Much of the meaty graphical content from the last three years of FFXI has been derived from reskinned older graphics. Things such as areas, armor, weapons, weaponskills, enemies, etc. Accompanying this trend is a popular myth stating that the purpose is because reskinning old graphics helps the PS2 to conserve disc space. I've heard people say this all the time, and I'm sure you have to. But it is false, and here I'll show you very plainly and evidently (with simple pics for proof) that it's false.

This post was from a thread posted on the official FFXI forums, but it turned out so lengthy I figured I'd make it a blog post while I'm at it. Since the opening of the forums Abyssea has come under heavy criticism from plenty of clueless "greener grass" types. This is basically my response and defense of Abyssea content. This is a long post... but I think some perspective is needed.

Context from FFXI in 2009:
I think it's important to remember what it was like before Abyssea came out. 2009 was possibly the most dull year in FFXI history. Players were feeling, at best mixed, and at worst snubbed by the string of addon scenarios, so more new "addons" were treated with heavy skepticism. On top of this new plans were announced; the level cap was being increased, and at the time it seemed like FFXIV was ready to crush FFXI. The content for 2010 had to be epic or players were unlikely to shill out another $30 and a years worth of subscription for more tedium and fetch frustration. This was the challenge Abyssea was up against. Despite any flaws, it's clear that Abyssea has succeeded at this and provides plenty of value for the purchase price.

Due to the tragic circumstances in Japan, we've all been given a little time to do other things while FFXI is offline this week. While looking around and cleaning up the files on my PC I ran into an old folder of Google Earth style maps I made over a year ago now. I had forgotten all about them, but I figure they're sort of cool, so why not turn them into a blog post.

Basically I used the program EWH Zone Viewer to take sequential pictures of a number of zones from above. Then took those pictures and stitched them together in Photoshop and cleaned it up. The entire process was tedious and awful, which is why I stopped. As nifty as they were I couldn't conceive of any good practical and useful reason to justify the difficulty of making them. Although if you had any good ideas yourself, I'd be willing to listen. It's too bad too. Seeing the entire game in a Google Earth format would be a nice concept, but just far too much of a challenge. I dunno, maybe there's someone out there who's a clever programmer or has less of a life than me who could accomplish it.

Anyways here they are. For some reason I focused on WotG zones, I guess at the time they felt more relevant. They are hosted using the handy Maplib.net website. Click the individual name links to get a better view. Click read on below the cut off to see more.


Windurst Waters (S)



Click read on below the cut off to see more.

This post is just what it says. Looking back at the delay between the final release of "A Shantotto Ascension" and the release of "Visions of Abyssea" in order to guess at how long it may be before we see a new series of content introduced to FFXI. Whether it's more addons or whatever. Here's the breakdown:

*All these dates used are the dates the content went live in the update, not the presale date, or announcement or anything*

A Shantoto Ascension: 11 9 2009
Visions of Abyssea: 6 21 2010
It is 224 days from the start date to the end date.
Or 7 months, 12 days

Heroes of Abyssea: 12 6 2010
Today: 3 11 2011
It is 95 days from the start date to the end date.
Or 3 months, 5 days

By subtracting the current time between the release of Heroes and today, from the total period between the Addon Scenarios and Abyssea we get:
224 - 95 = 129 days worth of difference.

And so, if the past is any rough indication it may now be about 130 more days until some kind of new addon type content goes live. Let's see what happens.