On the highway to... where???

Well, the FFXI team has posted (at least) a (partial) road-map to their 2012 work on the game.

And all I have to say is this:  We know there are supposed to be some "surprise announcements" at the VanaFest in Japan in 60 days.  (BTW, the coverage for us in the States is largely going to be the same as the event two years ago, except this one is more like the US Fan Festivals (two days, during the day) than VanaFest 2010.)

So let's look at bit at all this:

The roadmap takes three parts.

The first part is Job-Related Updates.

One of the biggest pieces of news is that, in June and July, there will be new 2-hour abilities (and, later in the year, the ability through merits to enhance 2-hour effects.

I don't play with the 2-hours that much.  I always see it as an "OH SHIT!" moment that you need to do it as a last-ditch effort to go from 20% to 0 on an NM or a group of mobs who would otherwise wipe you.  But it will be interesting to see what the devs come up with.

Later in the summer, a new summon out of Wings of the Goddess:  Cait Sith.  I guess I never saw a problem with them considering Atomos (at least one of the other Caits actually summons Atomos (which looks like the Cavernous Maws) in one of the mission BC's), but Cait Sith is what SMN gets.

The second part is Battle Content.

Limbus is getting a rewrite, Einherjar is getting a rewrite, and so is Salvage.

As of about VanaFest, it appears we are getting a Dungeon Crawl system, which will then be enhanced as time goes forward.  No further current details.

End of the year, and we might be able to play as a monster, not just have it's costume.  Ooooh...  Kee....

The third part is Miscellaneous Updates, and the Windower crew is screaming.

They may finally, with a number of UI updates, be about to obsolete Windower.  It'll be interesting to see how (and if) it works.

But I get the sense that they better have held something back for VanaFest.  If 2010 is any indication, they probably have.

We already know that there appears to be a 6-on-6 PvP battlefield available (it has been advertised for VanaFest), at least on the test server.

I would like a 99 Expansion -- you have to be 99 to play it.  Far East, Mithra Homeland...

But I'm not fooling myself:  This game is ten years old, and this is Square-Enix we are talking about.