Nowy wywiad z SE:
http://ffxi.stratics.com/content/editorials/zigrah/mayinterview.php
By: Zigrah
I recently had the lucky job of meeting with the Final Fantasy XI team at E3 this past week, it was my first time meeting with them and I really enjoyed the experience. I walked into the special area in the back of the Square-Enix booth and was greeted by members of the team. In the background someone was playing the game on a large screen, the gameplay was a little choppy but the graphics looked nice though and it was then that I was informed that what I was seeing was the early version of FFXI on the new Xbox 360. Until then all I had heard was a small rumor that the game was coming to Xbox and having no mention of it at the Square-Enix press conference I had gone in pretty sure it was just a rumor so I was pleasantly surprised.
I was a little nervous at first, this was my first real interview as a staff writer for Stratics, everything else I have done has been informing the public on other peoples interviews or news about the game itself. I quickly warmed up to the idea though and began to start asking questions. My main focus was to ask the questions that aren't asked of them constantly and get the same answers we have all heard a million times. I didn't ask about new jobs or when the level cap was getting an increase, I tried to avoid the end game scene merely asking when more was coming because end game is a constant work in progress and I think the Final Fantasy XI team is aware of the problems and making an effort to always add more. We have seen a big move for competitive ballista, the introduction of more triggered NM's to battle the competitive nature of things so I felt there was no need to ask for more as we all know the answer to the question. They are always adding new material and it's always changing so they can't give specifics.
The first question I asked was concerning "Conflict" which is the term given to the ideal of Player vs. Player combat in this game. When the idea of conflict was born, Ballista was supposed to be the first of many types of conflict and since the arrival of Ballista we have seen it evolve into a very fun part of the game but a lot of people still wonder what is in store for us next. When I asked what new methods of conflict were planned the answer I received was that a new method is being planned that they aren't speaking of because they still would like to see how popular the Diorama system becomes. I then asked them to possibly elaborate on "Ballista Royale" which some may recall being on their main page a little while back but never released any specifics. It was explained to me that currently in Japan right now, Ballista Royale is a sort of competition where people can go compete to prove they are the best Ballista players around. Obviously though, this was catering only to their Japanese audience and not letting others show off their skills as well, instead of forcing other players to come to Japan they have decided that they will soon bring it to North America and Europe so keep an eye out and start training so you can prove your skills.
Right about this point in the interview I remembered I had brought a tape recorder to keep track of the answers better. Like I had explained I am no expert in the department of interviews but from now on I will transcribe the interview the way it really went down.
Zigrah:How many more chapters do you have planned for the current expansion Chains of Promethia?
FFXI Team:
While we can't give you an exact number, we can say that we are approaching the end. In the near future with the coming patches you will start to see that we are almost there.
Zigrah: Does that mean plans will soon be in motion for a next expansion? I mean I know you can't give too many details.
FFXI Team:
We can tell you that the next expansion is in development, we can't tell you when it will be released but we'll say soon. We don't have a title and we can't give you any details but it is in development as we speak. Of course until then we will keep up with our patches.
Zigrah: How successful has the "Return to Vana'diel" campaign been for you so far?
FFXI Team:
I can't give out an actual number, but the reason we created it was because a lot of people asked for it. So we tried to figure out a way to make it really happen and a lot of people were happy about it. We are seeing a lot of people coming back though, the types of people who left to try another game but felt that wasn't the game for them only to realize that their characters were gone. So those types of people have been calling our centers and we've been getting a lot of positive feedback about it.
Zigrah: Has anybody hit 75 in every job yet? I saw a screenshot but can you verify it?
FFXI Team:
Yes someone just recently did this in Japan, we gave him an award for it actually it was the Maat Cap.
Zigrah: I have to ask on behalf of all thieves out there, are there any conditions to activating the Treasure Hunter ability or is just being in the party enough? There are a whole bunch of theories such as thief having the last hit.
FFXI Team:
If there is a thief in the party then you will have the treasure hunter ability, if you want to have some conspiracy theories well we can't tell you. If you want to think that it's the last hit then you can go ahead and think that.
Zigrah: Will it ever be possible to seek on one job while playing another? For example someone who might want to farm on a high level job while looking for a party on their lower less in demand job?
FFXI Team:
Right now, programming wise there is just the comments and that is why we recently expanded on them so if you wanted to do that you could just set a comment and hope people will check that. Other than that it just isn't feasible programming wise.
