[spira]

Heroes of Abyssea—the third in the popular series of battle area add-ons—is now available for purchase via the PlayOnline viewer! Follow the Heroes of Abyssea banner from the FINAL FANTASY XI top page and acquire your registration code today.

Adventurers can take a sneak peek at the great challenges and even greater rewards that await them beyond the maw at the official Heroes of Abyssea site, newly updated with a promotional trailer. Also featuring monster profiles and wallpaper based on the official Abyssea concept art by acclaimed artist Jun Suemi, this update is something no player will want to miss!

Access the Heroes of Abyssea homepage.

*Purchasing users will be able to access the Heroes of Abyssea content with the next FINAL FANTASY XI version update, scheduled for Monday, December 6.
*As with previous add-ons, the purchase of a single registration code will unlock the Heroes of Abyssea content for all characters belonging to that PlayOnline account.

**I uploaded the trailer on youtube for easier viewing pleasure

[spira]

intrigued...
excited.

genuinely hyped about an add-on expansion.

[Corrderio]

...is that Atomos on steroids?

[Shirai]

Oh... wait... what?
Sea? Prishe??

Now this may become interesting...

This post has been edited by Shirai: 24 November 2010 - 06:31 AM

[.Sotek.]

Shirai, on 24 November 2010 - 06:31 AM, said:

Oh... wait... what?
Sea? Prishe??

Now this may become interesting...

And yet you still only need RotZ and WotG for Abyssea. Now that really doesn't make sense anymore, the underlying quest line only involves killing the zone boss, all the cutscenes take place out of Abyssea so I'm assuming we'll need Sea access at least to finish the story, though I guess story wasn't what SE were trying to sell with these (and oddly I like the story way more than anything else SE did recently).

Final boss looks Shinryu. Kind of hyped about that, though I still want SE to make FFIs four fiends and Chaos as a boss (and of course still waiting on a purple Octopus HNM).

[MrReinhardt]

New update is same week as new WoW expansion also.

[WolfwoodOfTrigunMax]

Check this background behind Shinryu. pause @ 1:33

This post has been edited by WolfwoodOfTrigunMax: 24 November 2010 - 08:27 AM

[Avarghaladion]

.Sotek., on 24 November 2010 - 07:16 AM, said:

And yet you still only need RotZ and WotG for Abyssea. Now that really doesn't make sense anymore, the underlying quest line only involves killing the zone boss, all the cutscenes take place out of Abyssea so I'm assuming we'll need Sea access at least to finish the story, though I guess story wasn't what SE were trying to sell with these (and oddly I like the story way more than anything else SE did recently).

Final boss looks Shinryu. Kind of hyped about that, though I still want SE to make FFIs four fiends and Chaos as a boss (and of course still waiting on a purple Octopus HNM).

Ultros ftmfw

[MrReinhardt]

so the new areas are West Altep, Grauberg and Uleguerrand?

[Aleera]

Two syllable damn incoming.
























Dayum.

[Sotose]

wut @ prishe

[Albela]

that is good music. looking forward to the soundtrack to put it inside wow.

[Terranova]

WolfwoodOfTrigunMax, on 24 November 2010 - 08:22 AM, said:

Check this background behind Shinryu. pause @ 1:33

Is that what I think it is...!? It shows up a bit later when it flashes to (presumably) Shinryu's eye.

Also, in the next second, who's standing across from Shinryu? That's definitely not Prishe, unless she decided to get big spiky armor and a scythe.

Also, damn. The first 2/3 of the trailer was not that exciting, but holy damn @ the end. Looks like Abyssea actually does have a plot of interest.

This post has been edited by Terranova: 24 November 2010 - 02:33 PM

[Torak]

this does seem a knock on WoW: cataclysm and its fairy world breaking dragon, but kudos to SE for throwing in a little bit of CoP for this.

[.Sotek.]

I wonder what the reward for beating the final boss will be. Hopefully Shinryu isn't fabulous like all the other final bosses and drops something other than jewelry.

