Happened across a Neo-Nyzul stream on Twitch of a group on Bismarck, in progress as I type.
The person who is streaming their play is cheating his ass off. Windower, Fillmode, and probably more.
He's been STFed.
Some of you motherfuckers better understand that putting the stuff out on the Net can have consequences.
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Square-Enix confirms it: 3/27/13 to download, 3/28/13 to play it
The website's been updated -- a lot! -- and it's basically all official.
Barring any critical bugs, the 5th expansion will be available March 27, 2013, but the game won't be ready for it for another day.
And with word that the expansion is actually going to be a $29.99 digital download for PC, it appears they may be taking the game down entirely for the expansion and devoting (what am I saying? -- this is Square-Enix!!) resources to downloading the expansion.
You're greeted on the newly-updated site with a new song, "A New Direction", which blares trumpets into your speakers/headphones. It's rather standard fare, but it's good to actually see some new direction, as it were, to the game.
Adoulin, basically, is a second Jeuno, on the Eastern shores of the Western continent, Ulbuka. And, as was basically inferred back at VanaFest 2012, Ulbuka basically has none of the comforts players have taken for granted in the Middle Lands.
I almost get an Aht Urhgan feel with how they describe Adoulin as a two-part city. Stoic castle in the east, bustling mercantile city in the west.
Clicking on "Varied Personages" gets you a look at a Swordmaiden, almost certainly an early-Seekers mission NPC.
Of course, what probably interests people most are the new areas, mobs, and jobs.
Several areas are featured, all of which appear quite interesting. The new trailer also seems to show some of the "environmental blockage" mechanisms, taken from the ice sheet blocking the entrance to Bearclaw Pinnacle in Uleguerand, it appears.
The new beastman almost looks like an orc!
And, of course, the new jobs again. Nothing new on the site, and there's three other links which are not available yet, but, over the next three months, they will be.
Barring any critical bugs, the 5th expansion will be available March 27, 2013, but the game won't be ready for it for another day.
And with word that the expansion is actually going to be a $29.99 digital download for PC, it appears they may be taking the game down entirely for the expansion and devoting (what am I saying? -- this is Square-Enix!!) resources to downloading the expansion.
You're greeted on the newly-updated site with a new song, "A New Direction", which blares trumpets into your speakers/headphones. It's rather standard fare, but it's good to actually see some new direction, as it were, to the game.
Adoulin, basically, is a second Jeuno, on the Eastern shores of the Western continent, Ulbuka. And, as was basically inferred back at VanaFest 2012, Ulbuka basically has none of the comforts players have taken for granted in the Middle Lands.
I almost get an Aht Urhgan feel with how they describe Adoulin as a two-part city. Stoic castle in the east, bustling mercantile city in the west.
Clicking on "Varied Personages" gets you a look at a Swordmaiden, almost certainly an early-Seekers mission NPC.
Of course, what probably interests people most are the new areas, mobs, and jobs.
Several areas are featured, all of which appear quite interesting. The new trailer also seems to show some of the "environmental blockage" mechanisms, taken from the ice sheet blocking the entrance to Bearclaw Pinnacle in Uleguerand, it appears.
The new beastman almost looks like an orc!
And, of course, the new jobs again. Nothing new on the site, and there's three other links which are not available yet, but, over the next three months, they will be.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Your Christmas Prayers May Have Been Answered: March 27, 2013????
Just screwing around in Campaign to level my PLD and farm some Voiddusts before a little Christmas dinner outing, and I happen across this on BluCheater:
An UNCONFIRMED report has stated that, sourcing Japanese gaming magazines, Seekers of Adoulin has a release date: March 27, 2013.
Been searching the web for the last half-hour for ANY confirmation, and have found nothing. Stay tuned.
EDIT 7:40 PM 12/25: At least one Japanese gaming website has stated it, so Gamer Escape has also reported it from there.
An UNCONFIRMED report has stated that, sourcing Japanese gaming magazines, Seekers of Adoulin has a release date: March 27, 2013.
Been searching the web for the last half-hour for ANY confirmation, and have found nothing. Stay tuned.
EDIT 7:40 PM 12/25: At least one Japanese gaming website has stated it, so Gamer Escape has also reported it from there.
Monday, December 10, 2012
Wow. MASSIVE Square-Enix Fail. Did they finally get to the point that they blew it all up?
I mean, yes, the game is running right now, but...
About nine hours before the scheduled maintenance time, they had to scrub it.
Critical bug.
