Developers Panels a Big Hit at Fan Festival!

The developers for FINAL FANTASY XI made their first trip to speak to the North American players!

One of the major reasons we wanted to have our Fan Festival is to give the players of FINAL FANTASY XI a chance to hear from the developers of the game first hand. For the first time in North America, our developers made a public appearance to show off some new announcements and answer questions directly from the fans. A member of the FINAL FANTASY XI Localization team Michael Christopher Koji Fox was kind enough to translate the developers panels for us. Provided on here is a run-down of all the special announcements from each of the three panels during Fan Festival 2006.

	Monster Planner Atsushi Okada
	Treasures of Aht Urhgan Director Kouichi Ogawa
	FINAL FANTASY XI Producer Hiromichi Tanaka
	FFXI Global Promotion Producer Arata Hanyuda
	CoP Director, FFXI Event Director Nobuaki Koumoto
	Global Online Producer Sage Sundi

Developers Panel: March 10th 2:00 PM

The first developers panel started with a timeline of new features that players will be experiencing upon the release of Treasures of Aht Urhgan and beyond.

Besieged

Players have often asked us for inner-city battles like the ones they saw in the FINAL FANTASY XI intro movie. Now players can be a part of that kind of adventure in the new Besieged, debuting in the new expansion. When we began the Besieged project we wanted players to be in a town that beastmen could attack at any time. There had to be a reason for these constant attacks, so we decided "What if beastmen were scrambling for treasures in a town where players can go?" That's what will happen in a place called Al Zahbi in the region of West Aht Urhgan. Different forces are vying for a certain precious treasure. Players in Al Zahbi join the Imperial forces to protect certain NPCs whose downfall would lead to a beastmen victory. If beastmen are able to steal the treasure and return to their safeholds with it, the task of retrieving it can be taken up by players.

Assault

Assault is a new experience for high level players to have fun in a short amount of time, with as few as 3-6 people. Players can choose different conditions in Assault, including destination, and level cap, depending on their party make-up. When they successfully complete Assault, they'll earn points which they can exchange for items. Completing Assault provides a chance of obtaining a special item, which can be professionally appraised in hopes of discovering that the item was more rare than first believed. Also, by succeeding numerous times, players will receive a new type of rank points that will later unlock more Assault possibilities.

Aht Urhgan Mission

The main story of Treasures of Aht Urhgan will be told through missions players take part in. The story is about the Empire of Aht Urhgan with a new cast of characters and a few unexpected guest appearances. We have no plans to add level caps to the Treasures of Aht Urhgan missions, but there is a possibility that some battles may have other restrictions placed upon them, such as no support job. One last thing, many players have figured out that you will be able to visit the new continent via a ship from the port town of Mhaura. However, players must first clear a few minor requirements in order to enter the new world.

Raising Chocobos

We have heard the many requests for chocobo related activities, "I want my own chocobo" and "I want to raise a chocobo," and now in the new expansion we are making those dreams come true! This will be a completely new type of fun for FINAL FANTASY XI players completely different from anything we have offered before. When we began creating this feature we wanted to make sure that it could be easily accessible for all types of our players, not just those who have a lot of free time to spend. Similar to the gardening in the Moogle House, chocobo raising will be something that can be experienced for short amounts of time and still yield beneficial results. We are not going to draw a line between the "hardcore players" and the "beginners" in this new feature. The only thing that you'll need to bring with you when taking part in chocobo raising is love! That's it! Once your chocobo is fully grown, it will become a great ally to you in many parts of your travels. Also... once your chocobo is all grown up, try introducing it to your friend's chocobo and see what happens! A new life with a new appearance may be born! We're sure you'll want to be able to test out the abilities of your new pets. For example, what would happen if all of these chocobos got together and raced each other...? Well don't worry, we've already begun working on a place for your chocobos to compete! Look forward to the brand new world of chocobo raising in Treasures of Aht Urhgan!

The Colosseum

The Colosseum is exactly what the name suggests. It will be a place for battles... by monsters versus other monsters! Don't worry, you won't need a high job level to experience what The Colosseum has to offer. We can't say too much about it now, so we'll have to leave it up to your imagination!

Mog Locker

When we launched Chains of Promathia we knew that the lack of storage was starting to become a real issue for many players. We wanted to increase the capacity, but memory issues were just too big a problem. Due to problems with memory availability on the client side, it was almost impossible to expand upon the maximum 80 Mog House item slots for each player. We apologize that we kept you all waiting on a solution and we are happy to announce that we have created a solution to the storage problem. We have circumvented the issue and created a new method of storage known as the "Mog Locker"! The feature will launch with 30 new slots available and we will continue to expand that number with each version update, currently planned up to 50. This feature will be housed in Aht Urhgan and will require a renewal fee. It was first proposed to be a gil-based service, but given the recent deflation across the servers we have decided to make it another type of cost. Perhaps a quest, or an item you will need. Also, rest assured, if you aren't able to pay the fee, you will not lose your items that are stored in the Mog Locker. You will simply not be able to retrieve them until the fee has been paid.

