The March update will finally bring the long awaited (and over anticipated) Summoner avatars, Alexander and Odin.  Strangely, it's been years since the Treasures of Aht Urhgan storyline ended and yet here is a fresh addition to its content.  ToA would still appear to have a few loose ends that never seemed to materialize.  One other such example concerns the Nyzul Isle assaults.  During an interview done at FanFest 2008, it was stated:

Here's some stuff that happened to me this week.

I'm in a new Salvage group after my months of being away from FFXI.  We must have stored up some kind of pity TH because the remnants have been pretty loose with their gear.  Totalling 3 drops in a row from SSR, and the next day 2 Brayette's from back-to-back Gate Widows.


I've been hitting up MMM casually whenever possible trying to grab a Mamool Ja Earring, but the event's totally ungrateful drop rate will have none of it.

Screwing around figuring out the Hunt Registry/ Evolith system led me to camping Hyakinthos.  I ran up and saw that he was just hanging out so I did him the favor of ending his tiny life.  He reciprocated by giving me some ring and 20 Scylds for my trouble.  Not bad.  I swung by to see if the partner NM was around (Lava's Ring is part of a two ring set) and found a scene resembling a tiny Lamina's-Aery complete with desperate AFK camping melees.  How adorable!

I've been checking out the Hunt Registry/Evoliths system in case the upcoming updates utilize more of its true potential.  I noticed that there was a lot of info, but there is no breakdown of the Evoliths by their rarity or difficulty to obtain.  And so here I've sorted the current list of Evoliths using info provided by FFXIclopedia.  It's interesting to see which types require the most Scylds as an indication of which Square seems to believe are the best available.  Since the purpose is to see which Evoliths may be "better" this list doesn't include Evoliths from any NM's that require 0 Scylds to hunt.  Here's how it goes:

Upon the release of Wings of the Goddess some were shocked at what they found on their game disc.  Or more precisely they were surprised at how little was on the disc itself.  The contents of the WotG CD totaled only 352 MB.  Not much bigger than the size of downloading maybe one T.V. show.  Over the span of several updates downloaded content has added around 143 MB resulting in a total of nearly 500 MB.  If they're only going to wait to add the bulk of an expansions data with updates then what's the point?  Why even bother producing discs at all?

The past year of FFXI has been slow and fairly dull. There have been smatterings of nice gear additions and many welcomed but minor adjustments (e.g. storage). But nothing really engrossing and challenging has been introduced for quite some time. Now that Square has announced future plans for the next year of gameplay let's look back at FFXI in '09. This is a long post so hopefully this can remind everyone where we've been and bring some perspective and insight.

I'm sure we've all seen a lot of bad shouts in our time. And I'm not talking about chatter or spam, I'm talking about shouts that attempt to provide info but contain useless words mindlessly copied because someone saw another person use the same format.

The purpose of a shout is to provide information. Your goal should be to provide all the relevant details other players need to judge whether or not they're interested. Basically that means: what your purpose is, capacity of your party, level range (if appropriate), and any caveats like a specific class of job you need etc. So it winds up looking something like: "CoP mission 4, [looking for members], @ 4, need support job". Or: "Salvage Arrapago Remnants 2F 3F 4F Boss, @ 3 please have permit ready". That's really all there is to it, it's common sense.

Unfortunately a lot of bad habits tend to creep up on some people. First of all there is the notorious auto-translate phrase "do you need it?" This phrase is entirely too overused in FFXI and frankly I can only picture a few instances where you'd sincerely need to use it. Maybe if you wanted to ask a foreign player if they need a certain drop in the loot pool. But somehow this phrase has become almost an institutionalized part of shout info. And without justification.

A typical example would be like: "Windurst mission 8, [do you need it?] @4". It adds nothing whatsoever to your information. Think about it. Isn't it already implied in my responding that I would need the mission? Why would anyone respond if they were not interested in joining you? It's like some bad rhetorical question randomly inserted out of no where. Imagine if someone were to shout: "ROZ mission 10, [Does this tunic make me look fat?] @5, need tank". That's not far off from using "[do you need it]". Variations of this same idea comes in the form of "[Can I have it?]", and [Do you have it?]. Then there's always the double-whammy of: "[Do you have it?] [Can I have it?]".

