New Zones

Yeah, all his videos are pretty fun to watch for nostalgiagasms. I think they're probably some of the oldest semi-decent XI videos anywhere, including JP websites.

I was including Enix. Star Ocean 2 is one of my top 10 games of all time, and Dragon Quest and Valkyrie Profile were awesome.

Both Star Ocean and Valkyrie Profile were merely published by Enix. Aside from DQ, Enix's best games are games they didn't even make.

Also of note is that the DQ series hasn't really faltered at all since the merger (DQ10 might be a different story..), 8 and 9 being massive successes both financially and with regard to reception. The same can't be said for FF or any Squaresoft property that I can think of.

Would it be a shock if I said that the first Star Ocean game was actually developed by Wolf Team ?

Yes, WOLF TEAM, the same people who eventually became the TALES team at NAMCO BANDAI GAMES .... lol

And apparently they made Star Ocean with a lot of reused code from Tales of Phantasia ... Funny world, eh ?

It's well known that ENIX aways kept their company small and outsourced the dirty work to other devs. Basically what a publisher does, no ?

Then they had the chance of scoring big by buying the moribund Square Co. Which they did.

The rest is history ... -_-;

all i know is SO4 was trash.

Or maybe ROM9 is just a bunch of left over crap they decided not to include in the other expansions so they just put them there... I really would like to see another expansion but since SE is so headstrong into making 14 better i'm sure theres a small chance... We'll just have to see!

after 2.0 is released and declared a "success" at launch by the fickle MMO players SE will shift around their teams and try to maintain both suscriber bases. XI is the most profitable venture they have going now (even at a slightly reduced membership base). If they can maintan both bases they can pull ahead from what trash.0 XIV did to their coffers.

but to turn this back into "/tinfoil mode:on" thread, dont doubt until there is absolute reason to doubt and dont get your hopes to world peace causing levels until there is absolute reason to.

Keep an open mind, dont be a pessimist.

There is a fine line between pessimism and realism, even if 2.0 is a "success" its going to be a very limited "success" and won't even address the issue of XIV being too expensive to play compared to the superior competition.

The striking resemblance the first zone bares to a work in progress Jeuno, for me, is inescapable. Combine this with the theory that all of the models and textures are simply "placeholders". No. Placeholders are quite visible in the "Gustaberg with waterfalls" zone at the encampment. THAT'S what placeholders look like. Where others see placeholders, I see designs/textures that were saved and later utilized in the actual game we play. /extreme pessimism

as far as the town environments go, the building models may or may not be placeholders, because we don't know anything about the towns to assume their architectural identity. if the town is related to sandy, then it might just fit in perfectly.

however, the textures used in prontera are definitely placeholders. they're dummy textures. like if you open them up using polutils you will see they're handdrawn in a cartoony way and labeled "dummy".

the open zones on the other hand, don't exactly have any placeholders to speak of. the encampment in waterfall cliffs zone, that one doesn't even have textures at all, which seems to imply its a totally new asset being built into the map.

there are similar assets built into almost all the other zones, tho their degree of progress is a bit more varied

I would'nt be one bit suprised if that one town is jeuno in wotg, but idk why they would add that now >_>

Jeuno looks the same in WotG as it does today.

SE can change their mind, and use mindtricks on us, to belive it does'nt!

Why do people consider FFXIV improvement the doom of FFXI, whilst FFXI may be in its twilight, the things are not related. You realize SE produces tons of games while they're working on FFXIV? Different teams.

Umhm... SE seem to have forgotten that Ru Lude wasn't even built until after the war. >.>

People are still mad about XIV.

I don't get it either, but that's what it seems to boil down to.

Many people have said that is has had major improvements, and is fun now, but people just don't care. It's an easy target for ire.

Well ru'lude was there during the war but it was on one of bridges but was destroyed by gigas during the battle of jeuno. After the war it was moved to the top of jeuno. Though from the end cses of wotg it does seem like its in the normal place but meh could be like that star trek film different time lines w/e rubbish.

It's widely believed that money that would naturally be funneled back into FFXI, at an amount comparable to other successful MMOs, is instead going to cover FFXIV losses (of all kinds, such as 1 year of unpaid "beta", development of what is essentially 2 games, but only the sale of 1, and brand tarnish). If FFXIV had any other name than "Final Fantasy", and it was made by any other company than SE, it wouldn't exist anymore. They would have pulled the plug, last year. FF is too big, and too important to SE so the hole XIV made is being subsidized by their only other lucrative money maker.