Now how bad does it have to be, as we all know Square-Enix' history with these things, for them to have to scrub the update, indeterminately?
About nine hours before the scheduled maintenance time, they had to scrub it.
Critical bug.
Now how bad does it have to be, as we all know Square-Enix' history with these things, for them to have to scrub the update, indeterminately?
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Hell to the Yeah!! Fell Cleave Parties Effectively Declared Illegal!!!
Boy, did I log into a doozy today.
In the game-selection screen, under "Action Against RMT Activity Involving Power-Leveling", Square-Enix finally is starting action where it should've for the longest time: The RMT Fell Cleave parties.
I've said for a long time that the FC parties were illegal on two grounds: Not only on RMT, but also on the fact that they advertise to pay-for-advancement. Both are illegal, and even those who are not RMT (of which there is claimed to be a (albeit smaller) number) are still guilty of the second part of this.
I've STF'ed a number of players who, by gil-laundering mechanisms through the Auction House, expose themselves as being RMT.
Look, there's one reality here:
If there are not enough legitimate players to sustain the game, the game has to be shut down.
Said it almost four years ago on the Salvage bans, and it's as true today (if not more so!!) than it was then.
In the game-selection screen, under "Action Against RMT Activity Involving Power-Leveling", Square-Enix finally is starting action where it should've for the longest time: The RMT Fell Cleave parties.
I've said for a long time that the FC parties were illegal on two grounds: Not only on RMT, but also on the fact that they advertise to pay-for-advancement. Both are illegal, and even those who are not RMT (of which there is claimed to be a (albeit smaller) number) are still guilty of the second part of this.
I've STF'ed a number of players who, by gil-laundering mechanisms through the Auction House, expose themselves as being RMT.
Look, there's one reality here:
If there are not enough legitimate players to sustain the game, the game has to be shut down.
Said it almost four years ago on the Salvage bans, and it's as true today (if not more so!!) than it was then.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
More cheating bullshit QQ as Matsui speaks again...
He spoke today on a number of subjects (largely the PD/Embrava nerf), and I can't think the BG Brigade is going to be happy on it.
Matsui began with a discussion on:
Pros and Cons of Adjustment and Timing
In the midst of my efforts to catch up on the two years that I’d missed, this was the first thing I took notice of. I was apprehensive that this would become a situation following in the footsteps of Utsusemi, so I spoke to the development and operations team and made a quick decision to make these adjustments knowing that there was little time.
While the development and operation team members understood this and agreed with me, we were unable to properly convey our thoughts on the forum, and since this work was taking place in the middle of our already limited time, I would like to apologize to all of you for causing concern.
This is linked to the canceling out of any other battle strategy decisions, and also looking ahead to the development work for the jobs and content that are to be implemented in Seekers of Adoulin, I believe that these adjustments are necessary. (Especially for Embrava.)
1) I'm not sure he understands how limited his time actually is on working on a lot of things, especially Seekers content.
2) One of the problems is that the whole situation on PD/Embrava HAS followed the footsteps of Utsusemi, as it became a player-led change to fundamental strategy, which the developers, etc. have declared illegitimate and in need of immediate repair before the release of Seekers, or even before a lot of the Seekers content was being made.
3) Again, and this is in tandem to the other letter Matsui just did: The basic admission that much of this elite content is not meant to be beatable (at all unless you take the "Azure Underwear School of Secret Ninja Techniques", and that too needs to be addressed, and certainly even dicier now under that School) as presently designed.
Matsui:
Can’t you just strengthen the other special abilities without weakening Perfect Defense and Embrava?
When comparing these to other special abilities, they have such extensive effects that I do not think it would be realistic to adjust all of the special abilities to match them.
Also, in the case that we were to create content and monsters with the current Perfect Defense and Embrava in existence, it would result in brute-force behavior that nullifies or erases these abilities, so scholar and summoner’s position in the battlefield would not remain the same as it is.
There is a difference between only having content and enemies that can be enjoyed by dealing huge amounts of damage with continuous weapon skills, versus having this type of content and enemies as well as other content and enemies.
Basically, an admission to the power of the two SP's.
The thing that people will definitely complain about is: With the temporary-item strategies in Voidwatch, "brute-force behavior" is about the only way to win most of the fights in the game at that level to begin with.
What Matsui is talking about, more and more, is variety of content. The problem is, the whole company needed this years ago. As one FFXIAH reader I've already scanned has said: It's a matter of trust -- can we trust him to do the right thing, even if it appears as if he's being transparent enough to want to.