Developers Panel: March 10th 5:00 PM

The second developers panel on Friday focused on all of the jobs in Vana'diel, current and upcoming.

The development team discussed the various things that they have in store for each of the jobs in Vana'diel. However, not all of these changes will launch with the release of the expansion pack. Some of them will be in later version updates throughout the year. Remember these are not all 100% confirmed, but instead what the development team is planning at the moment.

Warrior

One of the great things about warrior is their ability to use many different weapons. We are planning to add benefits to using those different weapons available instead of sticking to the same ones over and over. We see the current trend is for warrior to almost exclusively use ninja as their support job. In the future we want to create benefits for players that use support jobs besides ninja. Also we are thinking about making it possible for warriors to throw their axes in battle. We're not sure when this will be implemented, but stay tuned!

Monk

A monk's role is fairly straightforward in a party; deal large amounts of damage. We would like to modify monks to allow them to be more flexible depending on the party circumstances. Monks have large amounts of HP and we are thinking of different ways that this can benefit other party members. For example, we're considering adding an ability that would raise the entire party's maximum HP for a short period of time.

White Mage

We want to make it so white mage remains totally dedicated to keeping their party alive no matter what. No other job should take the role of white mage away from them. We also want white mages to be able to contribute to the party aside from just cures, something exclusive to white mages. It might be great if they white mage could share their HP and MP with party members, for example. Also we're thinking of not only having Benediction cure the HP of party members, but also removing detrimental status effects, too.

Black Mage

We recognize that black mage is a very powerful job. We see that a lot of players are forming parties with just black mages and we would like to change that. We don't plan to hurt the job but we want to create benefits for partying with other jobs. Also we're considering adding new magic to black mages, but we can't say much right now!

Red Mage

Red mage is a deep and powerful job once you master it. We are thinking about adding some new magic but we can't disclose what they are yet, so stay tuned!

Thief

Thief is one of the more technical jobs in the game because they must always be aware of enemy position and enmity. We are considering adding a special thief ability that aids not only the player but all the members of the party. We will be adding a bonus to the steal job ability and changing the 2 hour ability Perfect Dodge to be more beneficial in offensive situations. When the thief stands behind the enemy while Perfect Dodge is active, they will receive a damage bonus to their attacks.

Paladin

We will make paladins stronger tanks than the ninja utsusemi method of tanking. We we will be adding the Auto-Refresh job trait to paladin and since paladins rely on their shields for tanking we want to increase them in that area as well. We want to give paladins a way to earn more TP by using their shields.

Dark Knight

We notice a trend of many dark knight only using Greatsword in higher levels because of the skillchain possibilities and we would like to change that. We want to create motivation for dark knights to return to using their Scythes once again. Also the dark knight exclusive spells do not seem to be used as often as we hoped, so we are discussing changing them to make them more effective.

Beast Master

When we changed how monsters would despawn when out of their natural spawn radius, it caused a lot of problems for the beastmaster job class. We know that many players are dissatisfied with this system and we're working to relieve the problem. However, the beastmaster is a tougher job than some of the others to balance so we may not be able to make radical adjustments.

Bard

There is a tendancy for bards to only sing particular songs in the party and nothing else. We want to make it so bard has many types of useful songs in which to aid their party. For example, we might add a low level song that when sung would increase party movement speed.

Ranger

We recently made large changes to the ranger job class which causes them to deal more damage depending on their distance from an enemy. From here on out we will only make small adjustments to the ranger class. We're sorry we don't have any final details for the future, but please stay tuned. We can say one thing though, we will remove the distance/damage restriction while the Sharpshot ability is active. Also we'll be adding more stackable ammunition in the future.

Samurai

Samurai is a job that revolves around TP. It'd be great if we could modify samurai in regards to the timing of their weapon skills or various other ways to utilize their TP ability. Also we'll give samurai a new ability which when used will lower an enemy's TP.

Ninja

We know that ninja is a very strong job, but we do not have any plans to weaken them. This is a very difficult job to balance so please give us a little more time to think about it.

Dragoon

We recently changed the dragoon's Call Wyvern ability and redesigned the 2 hour ability altogether. We're currently collecting data and feedback so let's see how things go from here.

Summoner

Currently, the trend is for summoners to only call out their avatars to use a blood pact ability and we want to change that. We want to create something that encourage summoners to keep their avatars out for longer periods of time. Also we will adjust it so that the abilities that the avatars use to be based on the summoner's summoning skill. We have absolutely no plans to add Bahamut as an avatar because he is a special avatar and we want to keep his special status as it is. We would have to make him weaker if he became a players avatar and we do not want to do that. We are thinking about new avatars for Treasures of Aht Urhgan, however, so stay tuned.