FFXI generates an absurd amount of money for the minimal (at least lately) amount of work they preform on it, and of course the nominal cost of servers and maintenance. I'd bet it's grossed the company more money than every other FF combined.

When you say the company has other games, teams, properties, comparing Deus Ex, nay, comparing FFXIII to FFXI is like comparing Pikmin to Mario.

SE also consists of a huge amount of branches, some of which could be considered glorified publishers of the properties they've acquired (Eidos, for instance). For FF (up until FFXIV, that is) all of the development was done at Square central in Tokyo. That was and is the core of the company we barely recognize in this day.

FFXIV was outsourced to a studio in China (which has since become "acquired property"), because the real Square was too busy developing FFXIII at the time. Huge mistake. We're talking Spirits Within all over again. Wada, without resigning, is attempting to fix the problem but it has brought FFXIV development back to Tokyo, so yeah, FFXI and FFXIV are now directly competing for staff members. You'd have to be shitting yourself if you can't admit the game hasn't seen a noticeable hit. I don't think it spells out the doom of anything, but it is at the very least an unfavorable predicament, as I care very little about the direction/fate of FFXIV but find myself returning time and time again to FFXI, despite the decline in quality.

The latest news of the situation...

This feller is doing a fine job stalking this information

I'm just waiting for it. Tonight, Tanaka takes the stage with a picture of the new expansion...

"Seekers of Adoulin... our new mini-expansion foray into the unkno-...

LOL J/K. ASHITEA IS OVER GIMPLETS.

Want to climb that mountain over there? *points at screenshot*

TOO BAD. Go buy Skyrim or something, 'cause I ain't Todd Howard. This ***is being incorporated into our current high-hitting content such as:

Voidwatch!
Legion!
Moblin Maze Mongers!
Pankration!

That's right! These beautiful zones are going the way of the chocobo, that is, FULL FLIGHT TO FANTASY! We will be adding new, extraordinary monsters to new Legion and Voidwatch battlefields!

Jungle Colibri!
Jungle Naraka!
Jungle Mantid!
Jungle Botulus!

Can you feel the excitement? I can barely contain it!

For only 600 US dollars, all of this and more can be yours!




By 'and more', of course I mean Beech Logs. Enjoy!

-Hiromichi Tanaka, Lead Producer, Final Fantasy XI"

This might just be the greatest thing I have ever read.

I just expect him to quiety walk on stage.... stare at everyone ... then yell with his arms raised.


"BARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANCE!"

Yeah like the Iron Chef guy

Am I the only person who has come up with the idea that these "new zones" are redesigns for currently existing zones?

The seaside one being Port Bastok.
The cathedral one being San D'Oria.
Underground waterway...Bostaunieux Oubliette or Toraimarai Canal...
2 jungle zones? Yuht and Yhoat?
Riverside area, Pashhow Marshlands maybe, bit of a stretch though.
Empty Forest is too empty to make any logical connection.
The Dry Steppe, Gustaberg?
Tunnel Zone looks like Ranperre's Tomb.

Obviously speculative to an extreme but we don't exactly have a lot to go on.

*stares*

Seriously, lol...

They are using default textures atm, so those aren't going to be different atm.

As far as design... that's a stretch. Sure there are some resemblances but... that is going to occur. Like the blog I posted earlier said, the stronghold/empire map is on a slope and no zone has really been on one yet except for maybe beau depending on how you look at it.

*cough* wouldn't use D3 as an example as they have lost their player base faster than 14 did. Plus have done nothing or show no signs of taking any initiative to add to this base or fix major gameplay problems. The playerbase as well as economy has been dying day by day since the middle of week 2 in my opinion.

Cat's out of the bag now with Vanafest, but this was never really a possibility. You seem to have missed the fact that the ROM9 folder was only added a few months ago and the files within are even newer. If anything it was a subtle teaser for them to add it at the specific point in time that they did.

i just came to a sudden realization. i was looking at the prices of flame geodes. thinking. wow SE should.... OMG... THEY JUST MIGHT!
add more zones with flame weather being common! maybe that Valkurm dunes place might have it as common as Gustaberg has wind or something
making it possible for penny pinchers such as myself able to finally make it worth wile farming for my flame path weapons! :D