This guy had an interview with an FFXI Dev at E3.
Zigrah:
How many more chapters do you have planned for the current expansion Chains of Promethia?
FFXI Team:
While we can't give you an exact number, we can say that we are approaching the end. In the near future with the coming patches you will start to see that we are almost there.
Zigrah:
Does that mean plans will soon be in motion for a next expansion? I mean I know you can't give too many details.
FFXI Team:
We can tell you that the next expansion is in development, we can't tell you when it will be released but we'll say soon. We don't have a title and we can't give you any details but it is in development as we speak. Of course until then we will keep up with our patches.
Zigrah:
How successful has the "Return to Vana'diel" campaign been for you so far?
FFXI Team:
I can't give out an actual number, but the reason we created it was because a lot of people asked for it. So we tried to figure out a way to make it really happen and a lot of people were happy about it. We are seeing a lot of people coming back though, the types of people who left to try another game but felt that wasn't the game for them only to realize that their characters were gone. So those types of people have been calling our centers and we've been getting a lot of positive feedback about it.
Zigrah:
Has anybody hit 75 in every job yet? I saw a screenshot but can you verify it?
FFXI Team:
Yes someone just recently did this in Japan, we gave him an award for it actually it was the Maat Cap.
Zigrah:
I have to ask on behalf of all thieves out there, are there any conditions to activating the Treasure Hunter ability or is just being in the party enough? There are a whole bunch of theories such as thief having the last hit.
FFXI Team:
If there is a thief in the party then you will have the treasure hunter ability, if you want to have some conspiracy theories well we can't tell you. If you want to think that it's the last hit then you can go ahead and think that.
Zigrah:
Will it ever be possible to seek on one job while playing another? For example someone who might want to farm on a high level job while looking for a party on their lower less in demand job?
FFXI Team:
Right now, programming wise there is just the comments and that is why we recently expanded on them so if you wanted to do that you could just set a comment and hope people will check that. Other than that it just isn't feasible programming wise.
Zigrah:
Can we expect to see another mass banning of TOS violators soon?
FFXI Team:
The first time it had just really built up and we decided to just cut off all their heads at the same time and took off 800. We don't plan on doing that again, what we are doing now is that every time we catch someone we will just deal with them right then. Now that we do it in small doses we're not going to post every time and say we removed two accounts today we're not going to put that up every day. The other reason we did make the announcement was because we had done it all at once we would expect a lot of phone calls of people asking why their account was gone.
Zigrah:
I might be starting on a touchy subject here, currently there is an issue be it a ping imbalance or something along those lines in North America where a lot of High Notorious Monsters will pop claimed/purple. Has there been any insight as to what this is or how to possibly correct it?
FFXI Team:
We're pretty certain it's more area specific in that lots of people are all cramped in a tiny area so there is bound to be some lag. Playonline itself is narrow-band specific and people who are playing narrow-band are going to get a little lag. It isn't something that is just a North America specific issue.
Zigrah:
Has there ever been a Notorious Monster or Item ever introduced that nobody has found yet?
FFXI Team:
There are a lot of hardcore players out there and we find that within hours of released patches they will find these things. There might be some things that people haven't found yet. (Large emphasis on the word might, I think they were just teasing to make us go crazy looking for them)
Zigrah:
Currently Vrtra is regarded as the toughest monster in the game by most of the player base; even so he has been defeated. Are there any plans to create an increasingly challenged monster for those rare few that have beaten him?
FFXI Team:
What happens is that with the introduction of more powerful weapons and more powerful abilities the monsters that are already there become a lot weaker. Once you kill that monster you get even better weapons and they become even weaker. Every time a new monster is introduced they are at first very challenging but eventually people learn better ways to defeat them and even they become easy. So to answer your question, yes there are always plans to add more things that are going to challenge the players.
Zigrah:
If there was any addition to the game that you could possibly take back would there be one?
FFXI Team:
In a small sense we can usually just correct small things with a patch. As for a big thing it would have to be the auto party function. We realize that it's not working, what we wanted was a thing so that people would not have to shout out in jeuno and could just put up the auto party but not many people are using it and it makes strange parties when you do use it. That is the one thing that we wish we could fix. There are things that could fix it like making everyone auto party and it just giving you the opportunity to decline it again it's something we need to think about and we are indeed thinking about it.
Zigrah:
Currently the dragoon class is slowly fading away from the game. Are there any plans to give them a bit of an overhaul?
FFXI Team:
Of course we plan to adjust things, just like for example the beastmaster which was originally very hard to use and so we added different abilities. Like before there was no release ability, so nobody was playing Beastmaster because they would just end up losing experience so now there is the release ability and so hopefully we will keep looking at what the Dragoon needs and add them like we did spirit link which heals your wyvern when before that wasn't possible. We constantly look for new things and feedback from people for example the Dragoon needs this or is no good because of this. We do realize that the Dragoon is much more popular with American players and want to better it because we know you like it.
Zigrah:
So what is the best way for people to send you feedback?
FFXI Team:
For example we go to websites such as yours and look at threads. That would be our first priority for feedback is honest mediums such as yours.
http://ffxi.stratics.com/content/editor ... erview.php
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