Are you getting rid of all battle strategies that are advantageous for players?
Regardless of whether it is advantageous or disadvantageous, as long as we feel there is a balance-related problem we will make adjustments. The big issue I see is that we are weakening these abilities despite the fact that it has been around for such a long time untouched.
I really understand everyone’s feelings, and that you hate this since you all did your best and endured hardships leveling up and gathering equipment. Not everything we do is perfect, so when we make a mistake we would like to rectify it and we promise to make the adjustments and fixes right away.
This gets back to the crux of the players' feelings toward this, plus questions like the legality of Windower (and SpellCast, etc. and so forth). The fact is that, before anything else can be done with this game, situations like that need to be answered FIRST. If you don't allow Windower, except with a nudge and a wink, then those who test the product using it are going to skew the relative difficulty and the adjustments toward the Windower crowd.
State what level of "gear" is legal and what level is not and force everybody to test to that level. Of course, you'll also have to address those who have made a "living" on that illegal set of programs, but answer the other question first.
Effectively, that is the same concern as is here, and I sense that Matsui, with PD/Embrava, is saying "Howinthehell did we let this stand for so long?". And I think no small part of it is the company's at-least-partial acceptance of the BG pieces of shit. This is one of the reasons I do believe Camate and Bayohne need to be reevaluated and probably removed as conduits from the company to the game community.
Again, though, they really need to answer many other questions FIRST, on the same thought processes as to what "adjustments" may need to be made.
And then Matsui throws a curveball that is REALLY going to get the QQ Factor up:
Why the delay?
There are three reasons.
In regards to the first reason, I feel we need to continue to improve this and time to do so is necessary.
In regards to the second reason, while I feel that providing new content and in-depth adjustments is the ideal route to go, this would be at minimum the next version update (the one after the December version update), so we decided to implement only the content adjustments ahead of time.
However, for the new salvage only, we will be addressing it slightly irregularly by making it so that the effect of Embrava becomes what was planned for adjustment. While the new salvage was not balanced on the basis of Embrava, if it can be used as-is, then battle strategies will be formulated based on its use. There were quite a few posts that were concerned about how the adjustments would affect the new salvage, and many were commenting that the implementation should be pushed back. However, since pushing back implementation would reduce the amount of content that could be played we decided to adopt this method of adjustment.
In regards to the third reason, this is the first time mentioning this, but we will be fixing the bug where ability effect duration timers can be stopped when talking to NPCs since QA testing has concluded as of yesterday and implementation is now possible.
This was originally a counter-measure to prevent being killed while in a cutscene, but it was utilized in a different way and by allowing this it would completely eliminate the meaning behind abilities with strong effects in exchange for short effect durations. Additionally, similar to the adjustments to Perfect Defense and Embrava, with development work continuing on Seekers of Adoulin, we decided it was necessary at this point in time to fix this.
First reason is something that Matsui appears to be taking very seriously at this time.
Second reason: Again, the content was never meant to be won under proper and legal strategies, and I begin to wonder if Neo-Salvage is largely under the same boat.
But it's the third reason, and the announcement of the fix of an exploit (it's not a bug -- it's a fucking exploit that these cheating pieces of crap have been using for a long time) that's needed to be fixed: You used to be able to lock timers to allow things like Primeval Brews and the like to have effectively infinite timers. This is the definition of an exploit and needs to be punished as such.
But it's being addressed.
In closing
I’m sorry that we’ve been so wary about posting on the forum until now.
Also, since yesterday’s post, I started seeing comments to hurry up and make the adjustments, and I once again feel that adjustments that everyone agrees on are difficult.
In addition to the development and operations team and I increasing our efforts to understand both individual players and everyone as a whole, we will be making adjustments as necessary and appearing on the forums more. Thank you all very much.
Translators (and agent in the field) said this is possibly an effort to address whether Windower is legal or not, and, as I said above, it needs to be answered, whether that answer is that it's legal or that it is not.
Matsui began with a discussion on:
Pros and Cons of Adjustment and Timing
In the midst of my efforts to catch up on the two years that I’d missed, this was the first thing I took notice of. I was apprehensive that this would become a situation following in the footsteps of Utsusemi, so I spoke to the development and operations team and made a quick decision to make these adjustments knowing that there was little time.
While the development and operation team members understood this and agreed with me, we were unable to properly convey our thoughts on the forum, and since this work was taking place in the middle of our already limited time, I would like to apologize to all of you for causing concern.
