Most Excellent Preview of the expansion and QA section!!!Follow

http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3148759&did=1

The Treasures of Aht Urhgan team speaks
1UP: This seems like a total reinvention of Final Fantasy XI. Unlike Chains of Promathia, which was pretty hard to appreciate for various reasons, Treasures of Aht Urhgan is just filled with cool stuff. What caused the turnaround by the development team?

Kouichi Ogawa: In the previous expansion pack, Chains of Promathia, we concentrated on giving the players a rich full story. However this time with this expansion we wanted to kind of move away from the story and give the players a lot of different things to try out, a lot of new different types of ways to play the game so they can relearn the FFXI world.

1UP: Treasures of Aht Urhgan is the first time where you're introducing the element of chocobo breeding, chocobo raising, etc. People have been asking for this for a long time. What made this the right time to do it?

KO: Actually we've had plans to do chocobo raising and racing [for awhile], and with this new expansion pack it gave us the perfect platform to bring it out.

1UP: As a further nuance to this, does this mean that you will actually be able to ride your own chocobo, or will you still have to rent them from each town or teleport crag? This wasn't clarified in the developer panel.

KO: If enough people want that, then we'll definitely consider it.

1UP: The Blue Mages are something that fans have wanted for a long time based on their presence in the history of Final Fantasy. The Corsairs were a bit of a surprise, but the Puppetmaster was a really big surprise since there was never a precedent for such a job in Final Fantasy lore. How did you decide to create the Puppetmaster job class?

KO: In the beginning when we were thinking of new jobs, we were first thinking of a Necromancer type of job, where the job would be able to raise the undead. However, we couldn't have undeads running around in the morning and that would weaken the class, because they'd only be able to work at night. So from there we tried to think of something where the player would be able to use a puppet type of...slave if you will, at all times of day, and that's how we got to Puppetmaster.

1UP: The reception was pretty astounding, actually. Everyone thought it was a tarutaru following the galka around, but when everyone saw it was a puppet, the place went wild. Will the Puppetmaster be limited to one puppet in the way that Dragoons can only have one type of wyvern, or will there be other types of puppets for the job to use?

KO: There will be more than one version of puppet to use.

1UP: Regarding the popularity of the puppet theme, quite a few manga in Japan are either based around the use of marionettes, like Karakuri Circus (by the Ushio & Tora creator, Kazuhiro Fujita), or featuring a puppet-themed story arc, like the current plot in the Japanese version of Naruto. Has this been influential in the creation of this job?

KO: That really didn't play any part in our choosing the Puppetmaster job.

1UP: You guys have obviously taken into consideration all of the job classes, as evidenced by the massive list of tweaks you mentioned at the developer panel. Which of the jobs was the most necessary to balance, and which jobs needed the least balancing?

Atsushi Okada: First, the ones we didn't think we needed to change are the Red Mages, the Ninjas, the Rangers and the Dragoons, because they had major changes recently, and we want to see how those changes pan out before we make new changes. Right now we can't really put a high ranking on which is most important to change; some of the ones we're going to be doing major changes on like the White Mage and the Paladin have big changes, but we have changes for all of them. We don't want to leave one out. So within the next few months, we'll be trying to make changes to as many jobs as possible, and see which ones need more and which ones might not need as many.

1UP: It's interesting how you [speaking directly to translator, Michael Christopher Koji Fox] brought up Beastmasters, since BSTs traditionally would train mobs to a zone, which made it easier to chain mobs safely. With the new anti-MPK measures implemented in the recent patch, that became all but impossible for BSTs. Does the dev team see a way to remedy that without opening the door for new MPK situations?

Nobuaki Koumoto: The reason that that was implemented was to stop the MPKs, which were becoming a really big problem, so we have no plans of changing it back to what it was. However, the dev team does realize that a lot of Beastmasters out there don't really like the change that was made, and so they're working very carefully to try to find something that will please everybody on all sides.


[click the image to check out all FFXI: TOAU screens]


1UP: When you were designing the new jobs had it ever crossed your mind to create another job that would function well as a solo class?

Michael Christopher Koji Fox: [Laughs] They just got the stop [global online marketing producer, Arata Hanyuda steps in and makes a "no comment" sign], so we can't say too much, but that was one of the things we were thinking of when designing the three new jobs.

1UP: I know you guys are trying to promote diversity when it comes to selecting subjobs to go with mains, but if you had to suggest what sort of subs would go with the three new jobs in Treasures of Aht Urhgan, what would you say goes with what? Does a Blue Mage benefit mostly from a mage subjob or a melee sub? That sort of thing.

KO: We're going to try to balance it out as much as possible, but we would really like the players to decide which is the best, rather than for us to decide.

1UP: What were your feelings in seeing the crowd's response to the Blue Mage demonstration? It's kind of exciting to know that all the crap that the monsters have done to us over the years, we can now -- in theory -- do back to them.

KO: That was great for me.

Okada: At first I didn't really think it was going to be that popular, with the players just being able to use the monsters' abilities. But when I saw the reaction I was really surprised.

1UP: Do you think that -- and I know this is kind of a loaded question -- but do you think that any of the new jobs will put any of the existing jobs out of business?

KO: We're trying to make the jobs as original as possible, so they will not have to replace the other jobs. We want to make them as different as possible from the other 15.

1UP: So do you expect to see lots of dynamic new party arrangements?

KO: That's what we're hoping.


1UP: Is this one reason why you guys didn't actually add new jobs to Chains of Promathia? I can see how it can be too much for players. You can't expect three new jobs with every expansion since there's so much balancing -- even to the original jobs -- that takes place over the course of years and patch updates.

