Collection of FFXIV News from Media Sources

[happydude]

google chrome -> translate?

[Kuya]

Chrome translation is terrible.

[Hyan]

Didn't see anything of value there at least with google translate Except that they're thinking 2 weeks 'till beta earliest, but they'd rather not wait more than 3 weeks if possible.

[Drakath]

That's actually extremely easy as far as Japaense moon symbols go. I can't read much but I can read most of what's going on there x_x

[bonji]

img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/RahXephonII/classesmaybe.png?t=1276738842

hmm?

[Hyan]

Yeah yeah that came from here, somebody checked .dats

[Loaar]

img.photobucket.com/albums/v315/RahXephonII/classesmaybe.png?t=1276738842

hmm?

Thats no official media, and it was posted on these boards already. In fact, I'm pretty sure these boards were the first place it was posted, so linking it here as news is just stupid.

[BlackheartX]

Hmm don't ever remember seeing Assassian but that's me.

[brand]

http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs...18_375309.html

Hmmm... the first section is mostly a rehash of the other interview with the final two questions here asking about female highlanders and male mi'qote. They were planning on female highlanders as a playable race, but ended up cutting it for various reasons. Male Mi'qote are, for now restricted to NPCs. The follow up question asks if it might be in a future content. He laughs and says he can't make any promises.

Jesus this is long. The second section is another rehash of the battle system. For those of you who see [World of Warcraft] in the response, he's simply referring to how many American's opinions on faster tempo are probably based on their experiences with WoW.

Another mention of chat filters, and they are considering, what I assume is, the possibility of multiple chat windows.

Since the pacing of battle is going up, people won't be able to chat like they did in FFXI during battle, so they are planning to add a macro palette. Skills and text would be allowed, ala FFXI. They haven't decided if they want anything else in the macro system, but there are plans for some method to allow a leader to tell his mates what target to attack and so on. A lot of ideas are on the testing block atm for this.

There is a mention that the Battle Regiment system was bugged to the point where it almost never activated, and isn't what they had planned the system to be. It is expected to be functioning as they intended in the beta, but the beta will exist to tune it (meaning take whatever you discover initially to be prototypical). The interviewers asked if Regiments were designed with a necessity of all party members participating. The response is vague about how there are different planning strategies for different mobs and how it will react.

Final question in section 2 is about how the world is designed to be soloable, but party-preferred, as many mobs tend to cluster, particularly in guildleves.

I'll skim part 3 and 4 later.

[100percentile]

Hmmm... the first section is mostly a rehash of the other interview with the final two questions here asking about female highlanders and male mi'qote. They were planning on female highlanders as a playable race, but ended up cutting it for various reasons. Male Mi'qote are, for now restricted to NPCs. The follow up question asks if it might be in a future content. He laughs and says he can't make any promises.

Jesus this is long. The second section is another rehash of the battle system. For those of you who see [World of Warcraft] in the response, he's simply referring to how many American's opinions on faster tempo are probably based on their experiences with WoW.

Another mention of chat filters, and they are considering, what I assume is, the possibility of multiple chat windows.

Since the pacing of battle is going up, people won't be able to chat like they did in FFXI during battle, so they are planning to add a macro palette. Skills and text would be allowed, ala FFXI. They haven't decided if they want anything else in the macro system, but there are plans for some method to allow a leader to tell his mates what target to attack and so on. A lot of ideas are on the testing block atm for this.

There is a mention that the Battle Regiment system was bugged to the point where it almost never activated, and isn't what they had planned the system to be. It is expected to be functioning as they intended in the beta, but the beta will exist to tune it (meaning take whatever you discover initially to be prototypical). The interviewers asked if Regiments were designed with a necessity of all party members participating. The response is vague about how there are different planning strategies for different mobs and how it will react.

Final question in section 2 is about how the world is designed to be soloable, but party-preferred, as many mobs tend to cluster, particularly in guildleves.

I'll skim part 3 and 4 later.

Thanks. I hope they beta testers give good feedback on the battle regime.

[brand]

Eh I may as well finish this now. Section 3 is harder to explain without just translating it as the questions sort of flow into the next.

Q: The new trailer shows a living white thing, what was it?
T: It was an elemental, and not a summon. This time around, elements and attributes there of will have implications in various (figurative) places.

Q: Like FFXI's crystals?
T: This time, instead of weather and moon phases affecting it, these attributes will partially affect them.

Q: So it relates to your character's strengths?
T: Yes.

Q: The equipment screen has changed also.
T: Yes, but to be frank, that is still a tentative version and still in revision.

Q: How will it turn out?
T: That's something to look forward to in beta. In the Alpha, equipping items opens a separate list to choose from, and XI players found that inconvenient. When you get an item, and don't know much about it, shouldn't you be able to equip it from the item list? So now, the beta version allows you to choose equipment from the item list [probably in addition to the equipment menu, which I also personally found to be a clunky process in Alpha].

