[6souls]

Vana'diel Festival 2008 was held today in Tokyo, with a multitude of spirited fans bringing the JCB Hall venue to life. None of those in attendance were able to hide their surprise and delight as the announcement was made for the confirmed development of three new expansion scenarios. In addition to this delicious piece of news, fans were treated to an appetite-whetting preview of the upcoming December version update, and much, much more. We have taken the liberty of preparing a detailed summary of all the exciting events that took place at this year's festival for the benefit of those who were unable to attend.

Proceed here to visit the official homepage for the new expansion scenarios.
And here, for all the latest breaking news from Vana'diel Festival 2008.

[6souls]

The Adventure Continues With Three All-New FINAL FANTASY XI Expansion Chapters!
*Available for online purchase only

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/addon/
http://www.playonline.com/ff11fr/addon/
http://www.playonline.com/ff11de/addon/

■Masato Kato, who oversaw the original plot conception on FINAL FANTASY XI from initial release up through the Rise of the Zilart expansion, will also play a key role in the creation of this new series of installments.

■The first installment, A Crystalline Prophecy – Ode of Life Bestowing, is slated for release for all languages and platforms in Spring of next year. Subsequent installments will then follow, being released in intervals of every few months.
These expansions packages will only be available through online purchase via PlayOnline. The projected cost for each installment is around $10.00.

Unlike its predecessors, such as Treasures of Aht Urghan and Wings of the Goddess, this original series of expansion packages will be distributed exclusively as online add-ons. Players may rest assured, however, that version updates for the Wings of the Goddess expansion will still continue for some time. Concurrent with the regular version updates, the new expansions are being developed as a with a “novelette” approach. Indeed, a separate development team has been established specifically for these new expansions.

Additional Scenarios?
Up until now, expansion packs have generally been developed from a perspective of “lateral expansion,” focusing namely on the introduction of new areas. These three new expansions, however, will deepen the storylines running through pre-existing areas by ushering in all-new plots and intrigues. While not necessarily containing as much content as traditional expansions, these episodic scenarios are designed to take anywhere from one to two months to complete.


Target Levels?
Though the quests can easily be started by a solo player somewhere in the vicinity of level 30, they will tend to become more difficult as the storyline progresses. By the end, completion of the quests will likely require a party of level 75 characters, with the rewards being geared towards high-level players as well.
Players can engage in these new storylines simultaneously with any of the missions from preceding expansions without conflict.

[WolfwoodOfTrigunMax]

...THREE ALL-NEW EXP CHAPTERS....!!

[Remaro]

$30 and then you get nothing.

[Notacka]

I don't know how I feel about this.... I really want new areas. The recycled areas from WotG is really wigging me out. Now this I dunno this just doesn't sound good....

[Notacka]

Ok well looking through the creator's voice they are adding a whole lot of shit including SCH and DNC AF2 group 2 merits male wedding clothes new beast hunting game and treasure hunting game and also if you wear the glory crown when you have sanction you get Imperial Defense and your food last longer and you get more xp. It's all right here at http://blog.square-enix.com/ff11/

[.Sotek.]

Ok, now the next update looks awesome.

Fields of Valor and Treasure Caskets sound like a minigame/event that wont suck. Plus new gear. Certainly fixes gear issues in low levels (I had to camp the AH just for a weapon while leveling some subjobs, fucking ridiculous). FoV reminds me of Hunts on FFXII. I wonder if "Vaanquished!" will appear ont he screen when you win ~_~
Relic/AF+1/Relic+1 for DNC/SCH as well as Group 2 merits. Those merits best not be all of the job adjustments this update though >_>
Finally some level synch fixes.
The Mysterious Young Beauty has me re-interested in WotG. And the new missions don't look bad (looks like we're bringing people from the past to the present?).
Mazes will seem to offer you a reward of Gilgamesh gear (eye patch arrrrrgh!). Can we expect a real Gilgamesh mob in the maze? Battle on the Bridge remix? Please?
Crown kinda fails. Food lasting longer. When you're fighting birds? Yeeeaaah I assume it adds a tick to Regen/Refresh, or something, as well though.

