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The Mog Log: I left my heart in Whitegate
There's still nothing much happening in Final Fantasy XI or Final Fantasy XIV at the moment. Well, OK, there's plenty happening, just not a great deal of news to discuss. I imagine that won't last very long, especially with the Final Fantasy XIV poll having ended on Friday, but right now seems like the perfect time to reflect on the past. And that inevitably leads me back to Final Fantasy XI, to my favorite expansion and the one that feels most vibrant to a North American player. Treasures of Aht Urhgan wasn't the only expansion that was released here, naturally, but it was unique in the game's lifespan. Rise of the Zilaart came with the game from the initial NA launch, Chains of Promathia produced very divided opinions (which several columns covered, if you missed it), and Wings of the Goddess is really just a slight funhouse reflection of Vana'diel proper. But Aht Urghan was new, vibrant, and the sort of expansion you could really sink your teeth into. It was, I'd say, the best one the series had.
The Mog Log: Bottle show
It's a strange time in the Final Fantasy online world right now. For the first time in what seems to be a very long while, we don't know exactly what's coming next. Final Fantasy XIV has Naoki Yoshida's letter and poll, and Final Fantasy XI has the vague promise of another nine levels, but neither game has a future with any sort of clear-cut milestones right now. The next update on what to expect could come in a week, or it could come tomorrow. (Tomorrow for me, anyway. I'm writing this on Thursday; it's unlikely that much will happen on Sunday.) While I made my predictions last week, and we'll see over the next year how accurate they are, I don't really know how many of those things will come to pass. And I have to wonder whether we're not the only ones who don't know what's waiting around the bend -- I think Square-Enix isn't totally sure what its next move is, because I think the past year has really forced a re-evaluation of some beliefs. I don't think it's a matter of cluelessness so much as not developing a plan B when plan A had worked up to this point, but I think plan A had only worked due to unique circumstances.
The Mog Log: The year that was
Last year around this time, people were saying that 2009 had been a terrible year and 2010 could only be an improvement. This year, people are saying the exact same thing. Maybe those of us in the MMO-sphere are just perpetual downers -- I don't know. It's certainly been a pretty significant year for players of Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV -- heck, it's been outright impossible for a Final Fantasy XIV player to exist before now, if you want to get hung up on pedantry. Whether or not you enjoyed the launch, of course, is another story altogether, one that Square-Enix itself doesn't seem to have closed the book on just yet. And over in Final Fantasy XI, we got an announcement that had been about seven years in the making, not to mention a plethora of new additions to the game -- some stunning, some lackluster. So let's take a look back at the year for both games, since the new one is starting right about, well, now. (OK, it's been started for a few hours, you get the idea.)
The Mog Log: The directed route
First things first: I should have pimped this last week, but the Aetheryte Radio Network's community show had me as a guest for the most recent episode. If you'd like to listen to my dulcet tones alongside Steak and Fusion as we discuss the game, The Mog Log, and how much we all hate Final Fantasy VIII, you are most definitely in luck. And because we've seen the last Final Fantasy XIV update we're going to get this year, the game seems like the thing to discuss. With the most recent update, pretty much anything that players claimed was just plain broken has been trimmed up and cleaned. (Whether or not that should have been the case in September is another discussion altogether.) So we're moving into the new year with everything working and a new team primed to start taking the game forward. So what exactly will that entail? Now that the functional issues of Final Fantasy XIV are tackled, there's just the other half of the equation to deal with -- making the game more engaging for a broader playerbase. Or to be more specific: the easy part is done, and now it's time to work on the hard part.
The Mog Log: Stare too long into the Abyssea
The first of two December version updates has hit the community, and as a result I'm torn. On the one hand, this means that Final Fantasy XI has seen another major upheaval in the form of more levels and new content, which is really significant... if you're up at those levels. I am not, and consequently a lot of what I can say about those high levels is pretty darn speculative. Most of the concrete information I have heard about the update seems to concern problems with console installations rather than substantive information. But I do feel fairly confident in talking about Abyssea. The second trilogy of mini-expansions has come to an end, with a very different focus than the previous unconnected addons. I'd say that it's been both a good and a bad thing for the game as a whole, both in the way that leveling has become tied to the new areas and in what it might mean for the game in the future. So with the whole setup out of the way, let's talk about what's been done and what might be coming as a result.
The Mog Log: Eleventh-hour changing of the guard
When I woke up on Friday, I was greeted by a message from Square-Enix, and that alone was enough to make me start wondering what in the world was going on now. As a direct result of that message, the gist of which can be gotten here if you've somehow missed it, I'm going to have to postpone the column I had previously written on Final Fantasy XI and Abyssea. I apologize, but I'm hoping the column will work out like a fine wine and just be better with age. Then again, considering that Final Fantasy XI is sharing the same management bug as Final Fantasy XIV, perhaps not. And yes, wow, that was a big one. Tanaka dethroned, a new development team installed, and a whole lot of uncertainty about what this means for the future of Final Fantasy XIV. It could be a step forward, it could be a step backward, and unfortunately the official statements can be read in a multitude of different ways. Oh, right, and the free trial is being further extended until the development team can confidently outline a plan regarding the game's new direction... but what direction is that actually going to be?