This is linked to the canceling out of any other battle strategy decisions, and also looking ahead to the development work for the jobs and content that are to be implemented in Seekers of Adoulin, I believe that these adjustments are necessary. (Especially for Embrava.)
1) I'm not sure he understands how limited his time actually is on working on a lot of things, especially Seekers content.
2) One of the problems is that the whole situation on PD/Embrava HAS followed the footsteps of Utsusemi, as it became a player-led change to fundamental strategy, which the developers, etc. have declared illegitimate and in need of immediate repair before the release of Seekers, or even before a lot of the Seekers content was being made.
3) Again, and this is in tandem to the other letter Matsui just did: The basic admission that much of this elite content is not meant to be beatable (at all unless you take the "Azure Underwear School of Secret Ninja Techniques", and that too needs to be addressed, and certainly even dicier now under that School) as presently designed.
Matsui:
Can’t you just strengthen the other special abilities without weakening Perfect Defense and Embrava?
When comparing these to other special abilities, they have such extensive effects that I do not think it would be realistic to adjust all of the special abilities to match them.
Also, in the case that we were to create content and monsters with the current Perfect Defense and Embrava in existence, it would result in brute-force behavior that nullifies or erases these abilities, so scholar and summoner’s position in the battlefield would not remain the same as it is.
There is a difference between only having content and enemies that can be enjoyed by dealing huge amounts of damage with continuous weapon skills, versus having this type of content and enemies as well as other content and enemies.
Basically, an admission to the power of the two SP's.
The thing that people will definitely complain about is: With the temporary-item strategies in Voidwatch, "brute-force behavior" is about the only way to win most of the fights in the game at that level to begin with.
What Matsui is talking about, more and more, is variety of content. The problem is, the whole company needed this years ago. As one FFXIAH reader I've already scanned has said: It's a matter of trust -- can we trust him to do the right thing, even if it appears as if he's being transparent enough to want to.
Are you getting rid of all battle strategies that are advantageous for players?
Regardless of whether it is advantageous or disadvantageous, as long as we feel there is a balance-related problem we will make adjustments. The big issue I see is that we are weakening these abilities despite the fact that it has been around for such a long time untouched.
I really understand everyone’s feelings, and that you hate this since you all did your best and endured hardships leveling up and gathering equipment. Not everything we do is perfect, so when we make a mistake we would like to rectify it and we promise to make the adjustments and fixes right away.
This gets back to the crux of the players' feelings toward this, plus questions like the legality of Windower (and SpellCast, etc. and so forth). The fact is that, before anything else can be done with this game, situations like that need to be answered FIRST. If you don't allow Windower, except with a nudge and a wink, then those who test the product using it are going to skew the relative difficulty and the adjustments toward the Windower crowd.
State what level of "gear" is legal and what level is not and force everybody to test to that level. Of course, you'll also have to address those who have made a "living" on that illegal set of programs, but answer the other question first.
Effectively, that is the same concern as is here, and I sense that Matsui, with PD/Embrava, is saying "Howinthehell did we let this stand for so long?". And I think no small part of it is the company's at-least-partial acceptance of the BG pieces of shit. This is one of the reasons I do believe Camate and Bayohne need to be reevaluated and probably removed as conduits from the company to the game community.
Again, though, they really need to answer many other questions FIRST, on the same thought processes as to what "adjustments" may need to be made.
And then Matsui throws a curveball that is REALLY going to get the QQ Factor up:
Why the delay?
There are three reasons.
- Lack of communication
- By implementing these adjustments, the content that can be enjoyed by players coming in after the fact will be lost
- The impact from other adjustments would be large
In regards to the first reason, I feel we need to continue to improve this and time to do so is necessary.
In regards to the second reason, while I feel that providing new content and in-depth adjustments is the ideal route to go, this would be at minimum the next version update (the one after the December version update), so we decided to implement only the content adjustments ahead of time.
However, for the new salvage only, we will be addressing it slightly irregularly by making it so that the effect of Embrava becomes what was planned for adjustment. While the new salvage was not balanced on the basis of Embrava, if it can be used as-is, then battle strategies will be formulated based on its use. There were quite a few posts that were concerned about how the adjustments would affect the new salvage, and many were commenting that the implementation should be pushed back. However, since pushing back implementation would reduce the amount of content that could be played we decided to adopt this method of adjustment.
