Ffxi fan Festival 2008

Here is the summary of our private Q&A with the dev team from Friday night. There may be some redundancies with Saturday's Q&A session (see Pikko's Twitter thread) because we didn't know the discussion topics beforehand.

Enjoy!


Highlights from Friday developer panel interview:

- Two new avatars are under consideration, including one that is very large. One or both may be implemented in the “not so far future.”

- Separating tags for regular assault and Nyzul assault would be technically difficult.

- New armor for low- and mid-level players will be available through Fields of Valor, but not complete armor sets.

- SE has not implemented +1 armor storage because of system limitations; the devs have placed more priority on storing other armor sets. However, this is something that may be implemented later on.

- The new Moblin Maze Mongers content will most likely not remove gil from the economy.

- SE is continuing to monitor the population situation on Odin, and further measures to regulate the population there may be enforced.

- The upcoming three expansions will be closer in difficulty to ToAU than CoP.

- Jobs that haven’t received significant updates in a long time may be receiving in 2009, perhaps as soon as March. White mage is among the jobs that may be updated.

- SE is considering making a use for Ixion horns.

- SE is currently investigating the logs from Salvage, Nyzul Isle assault and Sandworm BCNMs. Pending this investigation, actions may be taken against players who were found to have intentionally exploited the glitch regarding drop rates.

- SE would consider holding a Fan Fest in Europe if there was enough demand from players.

- SE is anticipating that RMT will attempt to exploit the new Maze Maze Mongers content, which has been designed for players ranging from levels 1 to 75. The STF is planning to keep an eye on the new content.

- No plans to increase the level cap.

- SE is still planning to release password protection hardware similar to Blizzard’s account authenticators.

- Existing zones, possibly WoTG areas, may be adjusted for improved merit parties, or altered to include new “merit activities.”

- Completing the upcoming scenario expansions will yield rewards similar in quality to those from previous expansions.

- No new jobs are planned for upcoming expansions.

- There are no plans to combine the auction houses in starter cities with those in Jeuno/Whitegate/Tavnazia.

- Armor obtained through Moblin Maze Mongers has been designed to be aesthetically pleasing, as opposed to being practical for leveling.

- NPC fellows cannot be called during level-synced parties because, system-wise, that would be difficult to implement. Also, the level sync feature was created to encourage people to build parties. However, it’s possible this could someday be changed to allow NPCs to be called while level-synced.

- Changes may be made to the level sync system allowing people to skill up, particularly at lower levels.

- There are no plans to expand the gardening system.

- The crafting system may be expanded. The development team is considering a couple of ideas.

- No new hints are coming about how to beat Pandemonium Warden.

- Nothing is being planned to deal with botters/cheaters in Kings camps, mainly because the development team can’t currently prove when people are using certain types of illegal programs.