The new addons sound interesting. More story content per update is certainly welcome. Shantottos "Objection!" makes me want that one first. Screw (what looks like) Aldos back story. Pinky and the Mog certainly looks funny, though.

[bloodryne]

humm. I have mixed feels about this.
first I love the idea of new things, second the fact that you have to download PC it makes me wonder how will someone such as a
Ps2 or x-box user will download this?

[Varizen]

The Caskets are going to rock, and I'm interested in the SCH merits... None of them suck... they all look so useful (though they consume a lot of charges x.x)

[.Sotek.]

http://blog.square-enix.com/ff11/images/&#...21;ー.jpg
Anyone translate that?

I'd assume 810 is the EXP reward. But the other 3? CPs? Gil?

[Hyanmensire]

Exp > Gil > something (says "tab" in katakana...did they mention anything like that in the notes?) > something

[Nanako]

I'm a bit wary of paying money for these scenarios, and then not being able to find enough people to complete them. At least with normal expansions there would be other zones, events, and items to help justify the cost.

[Evane]

Paying for quests.. Can't say I saw that coming.

[.Sotek.]

I'm a bit wary of paying money for these scenarios, and then not being able to find enough people to complete them. At least with normal expansions there would be other zones, events, and items to help justify the cost.

Target Levels?
Though the quests can easily be started by a solo player somewhere in the vicinity of level 30, they will tend to become more difficult as the storyline progresses. By the end, completion of the quests will likely require a party of level 75 characters, with the rewards being geared towards high-level players as well.

The gear will be enough to get most people buying into it.

With the quality of WotG CSs, I'll gladly hand over 10$ just for a whole mission set. To fuck with even more situational gear and events. They're not needed at this point. Not when SE wants to justify old events and gear atleast.

[Varizen]

There's items at the end aimed at higher end players if you looked at it. Personally I'm all for it. 30 bucks for 3 complete stories works for me.

[Notacka]

I think they should add more capped fights. With the new level sync system there is no reason not to have more. Like it'd be cool if you popped a monster and it let off some gas that made you level 40 for the fight. Only way to not be 40 is to leave the 20' radius of the monster and not be in the party. Be funny if someone walks by the fight area and lowers the level but to make it so people won't drag it to different parts of the map it will constantly go back to it's spawn point like the antilion in PM 3-3. Also they can make it if you pull the monster out past a 50' radius of the spawn point it can become 1.5X to 2X stronger.

[draugo]

They need to fix the way that the gear caps. I tried my genbu's kabuto on in Sacarium, I figured 75/15 is 5 which tells me every five levels you should gain 1 stat point. @ 50 cap I gained a whole 1 vit off the kabuto, and nothing else. It's bullshit. They said that the stats are the only item on the gear that should scale proportionally.

If they were to fix it though, the full god gear would be a nice general set of capped gear for jobs that can equip it.

[JayD]

They need to fix the way that the gear caps. I tried my genbu's kabuto on in Sacarium, I figured 75/15 is 5 which tells me every five levels you should gain 1 stat point. @ 50 cap I gained a whole 1 vit off the kabuto, and nothing else. It's bullshit. They said that the stats are the only item on the gear that should scale proportionally.

If they were to fix it though, the full god gear would be a nice general set of capped gear for jobs that can equip it.

It doesn't scale linearly. Its scales based on the "available gear at that level." It takes the stats available on common gear that your job can wear at that level and caps the stats there.

[Hyanmensire]

Exactly. Only piece of equipment that I know of pre-50 that adds more than 1 VIT is Iron musketeers armet which is only wearable by WAR/PLD/DRK and Monk's headgear which is wearable by Monks. The kabuto scales just fine.