Slashdot Mirror
FFXI Team Working On New MMOG
Gamespot has the word that the team behind Final Fantasy XI is working on a new game in the Massive genre. From the article: "Tanaka declined to comment on whether the MMORPG in development will be a successor to FFXI or a new product. He did confirm that the technical demonstration shown for the Xbox 360 during E3 was one of the experiments his development team had created to see what kind of graphics a next-generation console could achieve."
a new S-E MMO, "a href="http://www.playonline.com/fe/">"Fantasy Earth The Ring of Dominion", has been announced and in development for some time, with release scheduled for 2005. The system itself is described as a fusion of vaguely PSO-style "action MMO" and "real-time strategy"; this seems to be in keeping with S-E's philosophy of limited PvP by faction.
With the announcement of this and the release of FMO last month, as well as the continued support of FFXI mentioned elsewhere in the interview, it seems unlikely that a FFXI sequel is pending.
My biggest complaint has always been to get a more multi-national GM force. Even when they are not trying to be dicks, the GMs come off as them because of the cultural differences between Americans and Japanese.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Dragoons are worthless if you don't know how to use them. As a heavy DD class, they (and everything else but monks on skeletons) will lose to a well-funded ranger. However, what they lack in raw power they gain back in accuracy bonuses (of a level that most other melees are paying millions for), and the capability (especially in later levels) to sub RDM and use wyvern breath to become a fairly-effective healer. Of course, if you've got the "omgwtf must be leet" mentality that was epidemic among the Japanese at NA launch, and is still epidemic among the NA, you'll already have your NIN tank, Taru WHM/SMN, and your three RNGs, and you'll be rushing off to tear 200xp a shot kicking and screaming from IT++ mobs no matter how long or how many consumables it takes you per kill.
Red Mages being gimped bards is, again, a matter of usage. Bards can't debuff in the same ways, can't do decent elemental DoT in melee, can't burst off renkei, can't rapidly heal, and can only have two spells in effect per target at any one time. However, if you're convinced that RDM is there for Refresh and only Refresh, then...
As for melee/support balance... well... slightly over half the jobs are melee. Slightly over half the -party slots- are typically melee. The main issue with melee invites is that, barring endgame monks, the average party has a set short list of places where they're willing to play and mobs they're willing to fight, and the RNG's ability to throw gil at problems tends to be amplified through these. Nerfing TP gain from Barrage like was done to other multi-hits and changing the HQ yield on arrows from 33/66/99 to 33/33/66/99 would probably improve this...
but so would players realizing that if they can't have steak, they're at least better off with a hamburger than nothing. Sadly, there's a good half-year or year to go before this becomes common.
Finally, you're a bit confused about the concept of FFXII. The game engine itself is similar to FFXI with AI-controlled allies, which makes it not too dissimilar from a long list of decent games such as the Star Ocean series, Bioware's Infinity Engine games, and even Secret of Mana.
It's only in plot that relation to FFT-A, and Vagrant Story and FFT, are brought in---it's being developed by the creative team behind all of those games, who have thus far used the Ivalice setting for all their projects for Square and later Square-Enix.
There are a few solid technical problems, or at least unintended effects, in FFXI, such as RNG's damage supremacy on common mobs, NIN's unanticipated tanking ability, and predictable NM spawn times; however, the vast majority of "issues" that the playerbase identify are, at worst, the lesser of multiple evils.
just so you know, bards CAN MB, they like pld and other mages with no attack magic only end up making their songs stick on the mob longer. But my GF bursts on our light skillchains all the time to land a song shes having trouble landing or is getting partial resists on.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
For what it's worth, everybody is too cheap to buy potions. They're very expensive, and don't really heal you very much. If you really want to play solo, after you've hit 15, the best thing you can do is party until 18, get your sub-job, level that up to 15, get your main job up to 30, and then unlock Beastmaster, the one class that's capable of soloing the entire way.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
Pretty much agreed.
There're the people who are sure they have the one true way, and in all fairness are probably, within the rules of the game, right, but require the exact proper setup to get there. When they don't have that, they tend to break down due to lack of versatility. The better NA players and, I've heard, most of the high-level better Japanese players tend to be like this---after a year and a half of playing, I'm still only lv.40 on my main, with the other people I get detailed play reports from topping out at 55, so I can't directly comment on endgame.
There're also the people who, whether through self-delusion or laziness, have found a provably "false" way---often, one just as difficult to accomplish as the "true" one, but in any case making some distinctly and obviously poor choices out of ego, mistaken assumptions, or personal style. You've touched on these in your post; they tend to break down in all but extremely rare situations.
Then there's an optimal middle path---the versatility to do things that are uncommonly needed, without sacrificing the ability to function in a somewhat-optimal party. Some of my best XP/hour has come from mage-stacked groups in which the RDM was able to pull out armor and a shield and act as first voke for SATA, or a pair of ninja shared tanking duties and I as PLD was asked to pull out my greatsword and start chewing meat 'kabobs since there were no DDs seeking, or hunting worms in Koroloka with a MNK tanking standing far away and spamming Boost while everyone else, playing either PLD, RDM, or WAR/WHM, meleed and rotated cures so none of us took hate from the MNK.
Is a RDM usually a good first voke? Not really, but when it's the difference between SATA and no SATA, it's worth it.
Is a PLD the best at hurting things? No, but with proper skills, ability use, and equipment, he can certainly have a decent effect.
Is WAR/WHM ever acceptible in a party? When it lets you keep the worm hate on the guy 40 feet away loaded down with +Earth gear, huge HP, and constant Barstone, it's hard to argue against.
Sadly, a playstyle that values versatility seems to be limited to those sated with enough in-game rewards to keep them from craving the absolute fastest advancement possible, yet who aren't completely dedicated to the kind of endgame content where perfect execution -is- everything. While a lot's been made of the difference between NA and Japanese playstyle in the past, I think in the end a fair amount of the "Japanese difference" is the ability to relax and enjoy the game, as I've felt it in a number of LS statics too, even those that I wasn't typically a part of but only a one-session replacement for catching up to someone who'd inadvertently outleveled the others.
It's unfortunate that most of the NA player base hasn't yet reached a point where they don't -need- to progress with utmost speed to feel satisfied; however, judging from the history of the game, that day will come soon; just as it has for many of the Japanese who aren't completely caught up in endgame events and/or drama.