Blue Mage

Blue mages will acquire monster attacks via a learning technique. If you wish to acquire an attack, you must defeat the monster first. You can only learn skills from monsters that earn you experience points. However you will not learn any skill if you are defeated in the process. There are many different kinds of monsters and thus many different skills to learn, but they won't all be released with the expansion. Keep an eye out in future version updates as well.

Blue mages cannot use attacks right after experiencing them firsthand. Blue magic has a point system that determines whether that power can truly be mastered at that time. The number of points you're able to allocate for powerful attacks increases as you level up.

We want players to see the blue mage 2 hour ability for themselves, so that has to remain top secret!

Corsair

Corsairs use abilities that cause various effects depending on dice rolls. With Phantom Roll, you receive the most beneficial effects if the sum of the two rolls equals a certain number. However, if you roll higher than that, you would take a "bust" penalty. Some of the bonus effects we are working on include whether every party member can earn Double Attack for a short time if a warrior is in the party, and whether fellow adventurers can earn a critical hit bonus if a thief is present. Perhaps if a black mage is in the party you could earn a magic attack bonus.

The corsair has another ability likely to be called Quick Draw. With this ability the corsair uses cards belonging to the different elements. When a card is used, the corsair draws his gun and fires, converting the damage of the gun to enfeeble the enemy. The corsair might possibly also have an abililty that reduces recast wait time.

Third Job Announced!

After the 5:00 PM Developers Panel on Friday night, the third job was announced; puppetmaster!

At the end of the second developers panel on Friday night, the audience was treated to a grand announcement! The third and final job that will be added in Treasures of Aht Urhgan; puppetmaster! We will feature more information about the puppermaster job on our official website and other news outlets so please keep an eye out for it!

Developers Panel: March 11th 1:00 PM

The third developers panel focused on the real money trading and the economy of Vana'diel.

Xbox360 Beta test and German / French Version

More than 100,000 players from North America, Japan and Europe have participated in the Xbox 360 beta test. The players on Hydra play just as dedicated as players on any of the existing servers. On April 18th, 2006 "Treasures of Aht Urhgan" will be released simultaneously with the Xbox 360 version of FINAL FANTASY XI! We have made the decision that after the beta ends, all players will have a chance to keep their characters! We'll have more information shortly for our beta players that wish to transfer their characters over to official servers. One of the main intentions behind the Xbox 360 version of FINAL FANTASY XI was to allow console players in Europe a chance to experience the world of Vana'diel without a PC. We want to make playing the game as easy as possible for our European players so we will create a way to be able to pay the monthly fee without a credit card. To show our commitment to our European fans we're proud to announce that not only are we creating FINAL FANTASY XI in Japanese and English, we're also developing French and German versions as well! If you are already playing FINAL FANTASY XI on an English client, you will be able to update the game to French or German via a free version update! We'll have more details on these new versions soon on the official website.

Next generation MMORPG

During E3 2005 we announced that the FINAL FANTASY XI development team had begun work on a next generation MMORPG for the Xbox 360 and Windows Vista. We can't talk too much about the next generation MMORPG, but we're sure you'll find it very exciting.

Details on inflation

We were monitoring Vana'diel's economy very closely and noticed sudden inflation and systematic price manipulation in all worlds. We investigated the issue thoroughly and found evidence of the problems. We banned over 700 accounts and removed over 300 billion gil in the process. We're now witnessing the economy go through deflation as a result of these bans and the situation is rapidly improving because the total amount of gil in each world has decreased. Even though the situation is getting better, we will continue to monitor the economy. If deflation grows to be our next problem, we may have to step in and do something to stop it. Lowering the chocobo rental fees was one of the steps we took in the latest version update to help the economy and it seems to be working well.

We banned over 700 accounts that took part in some form of illegal action in Vana'diel. Normally we do not disclose monthly the total number of accounts that we ban, however the actions taken against these accounts affected a large area of Vana'diel so we wanted to let players know. It's impossible for players to see the total number of accounts we suspend or ban, but if a player (or players) perform illegal actions or use 3rd party tools, we ban their accounts and we do it on a regular basis. As a result of this our community as a whole is getting cleaner. We discussed with the GM team recently and asked about the types of calls they receive the most. They said in the past they would often receive calls focusing on harassment, MPK, and RMT, but lately calls are focusing just on 3rd party tools and general questions. This shows that the actions taken not only affected the economy as a whole but the general order of the worlds as well. The development team and the GM team will continue to focus their efforts to keep Vana'diel enjoyable for all of our players so please continue to enjoy FINAL FANTASY XI.

Delivery

We checked the delivery histories of those whose accounts were banned and found that they were the most frequent delivery users in their worlds. We cracked down on these players but to prevent further illegal action and the obstruction of RMT, we have implemented the recent changes to the delivery system. We understand that this new change is causing problems for our normal players because we have received many complaints about it. We will continue to monitor the situation and take further action and make changes as needed.