FFXI Sequel In the Works?

With several expansions to the original game already released, and the title available on three platforms, Square/Enix is finally talking about a sequel to Final Fantasy XI. There are very few details available at the moment, other than to say it will be out on the 360, PS3, and Vista. From the Gamespot article: "Attempts to contact American Square Enix reps for clarification and confirmation had gone unanswered as of press time. However, as Windows Vista won't be available until 2007, the PC edition of the game would likely not launch until next year--at the earliest."

Comments

Another FF game?

[X-treme-LLama]

Great! Another month of my life wasted in front of the TV.

Re:Another FF game?

[steveo777]

Not likely. FFXI was the MMORGP and if they sequel it, then it's going to be more than a month. Though I do wonder if they'll port it to all the new platforms seeing as it's on PS2, 360, and the PC. Now that a Nintendo system will offer mass-storage (not too much, but enough for an expansion or two). It'd be pretty cool to see a true cross-platform FF game. It makes me genuinely wonder which version would sell more copies (PC, Wii, 360, PS3). I'm thinking PC becuase it's got the biggest userbase.

Re:Another FF game?

[Rob T Firefly]

Great! Another month of my life wasted in front of the TV.

FFXI is the MMORPG, so if the sequel is another one you can waste much longer than a month. There are players who have been wasting several years on it now.

Re:Another FF game?

[rishistar]

Are they gonna call it FFXII ?

Re:Another FF game?

[Rob T Firefly]

No, FFXII is already in the works as a standard console RPG. A direct sequel to FFXI might follow either of the naming models of the sequels to FFX (a la FFX-2) or FFVII (a la FFVII: Dirge of Cerberus,) or something else entirely.

Re:Another FF game?

[ElleyKitten]

I don't think being cross-platform is all that cool. Cross-platform games have to be designed for the lowest common demoninator and can't take advantage of any of the nifty things in a console. Playing a game with a wii-mote that you can tell was designed with the dual-shock in mind, or playing the game with the dual-shock that only uses half the buttons because the wii doesn't have as many doesn't sound like fun. I much prefer console exclusives. Of course, that's because I buy all the game consoles. I imagine if I could only buy one system each generation I might have a different opinion.

Also, I don't think the PC has the highest userbase. Well, technically if you compare it to the wii, ps3 and 360 right now it might have the most, but that's because two of those haven't been released yet. More people own ps2s, gamecubes, and xboxes than own a pc capable of playing high-end games, and I imagine the same thing will happen when the next generation kicks in gear.

Re:Another FF game?

[246o1]

FFXII is not in the works, it is out of the works and into stores in Japan (has been for months), just not out of translation yet. Though I live in Japan, I must hangly my nerdly head in shame at not having bought it yet. Free time ain't as plentiful as it used to be.

Re:Another FF game?

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

hear the whooshing sound over your head? that's flight joke131 flying overhead. wave bye bye, cause you'll never see it again.

Re:Another FF game?

[Xymor]

FFXII is being translated to english and shall be upon us in 2 or 3 months. FFXIII is already takes as the frist FF for the PS3. I guess they could make this new one the FFXIV or most likely to dump the extend number and call it FFXI: battle of summons or something.

Re:Another FF game?

[ShakaUVM]

FFXI-II. And then the next revision will be FFXI-II V.II. Eventually Final Fantasy games will become long random alphanumeric strings to differentiate them from each other.

At least if FFXI-II follows the path of FFX-II, then there'll be a lot more fan service. On the downside, you'll have to punch your eardrums out all over again with the horrid singing. The worlds first MMORPG featuring pop stars! I'm a level 13 black vocalist!

Sigh...

Actually, FFXI was a decent game, for the first 10 or 20 hours or so. Then they just appeared to run out of ideas, and required quests (like for Lu Sheng's Ultimate Fishing Rod(tm)) that just required stupid amounts of repetition to complete. I know repetition is a hallmark of any MMORPG, but FFXI took it to extreme levels.

Re:Another FF game?

[KDR_11k]

I think with userbase he means only the people willing to play a pay-per-month online game.

