My Own Vision of Abyssea

July 25th, 2010

Sorry for the delay in posting this. Last week was another FFXI tour, this time for the July update and the new Vision of Abyssea add-on pack. There's a lot of new and interesting stuff, including new areas, new battle systems, lots of new gear, not to mention higher levels and more abilities for (almost) everyone.

Two of the new abilities I got to see were for Black Mage and Scholar. Black Mages got a sort of "mana shield" ability, letting them use their huge mana pools to survive a few hits if they "accidentally" (cough cough) pull aggro from a monster. To help them not pull aggro, Scholars now have the Libra ability, which displays how much hate everyone in the party has for the targetted monster. I also saw a few new job traits and abilities for Warriors, giving them some bonuses to make them better tanks, or to do more damage at the expense of crit when they're dps-spec.

One of the biggest additions with Vision of Abyssea are the new Abyssean zones, sort of parallel universes of existing areas. They work as timed dungeons: you zone into a staging area, talk to an NPC, and you get a 30 minute buff that lets you "exist" in the parallel world. Then, off you go to kill monsters and and collect a new type of currency, the abbysean equivalent of conquest points. Though, once your timer is up *poof* you get teleported back to the real world.

So the new expansion is based less on a set of story missions and more about combat zones. This has been building up a lot recently. Treasures of Aht Urghan gave players Besieged and Assaults. In Wings of the Goddess, Campaign gave players the opportunity to participate in big battles without having to spend three hours beforehand looking for a group. The new Conflux Battlefields, added in July, work upon this success and have become a sort of "public BCNM" for up to 36 players.

The new battlefields are set in the same areas that you got to see in Wings of the Goddess cutscenes, but now is the first time you get to adventure into them. They're full of monsters that drop temporary items to boost your powers, and the big monsters drop valuable synthesis materials for players who helped out in killing it (such as by dealing damage or healing other players), much in the same way as the campaign mechanic.

If you're a player considering returning, now's a great time. The biggest news is that, for the first time since Promy, the level cap has been raised: from 75 to 80. Whole new job traits and abilities, spells, and - of course - job/subjob combinations at 80/40. I think the cap is going up even higher in upcoming updates, too. Also, a lot of the new content I've seen looks even more accessible for high-level players, so dusting off your old level 75 and getting back into it should be easy and rewarding.

Posted by: Soulrift

FFXI: Abyssea Promo stuffs

June 9th, 2010

Got an update about FFXI's new add-on scenario, Vision of Abyssea, in my email box so I thought I'd share. By and large, you can get information straight from Squeenix's site, which includes oddities such as requiring the Rise of the Zilart and Wings of the Goddess expansions, but no word of Chains of Promathia or Treasures of Aht Urghan. Huh, go figure.

Oh, and a neat promo picture to share!

The weapons on display at the promo site are very nifty, though I wonder how difficulty they'll be to obtain. From what I gather, these sets of add-ons are focusing on battles, rather than story missions, so it'll be an interesting change of pace from the previously released scenarios. At only $9.99 each, they're less than a month's subscription anyways, so everyone may as well pick them up and see!

Posted by: Soulrift

FFXI Tour: April 2010

April 13th, 2010

Amidst all the FFXIV hype, I got an interesting email the other day: an invitation to a tour in Final Fantasy XI. I've always enjoyed the FFXI tours so I instantly accepted, and I certainly wasn't disappointed with all of the new additions to see, but throughout my mind was that nagging question: FFXIV?

Not to worry: both games will run concurrently and there will be plenty of content to keep FFXI running strong. What kind of content? Well that's what this tour is all about!

I suppose I could sum up everything in the same sort of bullet-points that PR reports would use, but FFXI Clopedia documents those well enough already. Some of the new additions are a bit 'meh' to me; the new summons have neat eye candy but as I never really played SMN I wasn't terribly excited by them. Instead, let me talk about the additions that I, personally, found interesting.

Though, I totally admit, the graphics and effects for the new summons are very cool.

New Add-on Scenario Series: Abyssea. After the success of the first three add-ons, it seems Square-Enix is shifting in this direction rather than full-blown expansions. The next series of add-ons will be more combat-oriented and will focus on the parallel universe of Abyssea. As a prelude to these new scenarios, players can now hunt down Abyssean invaders by collecting a key item in Jeuno and going around the world playing a sort of hot-and-cold game to try and locate the otherwise invisible NMs. When you get close: pop! They appear out of thin air and a potentially epic battle ensues! There's a system by which you can "charge" your crystal by defeating weaker monsters and, with a more charged crystal, you can track down tougher monsters, all of which drop plenty of interesting loot. I'll be curious to see how the scenarios themselves play out!

Wings of the Goddess Mission Update. I love FFXI for its storylines. It's the only mmo I know that makes extensive use of cutscenes, just like the single-player Final Fantasy games, and does them spectacularly well. The new WotG missions and story sequences the tour guides showed me were amazing. The story itself is reaching its climax and should wrap up in two or three more updates. One particular cutscene featured many notable characters from former missions, especially the missions surrounding the shadow realm of Dynamis. Now that you've traveled back in time, you can see them in the flesh, along with some new foes and fiends and, of course, the original Shadow Lord!

Sadly, no screenshot of the Shadow Lord, so here's a screenshot of Odin instead.

Sadly, missions in FFXI have always been buried behind the "I need a group!" barrier, and given their complexity, length, and challenge, many players never get to see a great many of the missions.

