http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3159493
1UP: OK, so Final Fantasy XI: Wings of The Goddess. I know it's very early, but I'll start off by asking if there's anything you can tell us about the expansion.
Sage Sundi: As usual, we cannot say much at the moment. [Laughs]
Hiromichi Tanaka: There's a video up on the official site that we debuted yesterday. We ask our players to watch it and try and figure out what's going on.
SS: Actually there's a hint in the movie about what's going on.
1UP: What I think is great about another expansion is seeing that you guys are going to continue to support FFXI, and that you're not just abandoning it or letting it idle and rot while you move on to other things. Which leads me on to my next question. How long do you foresee supporting the players? There are a lot of players who have spent five years now playing the game. What's the big picture plan for FFXI?
HT: There haven't been many changes to the development process since the beginning of the game, and because there are so many players that keep playing and haven't stopped playing, we're going to keep making content for those people. As long as there are people playing we're going to make new content.
1UP: Obviously, FFXI is an ongoing concern -- you're making new expansions and stuff -- but to kind of look forward into the future, have you considered what your 'escape plan' is going to be? Let's say at some point, five years from now, FFXI dwindles down, but there are still people who have been playing the entire time. Since nobody really owns their characters, since they're server stored, if one day the servers shut down, and somebody whose entire gaming life has been playing FFXI, they won't be able to run around the fields of East Sarutabaruta or something like that. Have you thought about, I don't know, tying it up into some offline thing, where players can download their characters? Or have you considered letting people transfer things/characters to your account in Square's next MMO? I'm curious what the long-term prognosis is.
HT: Right now we're currently thinking about what you mentioned, about different types of patterns of what can be done with the existing game. As you know, two years ago at the Microsoft conference at E3, we announced the new next-generation MMO. And right now we're trying to figure out a way where these can both exist in the same world, meaning the real world. We're trying to figure out how two online games can coexist, and what kind of shift is necessary for FFXI. The best scenario would be for both of them to exist at the same time.
1UP: FFXI is one of the few MMOs where multiplatform exists between PS2, Xbox 360 and PC. I don't actually know any other MMOs that do that. Your development team has learned a lot of things over the years, has this helped your approach going forward? Whereas PS2 subscriber base may drop off, the PC might rise. It seems like it's better to have all things combined than to be platform-specific. Is this something you'll consider in the future?
HT: Right now, with the next-generation machines like the PS3 and Xbox 360, the way that they've been designed is a lot closer to a personal computer than the original PS2 and Xbox, although they did have internet compatibility and a hard disk. So it was challenging for the development team to do this with XI, because they had to work with a lot of different types of systems. But now, because the next-gen systems are all so much alike in the way that they're built, we want to take advantage of this good environment for making multi-platform MMORPGs.
1UP: So I can glean a few things from that. One, your next major MMO will be multiplatform. Two, I'm guessing that you're going to wait until the installed bases are big enough to make it worthwhile. Three, you're not going to announce your next MMO until it's at a safe enough point to not cannibalize FFXI's user base.
HT and SS: As for waiting to see how the user base grows, we're not really doing that. We basically want to put this out on as many platforms as possible, so that the user will have the choice of which platform they can use. For the development team, it's not that difficult to get the game ready for different platforms. Because the game is on servers, as long as we create that content, all we have to do is create the windows into those different systems. We want to get it out on as many platforms as possible to let the users choose.
1UP: OK, now I'm gonna hit you up with a couple, geeky, specific Treasures of Aht Urhgan questions. The new jobs have been received with different levels of popularity. Puppetmasters have a hard time getting a party, Corsair's seem to be popular but there don't seem to be that many Corsairs leveling, and there are always more Blue Mages than you could ever possibly need. But, as good as these jobs can be -- in the various roles as damage dealers or healers or party buff specialists - they don't excel at any one thing. For example, a Monk is always going to have a higher Hand-to-Hand rating than a Puppetmaster. Are you guys planning to add any new incentives to the new jobs? Like quested weaponskills exclusive to a PUP, BLU and COR? Because right now a PUP can get Dragon Kick once he hits level 75, but there's nothing for that job class to call its own. Will you be adding things like that?
Koichi Ogawa: When we decided to make the three new jobs, we already had the original 15 jobs and those were pretty specific in what they do. So the three new jobs basically ended up being these things that were balanced out, rather than focusing on one thing like the other 15 had. Basically all of the things you could focus on were pretty much taken up, and so the three became jack-of-all-trades kind of jobs. But, for example, the Puppetmaster -- the reason it doesn't get invited to parties very often just because we wanted to create another job that could play solo. Only the Beastmaster could play solo for a long period of time, and we wanted to make another job that could play solo, and that's why we made the PUP the way it is -- so it could excel at playing solo.
As for the upgrades in the next patch, the three new jobs will get new Merit Point skills, to enhance certain abilities that are unique to those jobs, which will make them a little more individual and have those exclusive things no other jobs will have.