Zigrah: Can we expect to see another mass banning of TOS violators soon?
FFXI Team:
The first time it had just really built up and we decided to just cut off all their heads at the same time and took off 800. We don't plan on doing that again, what we are doing now is that every time we catch someone we will just deal with them right then. Now that we do it in small doses we're not going to post every time and say we removed two accounts today we're not going to put that up every day. The other reason we did make the announcement was because we had done it all at once we would expect a lot of phone calls of people asking why their account was gone.
Zigrah:I might be starting on a touchy subject here, currently there is an issue be it a ping imbalance or something along those lines in North America where a lot of High Notorious Monsters will pop claimed/purple. Has there been any insight as to what this is or how to possibly correct it?
FFXI Team:
We're pretty certain it's more area specific in that lots of people are all cramped in a tiny area so there is bound to be some lag. Playonline itself is narrow-band specific and people who are playing narrow-band are going to get a little lag. It isn't something that is just a North America specific issue.
Zigrah: Has there ever been a Notorious Monster or Item ever introduced that nobody has found yet?
FFXI Team:
There are a lot of hardcore players out there and we find that within hours of released patches they will find these things. There might be some things that people haven't found yet. (Large emphasis on the word might, I think they were just teasing to make us go crazy looking for them)
Zigrah: Currently Vrtra is regarded as the toughest monster in the game by most of the player base; even so he has been defeated. Are there any plans to create an increasingly challenged monster for those rare few that have beaten him?
FFXI Team:
What happens is that with the introduction of more powerful weapons and more powerful abilities the monsters that are already there become a lot weaker. Once you kill that monster you get even better weapons and they become even weaker. Every time a new monster is introduced they are at first very challenging but eventually people learn better ways to defeat them and even they become easy. So to answer your question, yes there are always plans to add more things that are going to challenge the players.
Zigrah: If there was any addition to the game that you could possibly take back would there be one?
FFXI Team:
In a small sense we can usually just correct small things with a patch. As for a big thing it would have to be the auto party function. We realize that it's not working, what we wanted was a thing so that people would not have to shout out in jeuno and could just put up the auto party but not many people are using it and it makes strange parties when you do use it. That is the one thing that we wish we could fix. There are things that could fix it like making everyone auto party and it just giving you the opportunity to decline it again it's something we need to think about and we are indeed thinking about it.
Zigrah: Currently the dragoon class is slowly fading away from the game. Are there any plans to give them a bit of an overhaul?
FFXI Team:
Of course we plan to adjust things, just like for example the beastmaster which was originally very hard to use and so we added different abilities. Like before there was no release ability, so nobody was playing Beastmaster because they would just end up losing experience so now there is the release ability and so hopefully we will keep looking at what the Dragoon needs and add them like we did spirit link which heals your wyvern when before that wasn't possible. We constantly look for new things and feedback from people for example the Dragoon needs this or is no good because of this. We do realize that the Dragoon is much more popular with American players and want to better it because we know you like it.
Zigrah: So what is the best way for people to send you feedback?
FFXI Team:
For example we go to websites such as yours and look at threads. That would be our first priority for feedback is honest mediums such as yours.
So there were some serious questions asked and some silly ones to add a bit of variety to the mix. All in all I think I learned some things I didn't already know and hopefully some things that most people didn't already know.
On the note of feedback, we at FFXI stratics have some serious plans to make our site into an outlet and voice for the opinion of FFXI players everywhere with the use of our forums and by bringing in new people and receiving people's submissions. We hope to thrive off fan fiction and player written editorials where well written ones will be brought to the main page and properly discussed. It is our hope that this will bring people to our site on a more regular basis and create some much needed discussion in our forums so that the average player has a voice about their favorite game. On that note I would like to point people to our forums to discuss this interview and your feelings about it and myself, either what I could ask the next time or what you thought about what people had to say. However please keep it constructive, the main goal of our forums is to create real discussion without people trolling just to stomp on other people and their opinions just because you might disagree. I look forward to getting this plan in motion and hope to hear from people.
Of course the most important note, on behalf of myself and Stratics I would like to thank the members of the Final Fantasy XI team: Hiromichi Tanaka, Sage Sundi, M.C. Koji Fox, Yasu Kurosawa and Toshio Murouchi for taking the time out of their day to meet with me. It was a great experience and I hope to do it again some time.
