20th Anniversary Reddit AMA

I wonder if all this hype from this article in 2021 was just the master levels update. If so pretty disappointing hope they at least add new spells and JA's at some point but from the sounds of it they are done.


https://twinfinite.net/2021/02/latest-final-fantasy-xi-digest-qa-job-adjustments/

I was always under the impression that master levels was the "22 jobs upgrade". Technically we did get new abilities and spells from subjob but I agree it didn't really jive with them saying "unlocking every jobs potential" seemed like a very tongue in cheek statement retrospectively.

As we went into the pandemic, SE decided to can the monthly job adjustments and instead put it out at the end of the content cycle. They weren't specific about further changes, but what we were given at the time greatly increased the utility of many of the jobs they adjusted.


Purely speculation: I feel the team will broadly reduce cooldowns for many abilities across the board. This would increase the utility and the activity of many jobs and keeps players engaged. Probably not a lot of new spells and abilities, but likely reworked spells and abilities to make them functionally new.

That could have been a poor translation. I guess what they probably meant was, they are unlocking certain aspects that previously were restricted (support jobs). Unlocking potential just implies that previously restricted options can now be accessible by more jobs for more fun combinations. But I do agree the comment did not appear to be talking about abilities/traits gained from higher level subs, but they didn’t lie about it. lol

I don't understand how people are so confused... Master Levels was clearly the system they spoke of when they were talking about removing shackles, etc. Job adjustments will resume later down the road.

Also, never use a blog written by people who barely pay attention to the game as a news source.

FFXI offices



Developers:

Akihiko Matsui: I’m Akihiko Matsui, a “second generation” FFXI producer. I was part of what you might call the early team, and while working on the international version of Legend of Mana and thinking about our next project, Sakaguchi-san told me to do my research because we would be making an online game next. I joined the FFXI team in the beginning as a battle planner.

Yoji Fujito: I’m the current director of FFXI. I have been supporting what can be referred to as “lifestyle” content, the best-known of which may be the mog gardens and chocobo raising, as well as system-related aspects such as the chat or storage systems. Originally, I joined as a planner for the development of Einhänder and Parasite Eve II at the SQUARE Osaka development department (currently the Osaka office). After that, I answered the call for developing FFXI, and have been involved in the development ever since.

Masaru Taniguchi: My name is Masaru Taniguchi and I’m in charge of battle content. I have been involved in the development of FFXI since the Wings of the Goddess expansion. Before FFXI was released, I was in the QA department and worked on debugging the game.

Iori Watanabe: Hello, I’m Iori Watanabe. I joined the team as a tester during the beta version and got the opportunity to become involved as a planner from the second half of the Wings of the Goddess expansion pack. I oversee system modifications to enhance convenience with respect to fishing, mounts, and storage slips beyond Abyssea. Recently, I worked on storage expansion-related designs.

Yasushi Yamazaki: My name is Yasushi Yamazaki. As far as introductions, it would probably be easiest to understand my role if I say that I am in charge of Trusts, Ambuscade Chapter 1, and more recently, A.M.A.N. Trove. I was originally an FFXI player, but when I saw Producer Matsui’s passionate message to recruit development team staff, I applied for the position and joined the team.

Takashi Hisagi: I joined the company in January 2001 as a PlayOnline developer. After that, I was involved in the start-up of the development department for the SQUARE ENIX Account Management System, and then I was transferred to FFXI development after they heard my pleas to work in game development.

--

Currently, we have seven members including myself, all of whom are planners. There is one member who can act as an engineer, but essentially, the team is only able to implement movement with scripts for planning. Therefore, for anything else, such as adding new graphics or adjusting UI, we continue to borrow help from outside parties as needed to handle work that is over-spec compared to what was originally anticipated.


I don't know why they posted it here, but they did.

https://blog.playstation.com/2022/05/27/celebrating-final-fantasy-xi-online-a-20th-anniversary-retrospective-with-the-games-creators/

Did no outlet request an interview for FFXI or was it not entertained? Not even Gamerescape has anything this time.

Some of their PR folks put that together and used their posting permissions to throw it on PS Blog, which is a very odd location to bother doing so.

If this is a recent photo, then their working environment is way worse than I thought it'd be. Those monitors look like they'll be able to buy alcohol soon.

Wow, what I take from those bios is that FFXI is holding on due to 7 SE lifers that choose to devote their time to it. Most of those people have been working on XI for more than 20 years.

We better hope they stay healthy and happy because a few of them quitting would 100% kill the game. The bus factor is bad.

Reading the article is grim. Make your peace with FFXI, fellers. She isn't long for this world. A stiff breeze from any number of directions could do it in.

Heaven forbid storage slip man quits

I haven't done any research, but I'm guessing that upgrading to new ones isn't gonna improve much because they're hooked up via RCA cables to a PS2 dev kit that outputs 480p.

I'm surprised they aren't CRT lol

Or, and this will be a crazy idea that doesn't earn me any Reddit gold at all, but how about employing someone to do graphics and someone to do UI. Even on a limited contract if necessary.

I don't even understand this as an excuse.


Edit: who writes storyline and directs cutscenes? That's my favourite content at the moment. Matsui personally?

This isn't the case, FFXI has been merged into FFXIV operations many years ago. Literally everyone in that room could quit today and the game could still run for as long as they want to run it for. They can even do minor things such as they currently do, like rotating Ambuscade etc since this can be easily done on PC.

These are developers, that make new content.

Square stated that XI was put into maintenance mode years ago, this isn't anything new. However they decided of their own free will to make content for players, they get paid the same regardless. However since they are fans of the game they want to do it.