Oh, joy!

[9x320]

Another levelling treadmill. I've seen it before. The crowd jumps from one game to another to another while I sit on the sidelines. Each time the crowd says they genuinely like it, and this game won't be as boring or as like a leveling treadmill as the last, and they won't get bored with it because this one has safeguards against that. First it was Ultima Online, then Final Fantasy XI, then World of Warcraft, then City of Heroes, then City of Villains, and now Final Fantasy XI again. Why do you people keep falling for it?

Re:Oh, joy!

[TheShadowzero]

Because everybody's doing it!

Re:Oh, joy!

[voice_of_all_reason]

This mud I used to play had a great help file for why the idea of player-owned shops would never be coded. It's very applicable to the above sentiment.

If you really like killing rats, collecting herbs, or weaving baskets, you can probably swing the job in real life, and get paid for it to boot.

Re:Oh, joy!

[RingDev]

Because it is fun and enjoyable? Because people enjoy the social aspect of MMOs? Becuase people enjoy the effect of Maslow's hierchy? Just because YOU don't like something, and other people tire of something, does not mean that that item was worthless or not fun. There is no level grind in the original Quake, but not many people still play Q1, does that mean it was a bad game? "Good" and "Fun" are highly subjective terms, and in the gaming world there is a huge range of different players. Some of those players want the grind, some of those players want no grind. So there are a variety of games for us each to play.

-Rick

Re:Oh, joy!

[ifrag]

Well, for some people the grind is what they live for, and I've even found that system to be nice when large amounts of time are availiable for it. Even if that means standing around in town waiting hours for a group that has a reasonable chance of success. Of course such things don't last forever, and I've got less time for that now... I've switched over to the one MMO I've found that actually had a genuinely unique character development system, which is EVE Online. Characters gain points in specific skills in real time, even while logged out. There really are not any "levels" to reach other than the skill levels themselves. The drawback to this system is obviously those who can devote virtually all their conscious hours to the game see only marginal benefits compared to those who work 40 hour weeks.

Re:Oh, joy!

[Gnostic Ronin]

Fine for you, but it's really beyond me why MMORPGs have so large of a fanbase. Frankly, they aren't so much games as jobs. Every MMO is an exercise in leveling up, getting money to get better weapons and armour -- usually for the sole purpose of leveling up in a slightly different looking area. Besides all of that, in order to stay on par with any friends you make online, you have to play for several hours a day. And then if you have a large community of trolls and griefers, you'll spend more time dealing with idiots. No friggin' thanks.

I like my offline MMOs for just those reasons. It isn't just a grind, there's a story in the game, and progressing means you get to see more of it. Secondly, I don't feel obligated to spend hours a day grinding on jRPGs. If I want to, I can stop for a month -- hell I could stop for a year -- and pick up right where I left off, without the rest of the party having moved on without me.

Re:Oh, joy!

[Kamots]

A MMORPG isn't a traditional game... a vast amount of the fun in it is the in-game economy. It took me a good deal of playing FFXI to realize that's why I was enjoying it... and then when I got to the point where earning money wasn't difficult or really time consuming I realized that I'd "beaten" the game, and got tired of it. For me it's not about having a high-level character, it's about learning the intricacies of the economy.

Also, in case you weren't aware there's some pretty compelling stories in FFXI, I'm considering going back to it for a while just so I can finish up the story arcs that I left undone.

Re:Oh, joy!

[Voltageaav]

There aren't direct skill bonuses for playing 23/7 on EVE, but unless you spend your time very inneffectively, you'll have loads of ISK to use on Implants to speed your training, faction ships, faction mods, and even T2 and capital ships once you do have the skills for them. I'll admit, I'm mainly into PVP and you don't make much ISK doing that, the occasional ship fully faction moded, but you will have a ton of fun. But if you spend most of your time mining, ratting, or mission running like most people do, you'll have a nice little nest egg pretty quick.

At last...

[Doches]

I can finally realize my life-long dream: operating my own Kentucky Fried Chocobo franchise!

