Enterbrain, the company that puts out the monthly Connect!On magazine and Famitsu gaming magazine, has started a new mook (cross between a magazine and a book) series for Final Fantasy XI called Comic Vanatsu. The first volume came out in August and it mainly contains FFXI manga by various artists. However, as an extra in the back of the mook was a little all-color booklet containing information on the Group 2 merits for various jobs. A page was dedicated for each job and at the bottom was a mini Q/A with the developers to get their thoughts! Each section was very short but something’s better than nothing right?

Here’s what the developers had to say about the Group 2 merits:
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written by Corinth

Allakhazam.com has posted their detailed write up of the Dev Q&A from this years Premier Site Summit. You can read their write up here.

They have also started their contest to give away a copy of the Piano Collections CD autographed by Final Fantasy XI Composer Naoshi Mizuta. You can read contest details here.

written by Fusionx

FFXIclopedia has posted their full write up of the Q & A from this years Premier Site Summit.

The questions asked ranged from Automaton AI to adding more drops in Nyzul Isle Assault.

You can find the full write up from Ganiman on the wiki’s forums here.

written by Fusionx

Yesterday we posted up a few bits of information that we were able to get from the recent Development Team interview. Elmer the Pointy over at BG has been kind enough to translate the full interview and has allowed us to post it here to share with you. Thanks Elmer!

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written by Fusionx

A new interview has shown up online with the FFXI Dev Team. The interview is in Japanese so we’re going to try and get a fully translated version to you as soon as possible. At the moment however we have been able to grab a few things from quick translations done throughout the community. Here’s what we know so far:

• They are planning to release ToAU relic soon
• They are still considering the private dungeon concept
• Working on new RDM spells and NIN job abilities
• They will introduce a new Serpent General quest
• They’re going to let us ride Chocobos in the past
• They are still working on the new Avatars

If you’d like to check out the interview you can do so by clicking here.

written by Fusionx

Recently we sat down with Kixxi and Sesh over at Vana’diel Profiles. It was definitly interesting being on the “other side” and being interviewed instead of doing the interviewing. For anybody interested you can listen to the interview below (We will make it available for download soon) and you can view the write up here.

written by Fusionx

A few weeks ago we told you about the 1up.com blog that was looking for questions to ask in their upcoming dev team interview. The interview has been conducted and is now available here. Some of the question asked include NM drop rates, lack of tanks LFP, NM drop rates and many others. They also talk about how the STF (Special Task Force) is pretty much done in terms of clearing out RMT so they have been able to put those people to work on adding things such as moogles in Selbina and Mhaura.

[Thanks Iphigenia!]

written by Fusionx

-PFA Turns 2
-Update Information
-Interview with Square Enix
-We Talk PUP
-Best of PFA Part 2!

You can also download our new intro by DJPlaeskool on our Audio>Music page!

written by Steak

Vana’diel profiles has recently sat down with Limit Break Radio host Aniero to talk about the origins of LBR as well as his radio background. They also go into depth about the different personas they have while recording the show. You can listen to it over at Vana’diel Profiles or you can read up on it here.

This is one of the many entries for VP’s “Who’s Who On FFXI” a series of interviews reaching from LBR, ffxiclopedia and even PFA. We’ll be sure to post about them as they’re released.

written by Fusionx

The July-August issue of Beckett Massive Online Gamer has released a list of their top twenty most influential people in MMOs for 2007. The list can be found here.

Number sixteen on their list is none other than Square-Enix’s Global Online Producer: Sage Sundi.

The issue is now available for purchase and can be found at stores such as Borders, Barnes & Noble etc.

[Thanks AtlanRay!]

written by Fusionx

It’s been awhile since we’ve heard about an interview with the FFXI Dev team. Several of the questions that were answered revolve around the end game scene and for most of them the answers will be liked by players. Some of their answers included:

• Adjustments to Einherjar for the player to be able to earn more rewards than there are currently
• Lowered cost for Dynamis entry
• Adjustment to drop rate on Northlands Dynamis Relic Armor
• Option to disable battle music
• When a player changes nationality, access to previous outposts will be saved. In a new nation a player will have to start from scratch, previous OP records are returned however when returned to the nation of origin and players can then re-access their saved outposts
• More food for mages

You can read the interview in its entirety here.