I appreciate what they are doing, my issue personally is that either the CEO or Yoshida refuses to allow them to invest more of the money XI brings in into updating tools and such. They just run XI at a huge profit margin to boost XIV in financial reports, which is one of the reasons they want to run it as long as possible too.

The problem isn't the developers, it's the higher ups.

Welp, if people start building a private server now, it should be ready by the time retail croaks. Don't let 7 grandpas show you up

This will probably upset active players who have the fortune of still making great memories in this place, but while I also wish the team good health and happiness, I do wish them a swift retirement. I hope that with a mercy killing, things might change. I think SE is extraordinarily risk averse to leave XI to rot like this for a decade, and no doubt SE will squelch along like this until the end.

Otherwise, we'll just have to keep watching the infinitesimal typewriter monkey of the mmo industry churn out flop after flop in the hope that one resembles XI enough to be actually be a success and be a success in a way that suits our particular tastes. And of course, for they who choose instead to embrace their inner rat - pressing the same buttons in sequence, moving out of red circles and being rewarded for this behaviour with injections of ilevel cocaine via a spinal implant is always an alternative.

tldr, hold bread to either side of Yoshida's face, ask him what he is, and if the answer isn't "A cheese sandwich" we RIOT

I think it's worth pointing this out too

FFXI is the life's work of many of these developers, not just the ones that work directly on it but people like Naoshi Mizuta that made a lot of the music too. For these people it's not just a 9-5 job, they put ridiculous amounts of overtime in and lived and breathed this game for most of their working lives. Matsui tells in interviews often how he was working vast hours in the first 5-6 years, along with everyone else. Putting this game out was a herculean task, and even today they are very understaffed and still do their best because they are passionate about it. They were practically breaking Covid regulations to come into work because they were not allowed to take the ps2 devkits home.

They do not want this game to end, because unlike something like Skyrim etc this game ceases to function when the servers go offline, and so all their life's work and efforts are basically torched on that day. They are going to try and do what they can to make sure that does not happen.

Can you imagine putting 20 years into something, and doing all that overtime and effort and then one day they just throw it in the trash? Imagine how that would feel.

I think this is part of the reason they made the We are Vanadiel website too, not only to memorialize it but also maybe to hint at the higher ups that this is more important than they are treating it

Important to keep in mind, the games FFXI was based on and the games the developers played to "copy" if you will are still running (Everquest and Ultima Online) and there isn't this shock and awe about it. It's expected they are still running.

For us, XI isn't just a game after putting 15-20 of our formative years into it. It's almost reached the level of being a real place in the world to many of us on an emotional level, almost like the place you grew up in. We have spent so much time in it, we met so many people and made friendships and had so many triumphs and failures that it's taken on a greater meaning than a game world would normally have.

If you do anything for 15-20 years, it's not sunk cost fallacy to not drop it when some new game comes out anymore. It's about 10 million miles beyond sunk cost fallacy, it's ingrained into you and under your skin at that point.

I logged in a few months ago to do some crafting and a friend I had not seen in over 10 years logged on and said hi to me, I haven't seen or heard from them in all that time because they moved to another country and we lost track. However, because the game is still running we were able to meet up randomly and catch up in the same game we spent so much time together all that time ago.

This isn't just some old clunky game, this is important to us and the developers.

The way you post about this game isn't healthy, I hope you realize that someday

i think it goes beyond the posting tbh

Yea thats the go to hinting at some mental illness. Lets be real, most of us grew up with this game. Its important to a lot of people so its a little weird to see people thinking its just some game after theyve been playing and posting on forums for it over 15 years... cmon now.

I found Radial's statements in the last post quite accurate. The only issue I see is most who will side with it think that those feelings translate into longevity and support from the higher-ups. People need to realize that those who feel like we do don't make the decisions.

I honestly don't understand why people act like it would really be that hard to remake FFXI for better graphics/newer hardware/remove POL/etc. Even if it required closing current FFXI and meaning the new one was 'a different game' I think it would pay itself off.

Kill POL
Throw a few levels of subdiv on models
Use some new AI program to scale up textures (which is what people have been doing already)
Copy all the logic for damage dealing
Don't waste time bringing in pointless content, or the Ninja, Dragoon, or Beastmaster jobs

Wow, there's some dumb comments in this thread, but this takes the cake.

Your post displays amazing levels of intellect.

that wasn't even a full-effort attempt at derail. Trolling is getting lazy these days.

A derail? You mean because I am not posting on the poor lives of FFXI devs or mental illness? I thought the subject was the future of FFXI, which my post was about. Correct me if I am wrong to post about that subject and instead should be posting about pointless ***like people's mental health.

better. the effort this time is appreciated.

This is the epitome of shitposting and trolling.

The irony is pretty hilarious though. Role players who are completely incapable of role playing as businessmen. I suppose it could be worse and people really do think that somehow emotion and nostalgia are part of the metric, but either way... pretty silly.

I've been playing this game since I was 16yo... I am 36 now and I still do in the comfort of my cardboard box while I play on my 10yo laptop that I siphon power from the local Walmart to charge to make events.

I sell my blood (the joy of being AB+)and put the money on my Russell Simmons Rushcard to pay my monthly fee. I would duo or quad box if my Core2duo laptop could handle it. I wouldn't change a thing in the world...

DONT TELL ME THIS IS JUST A GAME

You could make more selling sperm too, can donate once a week so you can just reat it like one of the weekly quests and you'll get about $100 for doing so.