[Terranova]

I, for one, am hoping that Maw leads to Abyssea - Ru'Hmet or Abyssea - Al'taieu; not just to the final fight. Which will probably take the defeat of all nine zone bosses.

Would be neat that if you beat Shinryu, you "bear the light" and thus aren't limited by a time limit in Abyssea. idk.

What I don't get is why there is a maw in Sea, and the third zone in the video is very clearly Abyssea - Uleguerand, and yet only RoZ and WotG are needed to access. Maybe it will be like the Scars zones and the maws will be massively misplaced from their original zone - so if you don't have CoP, you can go to the maw (which will be in, say, Xarcabard) and it will send you on over to Uleguerand. And I believe it was proven in the BG forums that the Abyssea zones are completely independent zones of themselves; so you don't need data for the original zones to be able to use the Abyssea zones. This implies, though, that the maw in in the Garden of Ru'Hmet shown in the trailer is an exit maw in Abyssea, not the entry maw in our world. So there will be a maw somewhere in the world that does not take CoP to unlock, that then warps you to Abyssea - Ru'Hmet. Which will either be a zone that you can get to after progressing so far in the storyline (that is, beating the nine zone bosses) which then has a link in it to the Abyssean Empyreal Paradox (and that hopefully has a bunch of unique monsters as well), or it's just a straight path in a locked-off section of Sea from the maw to the Empyreal Paradox zone for the final battle.

This post has been edited by Terranova: 25 November 2010 - 11:16 AM

[Aeonknight]

Terranova, on 25 November 2010 - 11:12 AM, said:

I, for one, am hoping that Maw leads to Abyssea - Ru'Hmet or Abyssea - Al'taieu; not just to the final fight. Which will probably take the defeat of all nine zone bosses.

Would be neat that if you beat Shinryu, you "bear the light" and thus aren't limited by a time limit in Abyssea. idk.

What I don't get is why there is a maw in Sea, and the third zone in the video is very clearly Abyssea - Uleguerand, and yet only RoZ and WotG are needed to access. Maybe it will be like the Scars zones and the maws will be massively misplaced from their original zone - so if you don't have CoP, you can go to the maw (which will be in, say, Xarcabard) and it will send you on over to Uleguerand. And I believe it was proven in the BG forums that the Abyssea zones are completely independent zones of themselves; so you don't need data for the original zones to be able to use the Abyssea zones. This implies, though, that the maw in in the Garden of Ru'Hmet shown in the trailer is an exit maw in Abyssea, not the entry maw in our world. So there will be a maw somewhere in the world that does not take CoP to unlock, that then warps you to Abyssea - Ru'Hmet. Which will either be a zone that you can get to after progressing so far in the storyline (that is, beating the nine zone bosses) which then has a link in it to the Abyssean Empyreal Paradox (and that hopefully has a bunch of unique monsters as well), or it's just a straight path in a locked-off section of Sea from the maw to the Empyreal Paradox zone for the final battle.

That may be true, however this version update is not dealing with just 1 new expansion. It's also adding the finale to WoTG in the process, and apparently something involved with CoP.
A maw being in sea doesn't mean that it has to be abyssea related and there has to be some misplacement in order to avoid overlapping on expansions. I would assume it means it's new content for CoP specifically (which was left on a cliffhanger anyway after Apoc Nigh) and SE is just borrowing plot elements from other expansions (IE the maw) to add on the finishing touches.

[spira]

you are correct in stating that abyssea zones are new independent zone dats.

This makes it possible for the game to deliver slightly reworked CoP and WotG zones as Abyssea zones.
This also makes it possible for sea areas to be used in a similar fashion.

Entry will not require CoP. I get the feeling it might be near Qufim.

Also, there is considerable evidence in the dats that point to a possible 4th full zone in Abyssea, making the total number of Abyssea zones to be 10, which cannot be confirmed at this point.. I also assume there will be an Abyssean version of Empyreal Paradox based on the trailer... but nothing really suggests it will actually come in THIS update.. it could just be a teaser for like a 4th abyssea add-on or some kind of bonus feature that may come later on. We really don't know until they announce it or some evidence for this is found in datamines...