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The Digital Continuum: Square Enix's next MMO
This recent interview with the Final Fantasy XI team by James "Milkman' Mielky of 1up.com internet fame got me thinking about the next MMO to come from the Square Enix camp. There isn't much meat on them bones as far as the next project goes, but the interview does get the team to talk just a little bit about it. It seems as though one thing is clear: Their newest MMO won't be too similar to Final Fantasy XI. While the developer says that they've learned through mistakes and player response with their original game, it seems that they really want to try something different.I'd be decidedly surprised if Square Enix didn't make a new MMO somehow based in the Final Fantasy universe considering the popularity of the franchise. It's very possible that when FFXI producer Hiromichi Tanaka said, "-we're not going to make something that'll be exactly like FFXI" He merely meant that mechanically speaking the new game would be very different. Which quite honestly should be a given considering the somewhat esoteric and now archaic control/menu system featured in their first game. Also, it would be nice to play a Final Fantasy MMO that wasn't so harsh on players who died -- losing experience is a deal-breaker for many players these days.
Peer inside Vana'diel with the Final Fantasy XI census
Last week the folks at Square/Enix celebrated the sixth anniversary of Final Fantaxy XI. To commemorate the date, they released the latest post in the ongoing Vana'diel Census. An exhaustive survey of database information from the FFXI world, it covers every concievable tidbit of player information you could possibly want. Job popularity, size of active linkshells, which home points people bind to, chocobo colors, even which faces people choose when they create their characters - it's all in the census. Below are some Cliff's notes-style highlights. Make sure to check out the full census for all the delicious data. The majority of of all players log between 1-3 hours of playtime, 75%. The census attributes this to faster leveling and new 'short play' type missions. The average play session is slightly longer than last year's, though, at 2 hours 50 minutes. 12% of all characters levels 2-75 are level 75 (max level). The only other statistical standout is level 37, which spikes up to about 7% of the player population. Maat's Cap can be acquired by leveling all 15 jobs to 66 or higher, and then defeating one particular NPC with each job. As of this census, 6,575 people have acquired the cap. The most popular job combos continue to be WHM/BLM and BLM/WHM. Red Mage/White Mage is up to 3rd place from sixth last year, while the Thief/Ninja combo is in 5th from 8th. Of players that have acquired the two new jobs (Dancer and Scholar), 43% have nabbed Dancer and 30% Scholar. 27% have both. The top three race/gender combos are: Male Taru, Male Hume, and Mithra (all of whom are female). Least favorite is female Elvaan, at just 7% of the playerbase. The most popular color for a chocobo raised by a player is yellow, which trends to the racial stereotype. The second most common color (likely the most sought-after) is black.