Re:At last...

[voice_of_all_reason]

What do you think Cloud and Friends did when they ran out of stalls at the farm after another hard day of goading chocobos to do the ugly in front of a captive audience?

Let's just say there was an ongoing sale on glue in Kalm town.

its not true

[musikit]

SE specifically had an article on their website today stating that it is not true. http://www.square-enix.com/jp/company/e/news/2006/ download/release_060718en.pdf

Re:its not true

[The Sage Of Time]

I played it for three years too.. And it is crappy. The game is unforgiving, and just a repetitive pattern that keeps rolling on and on.. Yea, most games are just repetitive patterns - but XI doesn't even TRY to hide that fact, and that drives me crazy! I can't stand them, and it doesn't try to cover it up at all to make it seem more interesting.. Instead, it just gradually got more and more boring, and more and more frustrating.

I spent three years on a single character and never finished the game story.. Some might think that's impressive and that the game is truly vast when I say this, but it couldn't be more than the opposite.. The world is tiny, very tiny, and the story is not very long at all.. So what took me so long? Simple, the grinding in-between the tiny five minute bits of cut scenes (seriously) goes on for hours and hours on end.. And you know what? People ALWAYS go to the same places to level, and even the same places to camp mobs. (Yes, camp.. exploring and killing at the same time is unheard of in this game and you get laughed at if you even suggest it.) Zilart expansion was already in the package when it hit with the US, so most of us never even noticed the changes it made.. Promathia was lame as hell, they placed ridiculous difficulty bounders up to keep people from progressing in the story at a reasonable rate and released the content for it very slowly.. (Yes that's right, you bought an expansion that had virtually no story content at its release and had to wait months for them to release the next "chapter.")

Their latest attempt came after I quit of course, but from all I have heard and seen.. it is no better off. In fact, it might be worse.

That's all just a tip of the iceberg to the games problems too. SE hasn't even TRIED to adjust any major player concerns that I've seen.. Everything is incredibly static in the world and pretty much everything implemented stays that way forever. (No matter how terrible the implementation.) I can honestly only think of a couple of things they changed that are worth noting.. (Slight decrease in the first Promathia mission difficulty for one.) But all and all, they just left things as is and ignored everyone's cries. What did get changed was pretty irrelevant.. Meh, the game left me bitter as hell.. I was miserable playing it for awhile, but stuck around for friends.. That was a stupid mistake on my part, but they've mostly all quit too by now. (Takes some longer than others to realize how crappy the game is.. but it is DEFINATELY is crappy.)

great...

[preppypoof]

now there will be final fantasy x, final fantasy x-2, final fantasy xi, and final fantasy xi-2. ow...my head...

FFXI-2?

[DeeDob]

Is this an old news, or a new one?

There's just too many to keep track of unless you're an avid fan.

FF1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10-2, 11, 11-2, 12, 13, Tactics, Tactics 2, Legend, Legend 2, Legend3, + Gamecube one, + at least 1 other whose tile i have forgotten (crystal something?)

We had a joke some time ago about Hollywood sequels. There was so many we called the next one:
"The return of the revenge of the brain-teaser 2... part one".

When is Return of the revenge of Final Fantasy XI 2 part one gonna be released? We're sure close to it...

Re:FFXI-2?

[Ryan Amos]

Crystal Chronicles was the Gamecube one (though honestly it felt more like part of the Mana series IMO.) You're missing Mystic Quest, the American-made hack-and-slasher for SNES.

Re:FFXI-2?

[ElleyKitten]

Tactics 2 is actually Tactics Advance.

You forgot Final Fantasy Adventure, but that was really Sword of Mana, but the Legends were SaGas so whatever.

And there's FFVII: Advent Children and Dirge of Cerberus. And Mystic Quest.

And 4 is 2 and 6 is 3, so 2 and 3 are 2j and 3j.

And yes, I'm purposefully trying to confuse you now. :P

Re:FFXI-2?