1UP: One of the things I've found as an interesting side effect in TOAU is that there was always this discussion whether Black Mages were too powerful, but the TOAU areas kind of nerf BLMs a lot since there are mobs that reflect magic, like Greater Colibri. Another trickledown effect I've noticed from this is that because TOAU areas are so melee-friendly -- which probably helps a lot of the Samurais, the Monks, the Thieves, that would otherwise languish in the Conquest areas -- it seems that nobody bothers to skillchain any more, nobody bothers to magic burst. I think TOAU -- as many improvements as it has brought to the game -- has actually encouraged less skillful play, because people don't bother with timing, when everybody subs Ninja, even Dark Knights, and just Rampage their way to 75 in a couple of weeks. How do you feel about this trend?
KO: As you know, having played for so long, there are a lot of fads in how people play. In the beginning of the game, the way people played is a lot different from how it is now. Now that you have a lot of players who put on support Ninja and whack their way through the game -- I don't think we should change that specifically. I think we should leave that as it is and add different types of options. So let the players who want to do this continue that in those areas. It's our job to bring up new areas, new monsters that will allow for different styles of play, so the players can choose which type of style they want to use.
1UP: One of the things -- and remember I've been playing since the beginning, so I say this with the utmost respect -- but Besieged is kind of broken. I now play primarily on a very fast computer, with 2 gigs of RAM, which is way more than this game, which was originally designed for PS2, really needs. So, knowing that I've got a machine that can handle anything you throw at it, it cannot handle Besieged. Like, I'll stand there and see a couple of my friends appear for three seconds, then they'll disappear, and I'll target a monster, then it'll disappear. It's kind of rough. Are you making the new expansion, Wings of The Goddess, with an eye on helping to alleviate this? I'd asked previously if you would add other Besieged areas, and the response was, 'Well we wouldn't want to take people away from the main area, because that's where what makes it so popular.' I think it'll be popular no matter where you go. People will just flock there. 'Oh, Besieged is happening.' People will leave experience parties to go Besieged, which I don't understand. Anyway, that's a lot of points, so just toss that at 'em.
[Developers laugh]
KO and HT: First of all, we're really happy that Besieged is so popular and that people would do something so crazy as to leave those parties to join Besieged. As for problems with the display in Besieged, it has pretty much nothing to do with the machine. It's how the communication from the servers is being relayed to each line, and it's limited in how much data can be transferred at one time, and so there is some clipping that occurs. This is because we've basically been using the same type of communication specs as we had used five years ago. And while this can be adjusted, by adjusting it now there's a chance that some players would be affected in negative ways by this, so right now we're not thinking of adjusting the limits of communication. But we do realize there are a lot of people playing this and that something has to be done, so right now we're working hard at thinking of what to do, whether that involves something new with the new expansion, or adjustments to what we're doing now is undecided, but we're working on it.
1UP: While there may be another server with the same record, I know that Siren (my server) is currently undefeated in Besieged, so we're either the last one or one of two undefeated servers, and I don't think anyone wants to let go of that reputation, so there's always going to be 706 people in Al Zahbi doing Besieged. Also, I can't let any interview with you guys go without asking you about Dynamis. OK, so picture the scenario: My linkshell struggles to get everyone on in time to try and get highly desirable areas like Dynamis-Beaucedine or Dynamis-Xarcabard, for example, and maybe one out of every four tries we get it. Then we all split the million gil fee, and choose to either lot on Dynamis currency or Relic gear. Once we've settled on that, we spend the next three hours trying to beat the area, weeks after week, often with few-to-zero Relic armor drops. Is there any reason you're torturing us so? Especially with experience bonus rings and stuff, it's so easy to get to 75 quickly now, and yet many people will never have a full set of Relic gear for their original jobs, let alone their fourth or fifth 75 job. Hell, sometimes it makes me want to quit. Is there a reason why it's so painful to get Relic gear to drop? To clarify, I will lot on a piece of Relic gear I'm 74 levels away from equipping for the sheer moral victory of it.
KO: You can always put those Relics on your mannequin. [Laughs] When we first introduced the Dynamis system, we didn't have the instanced Assault-like system that we have now. And while we can't change our system that we have, we also don't think it's a good idea to change drop rates and stuff because of the people who have gone through this and gotten it this way, although we do realize that there are a lot of people who are having trouble because of the one-party reservation system, which makes it difficult. But we can't just go in and raise the drop rates 20-30 percent all at once. We're working on a way to hopefully make a good balance there, but we're always going to be introducing new items and right now we're thinking of new items that will be comparable to those Relic items that you can find and use.
1UP: Lastly, is there any concern that PS2 retail shelf space might dwindle by the time Wings of the Goddess is released, making it hard to market that version of the game?
KO: In regards to the shelf space, with one of the recent updates for the PS3, you can now use the PS2 FFXI discs on the PS3 freely, so we won't worry about having less shelf space for the PS2, we'll just put it on the PS3.
1UP: Does that mean you've considered offering the PS2 version as a download via the PSN?
SS: Right now it's not possible, but it's definitely something we're thinking of, especially for some of the older expansions, having people download them and purchase the registration codes online. So it's definitely something we're thinking about.
1UP: Awesome. It's always good to see you guys, and good luck with the new expansion.
