Stop.

[The Q]

I'm wondering if by "Early March" SE really means "Before the last week of March."

[shieldsofwindurst]

I'm wondering if by "Early March" SE really means "Before the last week of March."

To be clear, what they mean is when we're fucking ready. Until the notice goes out on playonline.com about the server being down & the patch size, there is no guarantee about when the update is coming. Don't bother speculating unless you feel like being wrong.

[Gilthas]

The big problem is that the end is already dangerously near and we still haven't seen any hint of "beef".

Most of the crap they mention is stuff they usually just put on the update notice on patch day yet that's what they've been feeding us in the last few weeks.

I bet tomorrow they're announcing new Auto-translate words and expressions.

[Toth]

Since the egg clocks are not yet in the .dats and the easter event begins March 13th, it is safe to say that the update will be happening by next week.