In regards to the third reason, this is the first time mentioning this, but we will be fixing the bug where ability effect duration timers can be stopped when talking to NPCs since QA testing has concluded as of yesterday and implementation is now possible.
This was originally a counter-measure to prevent being killed while in a cutscene, but it was utilized in a different way and by allowing this it would completely eliminate the meaning behind abilities with strong effects in exchange for short effect durations. Additionally, similar to the adjustments to Perfect Defense and Embrava, with development work continuing on Seekers of Adoulin, we decided it was necessary at this point in time to fix this.
First reason is something that Matsui appears to be taking very seriously at this time.
Second reason: Again, the content was never meant to be won under proper and legal strategies, and I begin to wonder if Neo-Salvage is largely under the same boat.
But it's the third reason, and the announcement of the fix of an exploit (it's not a bug -- it's a fucking exploit that these cheating pieces of crap have been using for a long time) that's needed to be fixed: You used to be able to lock timers to allow things like Primeval Brews and the like to have effectively infinite timers. This is the definition of an exploit and needs to be punished as such.
But it's being addressed.
In closing
I’m sorry that we’ve been so wary about posting on the forum until now.
Also, since yesterday’s post, I started seeing comments to hurry up and make the adjustments, and I once again feel that adjustments that everyone agrees on are difficult.
In addition to the development and operations team and I increasing our efforts to understand both individual players and everyone as a whole, we will be making adjustments as necessary and appearing on the forums more. Thank you all very much.
Translators (and agent in the field) said this is possibly an effort to address whether Windower is legal or not, and, as I said above, it needs to be answered, whether that answer is that it's legal or that it is not.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
And the producer speaks... sort of....
Quick note:
One-day fee vacation. Gotta reset, as the money comes in on Friday, so BG gets a one-day jubilee in-game from my sorry you-know-what... :)
Anyway, to the point of all this:
Yesterday (Wednesday) on the Japanese forums -- translated soon after for English-speakers, Akihiko Matsui, the director of Final Fantasy XI, basically took to the forums...
... basically to apologize for all the official silence.
Basically, the impression I got from the official translation is that Matsui is overwhelmed by the amount of necessary work on the game he has had to encounter since taking over for Tanaka this summer:
I think that Matsui said it best (in the translation) when he said:
"I'm at a point that I'd really like more time for all of this, but I can't just keeping saying that."
And, with that, he immediately addressed the roadmap from earlier this year.
All but confirming that Seekers of Adoulin was probably a desperation move on the part of Square-Enix, he said:
"I apologize for the delays with the currently released roadmap. There are two reasons for this.
The first reason is that since the schedule was released before the announcement of Seekers of Adoulin, the effects of the development load for the expansion were much larger than anticipated."
The problem with that is that it really appears that they felt either that they could half-ass the expansion, or that they never anticipated how much work they would have, so to say that they never really expected to have a fifth Final Fantasy XI expansion.
Then, basically about the one large announcement from this post:
"While we looked into a revised version of the roadmap to release, instead of redoing everything that was up until March 2013, we feel it's necessary to take time to build out a proper development plan from next year on, starting with redefining development plans and then deciding on the practical work content so that we do not disappoint all of you."
Emphasis mine.
They're basically going to change out of what they've been trying to do for the last who-knows-how-long -- probably up to about the five years since Wings of the Goddess hit the table.
Here's the problem: The community needs at least a soft date on Seekers -- and it needs it now. From announcement to release, Wings of the Goddess was six months. About Christmas Day will be six months from the announcement of Seekers, and the facts are that almost NOTHING has been said about the new expansion, which leaves the possibility open that the plug might get pulled before Seekers ever sees release.
But it's basically being decided that, if Final Fantasy XI is going to survive (see the blog post below (Yoshida's comments about the damage XIV has done) for one of the reasons it may not!!), major changes in the development of the game and what's going to be worked upon it are probably going to have to be made.
After (and he knows this is a problem) asking for a little more time, he goes into further detail:
"For example, there's the concern with content and that the necessary content is not reaching the necessary people."
Well, that is part of the main problem (a larger part being that Seekers needs to at least be seen as coming soon to keep people interested), the fact is that a large reason this is the case is that many of the players on the Test Server are using the same illegal third-party add-ons and programs they use in the game proper.
Hence, by committing illegal acts on the Test Server, they skew the content harder than it would be if all players were forced to abide by the rules and license limitations of the game.