[Thanks Balraw!]

written by Fusionx

The website onrpg.com has recently had a tour through Vana’diel’s past. Much like the one massively.com received. They have since released a small interview that was conducted with members of the Final Fantasy XI team. Many of the questions asked have been asked before and aren’t really worth mentioning. However one question that was asked got an interesting response.

Question: One major concern that has persisted is the difficulty of starting out. Many have said that without joining the game with friends it can be anywhere from difficult to nearly impossible to reach a point where you can consistently get a party together. Has anything been done about this, or are there any plans to look closer at this?

Answer: We are in the process of developing methods for new players to form parties with friends who are already veterans of the game. The exact nature and timing for the introduction of this method has yet to be decided; however, we are aware that this issue has troubled players for some time and hope to implement a solution as soon as possible.

Could this be similar to the current gold world pass items that allow friends to party together by restricting the veterans level? Perhaps it will be something completely new that we’ve never seen before. Only time will tell us what the team at Square Enix has in store.
You can read the full interview here.

written by Fusionx

1up.com got a chance to talk with Sage Sundi and Yasu Kurosawa about the recent hackings of Final Fantasy XI accounts. The most popular example of these attempts is the incident that happened last month with somepage.com. They also mention the Linkshell Community Beta in regards to security and it’s ‘final’ release.

You can read the discussion here

written by Fusionx

Part two of GamesIndustry.biz’s interview with Square Enix Global President Yoichi Wada is now available. In this half of the interview they mention the consoles and when asked about the spin offs of Final Fantasy such as Final Fantasy 7 he replied “We wrack our brains for what might sell and what might not, but it’s very difficult to hit the jackpot, as it were. Once we’ve hit it, we have to get all the juice possible out of it.” They were milking the series for all it was worth? I had no idea.

However there is another mention regarding the Final Fantasy XI community and how SE wishes the maintaining of these communities to be a large part of their business stratagey

Your company statement says Square Enix intends to become a leading community management company. What do you mean by that, and how does it relate to your games business?

One of our main projects is FFXI, and a lot of people are playing it globally, which means that there is a community for this game that people live in, and that needs to be managed. When a group of people share the same ideas, values and concepts, we regard it as a kind of demographic group, and we would like to make the management of that kind of group a major part of our business strategy.

What we feel is important is catering for them individually. Other companies see a group of one million people there, two million people here, and deal with them as a group of three million. We would like to deal with these groups individually. That’s why we place great emphasis on it.

You can read part two of the interview here.

written by Fusionx

Gameindustry.biz recently sat down with Square Enix Global President Yoichi Wada during his trip to Europe. While the main focus of his trip was to get a better grasp of Europe’s market, he does give some very interesting answers when asked about the company and MMOs.

Final Fantasy XI has been quite successful, but it hasn’t kept pace with the very fast growth in the MMO market. Do you have plans to pursue this sector further, and challenge the markets of companies like Blizzard and NCSoft?

MMORPG is a big genre, but it can be diversified by different means – one is the game design, the other is the payment system. With FFXI, we intentionally haven’t changed the game design or payment since we launched it five years ago. But when it comes to our MMORPG games for the domestic and Asian markets, as an experiment we have tried different formulae on a quite minor scale with smaller titles, such as a per-item payment system. Following that, we have already prepared a few MMORPGs that have been experimentally played internally.

With FFXI, your company was one of the first to try MMO gaming on consoles – PS2 and Xbox 360. Did you feel that was a success? Will consoles become a viable platform for MMOs on the same level as the PC?

In general we regard it as a success. Nowadays, all consoles are network-compatible. When we started the FFXI project, everybody thought it was a big challenge, but now we cannot imagine a console that’s not networked. Obviously the PC market is still going strong, but on the console market is even stronger, so in order to seize good market share, I think we have to be on both console and PC.

Wada says they have prepared a few MMORPGs and have been experimenting with them. We heard about Concerto Gate releasing a North American beta some time early this year but what are these other MMOs that Square could be working on? We know that they have been working on a next-gen MMO for quite some time now. At GDC, Final Fantasy XI producer Hiromichi Tanaka said that the white engine is almost complete and ready for a public viewing. Whether these new “experimental” games will use the white engine is unknown at this time.

You can read part 1 of the interview with Yoichi Wada here. Part 2 will be released sometime next week.

written by Fusionx