[DeeDob]

^^^ lol

I swear, if Square decides to do a racing game, they'll put "Final Fantasy" on the cover and use Chocobos instead of racing cars just to make a bit more money off the license. wait...
_________________________
The thing is, i keep track of the videogame industry and even i am starting to have trouble with Final Fantasies. They put the FF title on so many different things it's getting ridiculous.

Re:FFXI-2?

[Mattintosh]

Here's the list as I know it:

NES:
Final Fantasy
Final Fantasy 2 (j)
Final Fantasy 3 (j)

Gameboy:
Final Fantasy Legend
Final Fantasy Legend 2
Final Fantasy Legend 3
Final Fantasy Adventure ("Seiken Denetsu" in Japan, so the Mana series is actually part of Final Fantasy)

SNES:
Final Fantasy 4 (j)/2 (us)
Final Fantasy 5 (j)
Final Fantasy 6 (j)/3 (us)
Secret Of Mana ("Seiken Denetsu 2")
Seiken Denetsu 3 (j)
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest ("Final Fantasy USA" in Japan)

PSX:
Final Fantasy 7
Final Fantasy 8
Final Fantasy 9
Final Fantasy Tactics
Legend of Mana ("Seiken Denetsu 4")
Ergheiz (ugh. Final Fantasy Fighter Super Turbo Alpha 2 perhaps... but then Capcom would sue. It's interesting that "ghei" is in the middle of the name of this pile of crap.)

PS2:
Final Fantasy 10
Final Fantasy 10-2
Final Fantasy 11
Final Fantasy 12

PC:
Final Fantasy 7
Final Fantasy 11

Gamecube:
Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles

GBA:
Sword of Mana (Remake of "Seiken Denetsu", but quite a bit different from the original)

I didn't list re-issued games or game packs (Such as the FF1/2 GBA cart or the FF Anthology on PSX), but there are a bunch of those as well. I did, however, list the multi-platform releases (FF7 and FF11). I'm also not familiar with FF Tactics 2, so I don't know what system it's for. If I had to guess, I'd say PS2.

Re:FFXI-2?

[DeeDob]

I'm 100% sure that you forgot FF8 for PC and FF11 for 360.

As for Tactics 2... it's on the gameboy advanced.

Might add the Chocobo racing game too.

Like i said, even the biggest fans of the series can't count them all.

Re:FFXI-2?

[medeii]

FF8 was also released for the PC (yes, even in the US.)

Lvl 60 DRK LFG PST

[MrNash]

If Square is indeed thinking about making a new FF MMORPG, hopefully they'll do something so that players aren't stuck waiting in a central city for an eternity, so we don't see what happened in FFXI with armies of damage dealers kicking around Jeuno for hours at a time waiting for a group. People were fine if they had lots of friends playing, or were in a large guild, but trying to make a quick pick-up group is tough the higher the level one is (unless you're a healer), since so many in the community are so picky about their party make up, and don't realize how much time they're wasting trying to create the perfect group. Hopefully Square will take note of dynamics that are more friendly to duos and trios in the future, not to mention more solo-friendly content (BST was fun, but more soloing classes would have been nice).

Re:Lvl 60 DRK LFG PST

[musikit]

the newest xpack added new areas with restructured mobs. it is now easier and preferred method to have 1 tank 4x melee dmg dealers 2x healers then the old method. drks, thfs, wars, and mnks are getting higher levels faster.

Re:Lvl 60 DRK LFG PST

[MrNash]

Ah, I see. I haven't tried the new expansion yet. It's good to see that these classes are able to go out and have some fun now, instead of sitting around whistling dixie. Reading what you have to say, I'm starting to think maybe I should try the new expansion out. I'm curious as to how the battle mechanics work in these new PT setups. I reckon that there must be some pretty interesting skill chains going on.

Re:Lvl 60 DRK LFG PST

[paitre]

It's basically called TP-Burn, and you do literally that - whenever you have TP, you throw out a weaponskill. No waiting for skillchains, that just slows you down.