Q: So then similar to XI?
T: Systematically, yes.

Then it goes into a rehash of communication after two questions on whether they are expanding the playing area in beta (no), specifically about the linkshell/company system.

The final two questions in this section ask about the repair system.

Q: So there will be a necessary repair system?
T: Yes. Crafters, "Guzzler" and the like are included in this system and items will lose durability.

Q: If it breaks, is it gone forever?
T: It won't go away, but it will fall into an unusable state, and will require mending. In addition, the alpha test's Limsa Lominsa doesn't have a market, but will be added on. Also, players will be able to hire a service known as a "retainer". While one is logged out, this retainer will bazaar in your character's place and will sell goods for them. This will also affect Companies, so there will be various ways to utilize this service. I hope people look forward to this.

[e] Section 4 talks about PC specs for the first few questions. Beta's code will have been optimized, so don't expect system requirements to go much lower than whatever is required to run beta.

They are still undecided about going forward with a 3D version of the game; the exhibit was largely a sample test. A PS3 3D version is also being discussed on the same level as the PC 3D version with no other details than "It would certainly be very difficult, I think".

Graphics between PC and PS3 won't have a large discrepancy; textures will have one fourth the size, and the resolution will be about half, but you will barely register a difference. [This didn't exactly make sense to me, but I'm not that savvy on graphics.]

Beta test, if the preparations are quick, will come a week or two after alpha, and at the slowest three to four weeks. At the very least, beta will go live sometime in July.

The plan is perpetual servers. There are no plans to add additional testers from the alpha swarm initially, but the expansion to 10 servers went pretty easily. [Since there is a character wipe,] Once the initial alpha tester swarm settles, we'll add more testers. As for the timing of the servers, as long as the servers are stable, they want to keep the servers up 24 hours.

No new news on PS3 beta version other than that it will have its own announcement.

There are no changes to the plan to release the game in 2010.

HAHAHA apparently Mr. Kurosawa was also in the interview and had nothing to say until the final remarks:

K: From the alpha test, we have had a fantastic amount of comments come in. We have collected North America's comments and sent them to Development. Also, Japan tester's opinions will be reflected, and so please keep the comments coming [No love for the EU].

[Ramsey]

I was totally out slacking today why wasn't I around, great translation Brand!

Also, players will be able to hire a service known as a "retainer". While one is logged out, this retainer will bazaar in your character's place and will sell goods for them. This will also affect Companies, so there will be various ways to utilize this service. I hope people look forward to this.

Most interesting part of the interview by far. I'm still hoping for Company Boats and Airships at end game to take on HNM guildleves in the ocean and the skies, but either way this sounds interesting, the more I hear about companies, there more it excites me.

Hopefully there are options for Companies for all sorts of play styles!

[Elmer the Pointy]

A lot of the JP interviews cover stuff we now from English gaming sites. Corinth wrote up the Dengeki one over on Eorzeapedia, which I think is the best and most in-depth.

http://www.eorzeapedia.com/2010/06/2...-tanaka-at-e3/

[blythe]

–Do you plan on adding more testers?

Tanaka: Currently there are 10 servers for the alpha test and the number of testers is already in the 10s of thousands. First, we’ll start with those testers for the beta. After watching how things go and making sure everything is running smoothly, we plan on adding more testers. I’d like to let the alpha testers know that we’ve listened to their feedback and made improvements for the beta version. So please check out the beta and we’ll work on making it even better. Of course we’ll continue to make adjustments even after the game is officially released. Please keep sending in feedback!

Damn, that sucks. Even if they do start the beta at the beginning of July it'll be awhile before anyone else gets in.

[Uzor]

Damn, that sucks. Even if they do start the beta at the beginning of July it'll be awhile before anyone else gets in.

Not neccesarily. They said the same thing about Alpha2, and they added people like three times a week for that. If things are stable at the start, they might begin adding people the same week.

I'm guessing after 1 week assuming everything is stable. Didn't they say they wanted servers to be open 24/7 now? So I foresee some problems if that's the case.

[Alok]

–What can you tell us about the beta version for PS3?

Tanaka: We are still hard at work on it. Director Komoto couldn’t come to E3 actually because this is crunch time for development on the beta and PS3 versions. Right now back in Japan the entire staff is working hard.

to me it says that the people they are trying to add next would be the ps3 accounts if anybody

[blythe]

That could also mean that PS3 development is just very behind the PC atm and are trying to catch up.

[Takiwaki]

http://translate.google.com/translat...6771_1124.html

http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1236771_1124.html

duno if this was posted yet, new mobs

[Falcon]

Some monsters targeting to get their daily bread is adventure may descend on a monster man meat to ward off hunger.

Oh my.

[Omniyoji]

http://translate.google.com/translat...6771_1124.html

http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1236771_1124.html

duno if this was posted yet, new mobs

Liking the new funguar look and spriggans look cute. Thanks!