NK: When Chains of Promathia was first released, there were still a lot of things we wanted to adjust with the original 15 jobs. So rather than add new jobs there when the other jobs weren't adjusted well enough yet, we decided to wait and spend the CoP time to adjust those jobs. Now with the new expansion pack and a lot of new game styles (Assault and Besieged) coming out, we thought it was the perfect time to add new jobs, now rather than before.

1UP: Do you think Summoners always asking for new avatars is a little -- and I guess this is really the only way to put it -- unfair, since every other job doesn't receive a new spell or ability every time they get a new summon, like Diabolos? Moreover, all of the elements have been covered -- now you're getting to the point where you have to be more creative about your avatar selection, right?

Sage Sundi: By adding something to one job, there are always going to be 14 other jobs that are going to complain that they didn't get anything. So we have to hope that after we add one thing to one job, that we can think of other things to add to the other jobs so that everybody will be just as happy. We can't keep everybody happy though.

1UP: The Corsair looks like it's the most interesting job, technically, much in the way that you said the Thief is a very technical job. Will the performance of a Corsair depend on existing stats, or will the job's effectiveness come from a new stat (read: Luck, a.k.a. LCK) that either falls alongside inherent stats like STR and DEX and AGI, or can be skilled up like magic and weapon skills?

KO: Like you said, the Corsair's abilities are all based on Luck, so in the future we would like to add more features that work off the Corsair's Luck, so look forward to the next few patches.


[click the image to check out all FFXI: TOAU screens]


1UP: Have you guys figured out the new abbreviations for the new job classes yet?

KO: OK, we can tell you. Blue Mage is BLU. Corsair is COR.
Hiromichi Tanaka: Milky came up with "BLU" in our last interview. [Laughs]

1UP: It wasn't very hard. [Laughs] What about Puppetmaster?

KO: PUP.

1UP: Since your open panel discussion invited more suggestions than actual questions like you wanted, I've got a couple things I'm going to throw at you for fun. First of all, as a Red Mage, I have to say I was disappointed to hear that you didn't have any changes in store for RDM at the moment. But if you were to add something, what about a Refreshga spell that could be with, say, Divine Seal once every 15 minutes, like the White Mage Divine Veil status removal ability? This way an RDM could, with a specific sub, Refresh the group, which would alleviate spending a good chunk of our time casting Refresh in MP-heavy parties?

NK: This is an interesting suggestion. We'll be taking this suggestion home with us.

1UP: Another thing I was wondering is if Rangers could have their particular bow displayed on their character model, much in the way Semih Lafihna is shown in Windurst Rank Mission cut-scenes. She's always wearing her bow on her back; she looks so cool. I know there are probably memory restrictions, but it would be great to see.

KO: It's probably going to be really difficult to achieve this.

1UP: This is sort of a minor request, but would it be possible for a Linkshell holder/creator to sack his own mules or alternative characters? Since there's no "guild roster" like there is in World of Warcraft, where you can manage your roster whether or not your members are online, I can't actually promote my mules or alts, making me the least powerful members in my linkshell if I'm not on my main character.

HT: The main concept behind the pearls is you have to hand it to someone. One of the problems is that the linkshell system was one of the first things that was designed, so it's very hard to adjust it right now. But with a lot of doors opening recently, we're going to take it back and consider doing something that would make it easier for players to do something like this.


[click the image to check out all FFXI: TOAU screens]


1UP: Besieged adds a whole new Lord of the Rings-style element to FFXI. Traditionally the game has revolved around a number of players (on average, six) fighting a single monster. But in Besieged you have players fighting tons of monsters at one time. Does this present any interesting balance issues?

KO: This is one of the biggest problems we're facing right now, in trying to get it as balanced as possible. We don't want to make it too difficult because there will be low-level players, and we don't want to make it too easy, because players won't have any fun. So that's what we're working on the hardest now, is trying to get the balance perfect before the release.

1UP: Was Garrison the first attempt at something like this, and if it was, was user feedback of the mind that it wasn't nearly as invasive enough, resulting in Besieged?

KO: Actually Garrison wasn't really a step. Before we wanted to do something new with the Conquest and that's what we came up with. But a lot of players wanted a feature where the monsters would come to the towns, and with the new expansion pack it gave us a place to do that. Because we can't bring the Conquest to the new continent, because it's not part of the existing continents, we had to think of something totally new, and that's how we came up with Besieged.

1UP: Yesterday you warned people not to log out in Mhaura, even though that seems to be the gateway to the new expansion areas. Some people took that to mean that the prerequisites lie in other areas, but the way I read it was that it seems like it might actually be dangerous to be in Mhaura after the expansion goes live. On top of that, the recent CoP patch introduced a bunch of new quests, like the Green Sentinel Badge quests, which have you talking to 16 people all over the place, but seemingly go nowhere at the moment. Are there quests that people can do now that they'll need in order to access certain things in Treasures of Aht Urhgan?

[The development team laughs it up]

KO: OK, all we can tell you now is that even if you log in Mhaura, you won't immediately be able to get on the boat to Aht Urhgan. You'll have to do something, and that's all we can tell you. We can't tell you what it is, so you'll just have to wait and see. Just don't log out in Mhaura, and you'll be safe. Regarding existing quests, we'll leave that up to you guys. If you think you need to do them, then maybe you should probably do them.

1UP: There better be a good reason for me to go run around and talk to 16 people in every nation.

KO: It was 20, not 16. [Laughs]

1UP: Even worse! Anyway, thanks for your time, guys. Good to see you all again and thanks for putting so much into what looks like a kick-*** expansion to Final Fantasy XI. See you at E3!