By the time the content goes live, the content is actually not balanced, and, if anything, needs to be balanced AGAINST the players who cheat their asses off -- many of them contributing to the testing. Of course, when this fails, these players get exactly what they want: Many of these players DO NOT WANT the "necessary content" to reach the "necessary people".
They believe they are the ONLY "necessary people" entitled to be involved, and that players who do not RMT and/or cheat have no place in Vana'diel.
Matsui again:
"Currently, due to the fact that there's a lack of low-difficulty and casual content, a majority of players are focusing on high-difficulty content, and there has been a lot of feedback that even though they log in they can't do what they want (nothing to do). Also affecting this is that things have become more complicated since adjustments have been made to drop rates and item stats."
There's two parts to this.
One, even with all the stuff that can now be soloable at level 99 from the former content, Matsui admits that there is actually very little casual-level content.
Again, this is what the predominant (at least North American/English-speaking) game population wants. They abhor casual players, believing they take up space and are an unnecessary evil (at best, if not simply contrary to the continuance of this game as an MMO!) which should be shunned, if not eradicated.
In fact, as I said five months ago when Seekers of Adoulin was announced, I think it clear that they would love to block all other players but their elite (and cheating, almost exclusively) selves.
Second, "they can't do what they want"/"nothing to do".
The problem here is two-fold: One: You have a system of levelling, at this point, which is contrary to the Terms of Service. The predominance of players will basically book-burn a job to 30, get into Abyssea, and then basically Fell Cleave/RMT (though not all Fell Cleave groups are RMT, they all are illegal, and the vast majority of the people involved in putting them together and announcing them ARE RMT...) their way to get whatever jobs to 99 that they want.
Two: The fact is that either the players are of the class who wish to dominate the game over all the other players (and disgrace the other players in so doing), or they are shunned by that same first class of players.
Under "Development Plans", Matsui lists the following:
"I'd personally like to see players that are below level 99 reach level 99 quickly (we will be looking into whether we can make adjustments so that the level 95 limit quest can be completed solo), and for players that have reached level 99, I’d like to create separate elements such as solo, group, casual, hardcore, and provide game play after defining themes for new elements and adjusted elements."
Actually, in most cases, people are reaching level 99 FAR TOO QUICKLY. I think I know why Matsui wants players to reach level 99 -- Seekers, if the game survives long enough to get a release, will be the level 99 expansion. Zilart was a 50ish expansion, CoP was a 50-75, ToAU was basically a 75 expansion, Wings even more so, and now, with the level cap of 99, there needs to be more 99 content than just rehashes.
The problem, again, is with the illegal Fell Cleavers, etc. 99 is a matter of gil now, not time nor skill.
More promising the idea of separate elements. Far too much in the 75 Vana'diel required large groups to attempt the material. The Vana'diel of level 99 has blown up a lot of the power structure allow the elitist cheaters to basically rule the day, but not all of it. Perhaps the creation of separate tiers of the game for solo, group, casual, hardcore, etc., might actually blow the rest of the power structure up.
"It's necessary to make adjustments to increase the win/success rate for content that has already been played out by the top groups so that players that come later can catch-up."
You can't think BG likes this one Matsui said. The entire reason many of these people exist is to humiliate other players or basically force them to pay for illegal clearances (Neo-Nyzul at 10,000,000/win is a good example!).
Before any of that can take place, Mr. Matsui, you need to determine if the tactics and programs used by these "top groups" are legal and allowed. If they are, you have a serious rewrite of the rules of the game ahead of you -- BEFORE you can do any of what you state.
If Windower/Spellcast/etc. are legal, then the scale of the game changes completely, as the Windower/Spellcast/etc. players will openly attest to. It's either illegal to play with these implements under License Limitation 2.1, or it's illegal (if the player has the equipment to do so) NOT to play with these implements, as the level of play is demonstrably lower, disrupting the game experience of the other players, and creating an illegality under License Limitation 3.2 .
And then, at that point, would you really need to increase the win or success rate, if the programs once declared illegal effectively become the legal/preferred/only way to play the game?
"Also, in regards to existing content, we will be redefining the number of people required, the level spread, and reward difficulty, and look into making adjustments to fit the needs of the current Vana'diel.
(I feel it would be best to work on the paths to these various types of content for adventurers that are coming back after a long break.)"
Give us a date for Seekers first, at least a soft date, or NONE OF THIS matters. You're not going to get a serious uptick of people on the game again (you're basically at the point that, if there were no Seekers on the horizon, you'd have to force another set of server merges -- Leviathan is routinely under 1,000 players during much of the weekdays) until Seekers is 3 months, 6 weeks, 1 month or so away.