But then, I'm a BLM that's been -forced- to manaburn for exp for the last year thanks to WAR and PLD deco-burn parties all but making me unwanted 70+ :P

Re:Lvl 60 DRK LFG PST

[deinol]

the newest xpack added new areas with restructured noobs.

Ok, that's not what he said. But that's what I read. I have this image in my head:

DarkKngt1: Hey, invite B0B.
FearedPaldinX11: No way, he's a noob.
DarkKngt1: It's cool, he's one of those new restructured noobs.

Re:Lvl 60 DRK LFG PST

[0racle]

Yep, they'll shoot their players. You realize everything your complaining about is a problem with users, not the game.

Mod parent up

[Rob T Firefly]

Thanks for the link. C&P for the PDF-impaired:

[Translation] July 18, 2006

To whom it may concern:

COMMENT ON RECENT MEDIA REPORT

Tokyo, Japan (July 18, 2006) - Square Enix Co., Ltd ("the Company"). wishes to comment on a specific media report, dated July 14, stating that the Company is developing a sequel to its online game title, FINAL FANTASY® XI, and plans to release the title on three platforms the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., the Xbox 360TM video game and entertainment system, and Windows Vista TM the next-generation PC operating system from Microsoft Corporation.

The Company did not make such an announcement and has not made any decisions resembling those detailed in the media report.

As the Company announced in May 2005, it is currently developing an online title for next-generation platforms including game consoles and PCs; however, this title is being developed as a completely new MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online RPG). We will disclose further details of this title, including platform compatibility, immediately after any relevant decisions are made.

In addition, the Company continuously plans to release expansion packs for FINAL FANTASY XI, available on PlayStation®2, Xbox 360, and Windows®, as well as perform version updates.

###

Mithras?

[Yvan256]

1. Make another game with Mithras
2. Make sure the game has questionnable pieces of clothing for the Mithras
3. Players want to see Mithras in questionnable pieces of clothing
4. Profit!

Re:Mithras?

[falcon5768]

funny enough SE changed the sitting pose of Mithras because the original one (with there legs open so you could see their panties) was too suggestive and cause complaints.

Jesus wrong info speads fast.

[falcon5768]

From Playonline: Tokyo, Japan (July 18,2006) Square Enix Co, Ltd ("the Company) wishes to comment on a specific media report dated July 14th, stating that the Company is developing a sequal to its online game title Final Fantasy XI and plans to release the title on three platforms - the PLAYSTATION 3 computer entertainment system from Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system and Windows Vista the next-generation operating system from Microsoft Corporation. The Company did not make such an announcement and has not made any decision resembling those detailed in the media report. As the Company announce in May 2005, it is currently developing a online title for next-generation platforms including game concoles and PC's however this title is being developed as a completely new MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online RPG) We will disclose futher details of this title, including platform compatability, immediately after and relevant decisions are made. In Addition the Company continuously plans to release expansion packs for FINAL FANTAYS XI, available on PlayStation 2, Xbox 360, and Windows, as well as perform version updates.

Whats the difference between...

[caffeinatedOnline]

a computer entertainment system (Playstation3) and a video game and entertainment system(Xbox360)? Is Sony still trying to push the whole "this isn't a console, it's a computer" thing? They are both frickn video game systems, no matter how you cut it!!

Re:Whats the difference between...

[Rob T Firefly]

I remember a certain Video Computer System that confused matters a bit 29 years ago.

At any rate, everything from game consoles to phones to TVs to watches are no less than specialized computers these days. The word "computer" is just too redundant to use on every computer-based device anymore. Otherwise store shelves would be clogged with video game console computers, bread-toasting computers, car alarm keychain computers, coffee-making computers, marital aid computers, and so on.

Yeeesh.

[biff_larken]

I love how FF is the only franchise (that I can think of) where it's now well-known and accepted that every game that comes out is never thought of as a sequel to the previous one, and that later on, there can be "actual sequels" to each of these games. Christ.

EVE Online, my child...

[Jadecristal]

Join us, and freedom from realtime treadmilling will be yours...

http://www.eve-online.com/

Otherwise, give A Tale In The Desert a try.