Not far off from this phenomenon is the redundancy of specifying whom to send a tell to join the party. For example:

Pukequeefa : Soboro run, [looking for members] @5, /tell Pukequeefa

Most of us have done this and in fact it's so common many people just add it on out of pure instinct without thinking. Now maybe Pukequeefa has an uber fine Soboro run brewing. But the problem is it simply adds no info to your shout. Anyone capable of running a complicated computer game will understand the implication that you would have to send Pukequeefa a tell in order to join up. Maybe they think that their request is so complex and unnavigable it blows the minds of the average peon. In which case reminding the stupefied creatures how they communicate might be required.

There is however a legit function for the "/tell X" comment. If you are shouting for your party but you are not the organizer of the event then it serves an actual purpose to point anyone interested to them instead. For example, if the organizer is shouting to find members in Whitegate and you offer to shout in Lower Jeuno to cover more area. Unless this is the case ditch that "/tell" comment for the better.

These are just a few specific habits that I see on a daily basis and wanted to finally and explicitly point out. I know there are many other varieties but that'll do for now. Just remember to stick to providing info while resisting using the auto-translator as a lazy-phrase machine and you're way ahead.

The 2010 FFXI Vanafest announced a new trilogy of add-ons to expect throughout the year. Vision, Scars, and Heroes of Abyssea. This series appears to be completely different from the last year's add-on trilogy. Where ACP, MDK, and ASA focused on a story wrapped around quests ranging from levels 20~75, Abyssea indicates it will focus on challenging high-level events. Given that the "quest" add-ons were generally scorned, this new approach is a welcome change and gives me high hopes for its success.

Here's what little info on Abyssea we've got so far. From the Vanafest site:

Abyssea is a parallel world existing beside Vana'diel. A land fraught with perils, Abyssea is home to savage hordes of heretofore unseen creatures. Ferocious, towering NMs, new-look HNMs—even the garden varieties will confound would-be challengers with their unfamiliar and formidable powers. These and a whole host more await hapless adventurers with open arms and voracious maws.

In Abyssea, concerns such as the over-population of battle areas and the need for large time investments will be a thing of the past. The development team is hard at work creating a world where parties can engage in rewarding battles with powerful foes and collect prized equipment with the least of fuss. The expansive realm of Abyssea will comprise several new areas which will be introduced over the course of three add-ons.

Not included in this info is the fact that Abyssea includes the debut of AF3 equipment. A new line of AF, new areas, and a focus on level 75 gameplay could make this a potentially great series capable of vindicating the term "add-on".

It's also interesting to consider how Abyssea fits into the fictional world of the game itself. (Mild Wings of the Goddess spoilers follow) If you've been keeping up with your Wings of the Goddess missions (you're keeping up yeh?) you know that the plot centers around Atomos creating a bridge between two alternate versions of Vanadiel. We're all familiar with the our universe where the Allied Forces won the war and the Age of Adventurers has lead to relative peace. In Wings however, we learn that there is a second universe where the Allied Forces lost the war leading to the four nations complete downfall. This second universe is probably Abyssea. (Not to be confused with Dynamis which is a kind of dream Diabolos created to escape into)

If this is the case I sincerely hope the "new areas" don't simply turn out to be yet another version of the four nations. It's one thing when enemies or equipment gets re-skinned, but when a whole zone is repurposed it's dejecting. To date we've got the standard present versions of each city, then the dream-world Dynamis versions, and now their past equivalents as well. A fourth second universe of a dystopian Windurst (e.g. "Windurst Waters_(A)") would be transparently lazy and come off as a Dynamis rip-off.

The last year of Wings content has been full of mediocrity and qualifications. Here's to hoping Abyssea brings about some fresh new ideas and fun gameplay. We'll find out in June.