These goals are correct, as you are intending to bring adventurers back, but none of this happens until we actually get real news and a date for Seekers of Adoulin.
"Additionally, there are a number of things that need to be decided such as aspects of battle that are not balanced up to level 99. For example, I believe the workings of the entire enmity system needs adjustment and the problem of TP given to enemies is an important issue to look into."
Basically, you cap emnity far too easily. And if you want to see a good example of TP problems, watch some of the reasons that the Voidwatch fights often turn into Fanatics Drink spam-fests.
I just don't know. He says a lot, but then he says nothing. We need some idea of how long we are going to have to continue to wait (and probably finance your FFXIV boondoggle) before we get what we really want -- and that's a fifth expansion I'm still not 100% sure we see!
One-day fee vacation. Gotta reset, as the money comes in on Friday, so BG gets a one-day jubilee in-game from my sorry you-know-what... :)
Anyway, to the point of all this:
Yesterday (Wednesday) on the Japanese forums -- translated soon after for English-speakers, Akihiko Matsui, the director of Final Fantasy XI, basically took to the forums...
... basically to apologize for all the official silence.
Basically, the impression I got from the official translation is that Matsui is overwhelmed by the amount of necessary work on the game he has had to encounter since taking over for Tanaka this summer:
I think that Matsui said it best (in the translation) when he said:
"I'm at a point that I'd really like more time for all of this, but I can't just keeping saying that."
And, with that, he immediately addressed the roadmap from earlier this year.
All but confirming that Seekers of Adoulin was probably a desperation move on the part of Square-Enix, he said:
"I apologize for the delays with the currently released roadmap. There are two reasons for this.
The first reason is that since the schedule was released before the announcement of Seekers of Adoulin, the effects of the development load for the expansion were much larger than anticipated."
The problem with that is that it really appears that they felt either that they could half-ass the expansion, or that they never anticipated how much work they would have, so to say that they never really expected to have a fifth Final Fantasy XI expansion.
Then, basically about the one large announcement from this post:
"While we looked into a revised version of the roadmap to release, instead of redoing everything that was up until March 2013, we feel it's necessary to take time to build out a proper development plan from next year on, starting with redefining development plans and then deciding on the practical work content so that we do not disappoint all of you."
Emphasis mine.
They're basically going to change out of what they've been trying to do for the last who-knows-how-long -- probably up to about the five years since Wings of the Goddess hit the table.
Here's the problem: The community needs at least a soft date on Seekers -- and it needs it now. From announcement to release, Wings of the Goddess was six months. About Christmas Day will be six months from the announcement of Seekers, and the facts are that almost NOTHING has been said about the new expansion, which leaves the possibility open that the plug might get pulled before Seekers ever sees release.
But it's basically being decided that, if Final Fantasy XI is going to survive (see the blog post below (Yoshida's comments about the damage XIV has done) for one of the reasons it may not!!), major changes in the development of the game and what's going to be worked upon it are probably going to have to be made.
After (and he knows this is a problem) asking for a little more time, he goes into further detail:
"For example, there's the concern with content and that the necessary content is not reaching the necessary people."
Well, that is part of the main problem (a larger part being that Seekers needs to at least be seen as coming soon to keep people interested), the fact is that a large reason this is the case is that many of the players on the Test Server are using the same illegal third-party add-ons and programs they use in the game proper.
Hence, by committing illegal acts on the Test Server, they skew the content harder than it would be if all players were forced to abide by the rules and license limitations of the game.
By the time the content goes live, the content is actually not balanced, and, if anything, needs to be balanced AGAINST the players who cheat their asses off -- many of them contributing to the testing. Of course, when this fails, these players get exactly what they want: Many of these players DO NOT WANT the "necessary content" to reach the "necessary people".
They believe they are the ONLY "necessary people" entitled to be involved, and that players who do not RMT and/or cheat have no place in Vana'diel.
Matsui again:
"Currently, due to the fact that there's a lack of low-difficulty and casual content, a majority of players are focusing on high-difficulty content, and there has been a lot of feedback that even though they log in they can't do what they want (nothing to do). Also affecting this is that things have become more complicated since adjustments have been made to drop rates and item stats."
There's two parts to this.
One, even with all the stuff that can now be soloable at level 99 from the former content, Matsui admits that there is actually very little casual-level content.