Magian Moogles! I recall seeing a system of upgrading weapons in a prior update (after I had stopped playing, sadly) that involved getting a Fey weapon and defeating monsters to power it up with random enchantments. It seems that this principle has been greatly expanded upon with the Magian Moogle trials. Now, players pick up the base weapon from a chest next to the Moogle, then select a trial to upgrade their weapon. By completing subsequent trials, hundreds of different weapon configurations can be achieved with many potentially powerful combinations. This certainly looks like something worth undertaking, because the challenges themselves are fairly direct: things like, go kill 3 Notorious Monsters. Since you're not after the NM loot, players can freely group up with others at that NM, kill it for trial credit, then go back to upgrade the weapon. According to the tour guides, many players just meet up at the NM spawn, group up, and get on with it, rather than getting stuck behind the "I need a group" barrier.

Level Cap 99?! Yes, that's right, the rumors I heard are true: the level cap will be raised to 99! This has all sorts of repercussions, not the least of which will be unleashing all sorts of powers from sub-jobs that were previously locked away by the level 37 SJ cap. This will also open the flood gates for a swarm of leveling, though it raises the question of where the higher level monsters will be? Will there be a whole new expansion and areas for level 99? Or will that content be gated through the new Abyssean add-on scenarios?

Incidentally - and I mean this only for the triviality of it, since I could never in my entire life actually hold a relic weapon - the Magian Moogle system is expected to allow relic weapon holders to upgrade their trophies to level 99 weapons, so all that "hard work" won't go to waste. Yipee for you relic weapon holders, I suppose. I, myself, will just remain mournfully jealous of your enslavement and bribery charismatic leadership.

So, where does that leave us? If you haven't played FFXI yet, it's never been easier: just pick up the Ultimate edition for $19.95, which includes all four expansions and all three add-on scenarios. Plug it in and you're good to go. If you've quit and were wondering whether or not to come back, you'll be in the same boat as I (and probably mourning the fact that it's April 13th and the absurd Squeenix billing system will jip you out of 2 weeks of play time you'll pay for). I think there's plenty to do, and the recent server mergers mean high population realms again for ease of finding groups (and the potential of meeting new friends!) but, you know, billing system... maybe I'll try again early May.

Oh, and if you never stopped playing, why are you reading this? Log back in and power up your Magian Moogle weapon already :)

Posted by: Soulrift

A Taste of Things to Come?

April 2nd, 2010

I've gotten an invitation to another FFXI tour - I guess it's an April thing - but my email box also had another goodie: some preview stuff about Final Fantasy XIV. I plan on watching this sequel very closely, as I'm a huge fan of its predecessor. Until I get more information, here's a little teaser!

Posted by: Soulrift

FFXI April Tour Impression

April 24th, 2009

The good folks at Final Fantasy XI took me on a tour of the latest content, featuring the new Crystalline Prophecy add-on. They also sent me their new Security Token for my FFXI account. Read on to find out all about both!

First up, Crystalline Prophecy. It's a new add-on this April that only costs $9.99 to add to your account. It tells the story of... well, I'm not entirely sure on all the details yet, but I did see the opening cut-scene, so I can safely say crystals and prophecies are definately involved. But that's true of all FFXI stories, eh?

Anyhow, what's unique about it is that it's very much desigend to be optional content. You add it on, or you don't, but it's all good. There's two more add-on adventure coming soon, and none of them require any other to be installed. So if you only want to play one or two of the three, you won't have any technical problems doing that. You'll just miss out on what you don't buy!

Another major new addition is the first ever Manthra! Yes, a male mithra has appeared in Vana'diel! Actually, I wasn't totally paying attention to the tour guides so I'm not sure if this is only part of Crystalline Prophecy or part of Wings of the Goddess in general... but I suspect its the former. Very cool look to the character though, I must say. FFXI's cutscenes just get better and better with new unique characters and custom animations.

There's also this new Training Regime system which allows you to take a training routine every Vana'diel day for some bonus experience points and gil. Tomes are available in nearly every area, so you can get some added bonuses while fighting what you normally fight anyways, or hunt around the world for new, exciting challenges. There's no group requirements or limitations, so you can solo or duo or, heck, throw an 18-person alliance together for them!

Also, there's a new augmentation system, which lets you buff up common items with new magical properties. Some of them are random (I got "Resist Earth +1" on a cloak during the tour. We all got a chuckle out of that) and I think some are fixed. Anyhow, players seem to be enjoying the chance to get some unique properties on their gear, and it certainly stimulates the crafting industries, since you can only augment common stuff, not rare or exclusive gear.

White mages got some nice changes in the recent update, including new abilities that cause the white mage to power up when he/she heals, or takes damage. There's also a new ability called Sacrifice which lets you take status effects away from an enemy and onto yourself, and a Final Fantasy classic, Esuna, makes its appearance in FFXI, allowing the white mage to clear debuffs off the entire party. Good time to play WHM!

Finally, for all those greedaloxes out there, there's the new mog satchel, which DOUBLES your personal portable inventory. Whatever size your gobbiebag is, your mog satchel is that size too. And it goes everywhere you go! How do you get a mog satchel, you might ask? Simple: link a Square Enix Security Token to your account.

Security has become a major problem for online games, and more and more are adding additional security measures, such as authentication tokens. It's not just another source of income for the game companies; it also saves headaches if players don't report hacked accounts. So Squeenix is giving a pretty generous bonus to players who secure their accounts, probably in the hope that reduced account hacking will make the game more secure and stable.

As always, you'll have to check it out for yourself! Go to the FFXI home page and download the free trial, if you haven't seen what this classic MMO has to offer.

Posted by: Soulrift