Three Downloadable Expansions Announced For Final Fantasy XI 51
Square Enix has announced plans to release three expansion chapters to Final Fantasy XI. Their blog post provided some details about the new content:
"The first installment, A Crystalline Prophecy — Ode of Life Bestowing, is slated for release for all languages and platforms in Spring of next year. Subsequent installments will then follow, being released in intervals of every few months. These expansions packages will only be available through online purchase via PlayOnline. The projected cost for each installment is around $10.00. ... Up until now, expansion packs have generally been developed from a perspective of 'lateral expansion,' focusing namely on the introduction of new areas. These three new expansions, however, will deepen the storylines running through pre-existing areas by ushering in all-new plots and intrigues. While not necessarily containing as much content as traditional expansions, these episodic scenarios are designed to take anywhere from one to two months to complete."
Hm... (Score:2, Interesting)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Sony try this with Everquest II? I can't say whether EQ's downloadable content was just a bunch of titles and other things, but nonetheless, adding downloadable content to FFXI really makes me start to think that Square Enix is trying to resuscitate a dying game.
I mean, being an ex-fFXI player myself who has played on-and-off since six monthes after it was released in the United States, I can attest to the fact that the last expansions brought welcomed changes, like the additional classes, PvP (roughly, because I can't recall the name at the moment), and some other mission-related fun created periods of playing that I found intriguing enough to resubscribe. The amount of gold farmers dropped after S-E took measures to reduce them (which subsequently royally effed up the rate of inflation. Never buy Crawler's silk in a highly inflated economy and then try to sell it later). And while that's all and very well good, I doubt I'll be paying $30 to download three expansions, or $10 for one.
Hasn't changed in five years (Score:3, Interesting)
I just picked up this game recently after a few years away, and I have to say I'm extremely disappointed that most of the reasons I quit continue to plague the game to this day. The interface is still terrible, the config STILL requires registry hacking to up the resolution, and most of the content is heavily guild-based making solo playing difficult. In game organization is terrible, the item limits are definitely geared towards making you pay for mule characters, and the quest system is vague at best.
In fact, the one thing that HAS changed has actually made the game worse -- the areas in the early part of the game are barren, deserted, devoid of any players at all. While areas like Valkurm used to be camped to hell, now it's impossible to find a gang of more than 2-3 to play with. Because so much of the content requires you to complete group quests to access, this severely handicaps newer players who aren't playing with friends or aren't quickly sucked into large guilds.
And those that are around don't speak English.
In fact, I've only seen ONE PERSON talking since I started a few weeks ago. One person. It's a decent game and deserves a chance, and has a TON of "end gambut good luck in finding anything more than a single player experience
Re:Final Fantasy XI has a story? (Score:3, Interesting)
As somebody who quit FFXI after about 6 months of ToAU, but who looks back into the game intermittently, I'd second that. In fact, I'd go even further and say that FFXI as a game peaked with CoP.
In story terms, CoP was great and is about as close as you will get to the classic Final Fantasy experience. It fit in well with the story they'd built up in the original game and Zilart, while adding sigificantly to the background lore and mythos. It had well developed characters and actually drew the player-character into a significant role in the plot other than "person who does the dirty work" (although that's how it feels early on, until you get past "Three Paths" at least). Moreover the design of the CoP areas really fit in well with the plot and highlighted the "epic" nature of the storyline. Riverne was beautifully designed (and I can't help but feel that Nagrand in WoW was Blizzard's attempt to copy it). Al'Taieu was probably the most attractive area that anybody's yet put out in an MMO.
By contrast ToAU's storyline felt a bit lightweight and silly. Moreover, as you highlight, it didn't feel as though it was connected to the rest of the world. Sure, the odd character from the "old" world shows up, but I could never quite fathom what they were doing there. Moreover, the area designs were hideous. Whitegate was just a mess put together with recycled textures, and the less said about the endless tedious swamps outside it the better.
I've not really dipped into WotG much. While I bought it, it was released after I'd virtually stopped playing the game. The fact that the plot involved time-travel, however, did not seem to bode well to me.
But more than just in terms of plot and appearances, I think CoP was the high point of FFXI and the closest it ever came to having a unique selling point to set it aside from other MMOs. I liked the focus on small, level capped battles, requiring intense concentration on the part of all participants and plenty of tactical choices. I mean, make no mistake, CoP was hard, especially if you were doing it before they nerfed half the fights, and at times I was ready to throw my keyboard out the window. But it was also fun and gave an incredible sense of achievement after certain fights (Ouryu, Snoll Tzar, Airship and the final boss, in particular).
Of course, most of the player-base hated CoP, because you couldn't cheese your way through it on the basis of gear and numbers. I know plenty of end-gamers with multiple 75 jobs, who did the hardcore HNM scene, who just couldn't get past certain missions because they'd never actually worked to develop the skill at playing the game they needed. So what we got after that was an expansion with ridiculously easy missions, with some insane gear-give-aways and an end-game that became more and more biased in favour of having more and more of the "right" jobs. Sadly, because it added new jobs, which is what the crowd always clamoured for, ToAU is probably still seen as the better expansion by most players.
These days, I've switched over to WoW. I wasn't willing to tolerate the insane amounts of time it takes to get anything done in FFXI if the game isn't going to reward me with fights that challenge me and a storyline that holds my attention. I've yet to encounter anything in WoW as difficult as some of the CoP fights (and back before Wrath of the Lich King hit, we had Kil'Jaeden, the "last boss" of the previous expansion, pretty much on farm), but it does have a generally better escalation of the skill requirement in its end-game.