The Mog Log: Patching holes
Due to a general case of it's-the-blasted-holiday-season, I didn't get nearly as much playtime with Final Fantasy XIV following the November patch as I would have liked. I had to wait a couple days to really sit down and engage in a nice play session to really get a feel for all of the changes that had been wrought on the game by the update. And in a way, I'm glad I knew that I would need some time and thus focused on the community piece last Saturday, because it's meant more time to really appreciate the improvements. The short version, if you're allergic to page breaks, is that this patch solves a huge number of issues, to the point that I imagine many players who couldn't see past those issues to the core game will be better able to see what's at the root. But there's a lot of unpacking to do, so I'd still recommend hopping past the cut for a breakdown of the patch as a whole as well as a brief look for what the December update still has to do for Final Fantasy XIV.
The Mog Log: Radio free aetheryte, part one
If you play Final Fantasy XIV, you probably already know about Eorzeapedia. If you play Final Fantasy XI, you probably know about Eorzeapedia via the normal osmosis of concepts, since much of the community organization spreads from older roots. On the off chance you aren't familiar with it, however, it's a site that melds several parts of the Final Fantasy XI community together into a single location, built from the ground up to serve as a community and player hub for the game. And not just in terms of data. No, it has a radio. Aertheryte Radio is a labor of love, a network of several podcasts with the hope of giving you some piping hot Final Fantasy XIV news and opinions straight into your ear. (Let's ignore how painful that analogy sounds.) So for today's look at the community, I got the opportunity to ask some questions of the talent behind the shows. Instead of looking at the community as an aggregate, I spoke to some very vocal and dedicated members of the community, and it's worth shedding a light on all of the work they produce.
The Mog Log: Unabashed adoration for Final Fantasy XI
Before you go any further in this column, I invite you to join us in today's listening: "Happy Together" by The Turtles. Stare at the above illustration while you listen, and I imagine you'll start laughing before long. But songs that can be turned unintentionally funny aren't the focus of today's column -- that's reserved for praise and adulation of Final Fantasy XI. See, I got called out not too long ago on being very negative about the game recently. And it's a fair accusation. I was unhappy with the the announcements at VanaFest 2010, I had been a bit critical of the game's obstacles and future before... in short, despite having been writing this column for a couple months, I hadn't said a whole lot of nice things about the game. It's easy to take away the idea that I don't like it any longer. That's not true, of course -- if I'd stopped liking it, I would have stopped writing a column about it -- but I haven't praised the game so much as cranked about it like a hurricane. Thus, I'm taking the today for five unabashedly wonderful things. No caveats!
The Mog Log: You've got questions, we've got deflections
It's time to kick off one of the features that we're hoping will become a regular standby on The Mog Log -- community questions and answers. It's a chance for you to all ask the questions about the game that you'd like answered, and a chance for me to shuffle awkwardly and stare at my feet. Kidding aside, if you have a Final Fantasy XI or Final Fantasy XIV question that you'd like answered, send them to me, and I'll happily answer them to the best of my ability. It's all the edification of research without the actual research part. We'll start with a question from Simon: "Are we sure about when the beta for FFXIV is going to start?" Nothing is certain, least of all what Square-Enix decides to do. Right now, they're content with not filling us in on the start date of beta, but they might very well share that tomorrow at VanaFest. On the flip side, they might hold on to that tidbit until after the stateside launch of Final Fantasy XIII, just to keep excitement up for the title. Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow, we should know then.
The Mog Log: A spotlight on our webwide community
We're generally a fairly verbose and chatty bunch on Final Fantasy XI, with a strong sense of community. Whether this has been helped or harmed by the difficulty of getting any official word from Square-Enix is a debate topic for another time -- what's indisputable is the sense that the game's players are one big family, if not always a happy one. (It's hard to be happy when cousin Ike has had a few Yagudo Drinks too many and starts talking about how much he hates Scholars.) On the other hand, Final Fantasy XIV isn't even yet in beta, but there's already a community forming around it, as is frequently the case for new games in the series. It's attracting several people who have either been burned by Final Fantasy XI or are still fans but look forward to some new gameplay, not to mention MMO gamers hoping for something new and exciting. So let's take a look at some of the more interesting, provocative, or just plain noteworthy community threads and discussions that have been happening recently.
The Mog Log: Starting new in Vana'diel
Getting started with Final Fantasy XI can be rather daunting the first time. You might be lucky to have a friend right there holding your hand through the starting areas... or you might accidentally wind up vendoring several thousand gil worth of items because you didn't properly grasp how the auction house works. Or you might throw away a bunch of zinc ore because it's taking up too much space. Or you might put yourself on everyone's blacklist by accidentally locking your chat mode in /yell. You can draw whatever conclusions you want about my early memories of the game. They're not pretty. Assuming you've mastered moving, the basics of looking around in your inventory and interacting with NPCs, and so forth, it's not always immediately evident what you're supposed to do, what the best job for a starter character is supposed to be, and so on. Thus, for those of you newly interested in the game, we have a small guide on some of the less immediately transparent elements of the game. (For those of you who already know Sky and Sea inside and out, you can skip ahead to the end. I can promise there's something there.)