Again, this is what the predominant (at least North American/English-speaking) game population wants. They abhor casual players, believing they take up space and are an unnecessary evil (at best, if not simply contrary to the continuance of this game as an MMO!) which should be shunned, if not eradicated.
In fact, as I said five months ago when Seekers of Adoulin was announced, I think it clear that they would love to block all other players but their elite (and cheating, almost exclusively) selves.
Second, "they can't do what they want"/"nothing to do".
The problem here is two-fold: One: You have a system of levelling, at this point, which is contrary to the Terms of Service. The predominance of players will basically book-burn a job to 30, get into Abyssea, and then basically Fell Cleave/RMT (though not all Fell Cleave groups are RMT, they all are illegal, and the vast majority of the people involved in putting them together and announcing them ARE RMT...) their way to get whatever jobs to 99 that they want.
Two: The fact is that either the players are of the class who wish to dominate the game over all the other players (and disgrace the other players in so doing), or they are shunned by that same first class of players.
Under "Development Plans", Matsui lists the following:
"I'd personally like to see players that are below level 99 reach level 99 quickly (we will be looking into whether we can make adjustments so that the level 95 limit quest can be completed solo), and for players that have reached level 99, I’d like to create separate elements such as solo, group, casual, hardcore, and provide game play after defining themes for new elements and adjusted elements."
Actually, in most cases, people are reaching level 99 FAR TOO QUICKLY. I think I know why Matsui wants players to reach level 99 -- Seekers, if the game survives long enough to get a release, will be the level 99 expansion. Zilart was a 50ish expansion, CoP was a 50-75, ToAU was basically a 75 expansion, Wings even more so, and now, with the level cap of 99, there needs to be more 99 content than just rehashes.
The problem, again, is with the illegal Fell Cleavers, etc. 99 is a matter of gil now, not time nor skill.
More promising the idea of separate elements. Far too much in the 75 Vana'diel required large groups to attempt the material. The Vana'diel of level 99 has blown up a lot of the power structure allow the elitist cheaters to basically rule the day, but not all of it. Perhaps the creation of separate tiers of the game for solo, group, casual, hardcore, etc., might actually blow the rest of the power structure up.
"It's necessary to make adjustments to increase the win/success rate for content that has already been played out by the top groups so that players that come later can catch-up."
You can't think BG likes this one Matsui said. The entire reason many of these people exist is to humiliate other players or basically force them to pay for illegal clearances (Neo-Nyzul at 10,000,000/win is a good example!).
Before any of that can take place, Mr. Matsui, you need to determine if the tactics and programs used by these "top groups" are legal and allowed. If they are, you have a serious rewrite of the rules of the game ahead of you -- BEFORE you can do any of what you state.
If Windower/Spellcast/etc. are legal, then the scale of the game changes completely, as the Windower/Spellcast/etc. players will openly attest to. It's either illegal to play with these implements under License Limitation 2.1, or it's illegal (if the player has the equipment to do so) NOT to play with these implements, as the level of play is demonstrably lower, disrupting the game experience of the other players, and creating an illegality under License Limitation 3.2 .
And then, at that point, would you really need to increase the win or success rate, if the programs once declared illegal effectively become the legal/preferred/only way to play the game?
"Also, in regards to existing content, we will be redefining the number of people required, the level spread, and reward difficulty, and look into making adjustments to fit the needs of the current Vana'diel.
(I feel it would be best to work on the paths to these various types of content for adventurers that are coming back after a long break.)"
Give us a date for Seekers first, at least a soft date, or NONE OF THIS matters. You're not going to get a serious uptick of people on the game again (you're basically at the point that, if there were no Seekers on the horizon, you'd have to force another set of server merges -- Leviathan is routinely under 1,000 players during much of the weekdays) until Seekers is 3 months, 6 weeks, 1 month or so away.
These goals are correct, as you are intending to bring adventurers back, but none of this happens until we actually get real news and a date for Seekers of Adoulin.
"Additionally, there are a number of things that need to be decided such as aspects of battle that are not balanced up to level 99. For example, I believe the workings of the entire enmity system needs adjustment and the problem of TP given to enemies is an important issue to look into."
Basically, you cap emnity far too easily. And if you want to see a good example of TP problems, watch some of the reasons that the Voidwatch fights often turn into Fanatics Drink spam-fests.
I just don't know. He says a lot, but then he says nothing. We need some idea of how long we are going to have to continue to wait (and probably finance your FFXIV boondoggle) before we get what we really want -- and that's a fifth expansion I'm still not 100% sure we see!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
