Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Patches

• The level sync and relic gear sets we've already talked about here on the site.
• Rental chocobo changes for both the 'past Vana'diel' areas and the areas introduced in Wings of the Goddess.
• New fellows! More and unique NPC assistants to help with your solo adventuring.
• More XP! Dovetailing with the level sync system, easier mobs will now provide more XP.
• Changes to high-end adventuring for your job-specific weapon.

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Like Everquest II, but different

Final Fantasy XI will soon be coming out with a new "Level Sync" system, designed to help people differing levels gain experience together. It will basically work like a normal group, only everyone's level will be scaled down to the same level as a target player. Note: I said scaled DOWN... not up.

The new Level Sync system is the result of extensive discussions on how to resolve these concerns, while preserving game balance and avoiding abuse and power-leveling by RMT groups. It addresses the issues that have resulted from a steady stream of new, low-level players joining an existing game world populated by scores of high-level veterans, and is part of the ongoing effort to clean up the FFXI community and remove players in violation of the users' agreement.

At the heart of the feature is the new ability for members of a party to "power down" to the level of a designated target player. Now friends will be able to adventure together and gain experience as if they were all the same level!

For more information on the new "Level Sync" system, please check the Final Fantasy XI Official Site.

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How many commas are in a gagillion?

Hold your pinky to your mouth and say it with me, "One Billion Dollars." Then look awkwardly around and sense the stares from nonbelievers, rethink your position, and then say this, "One hundred million dollars." This should meet with acceptance and we can fade to black.

After setting the interwebz on fire a while back with a statement that a billion dollars would be required to compete with World of Warcraft, Activision has brought out some naysayers to their "ridiculous numbers" as Mythic Entertainment's Mark Jacobs calls it.

Mister Jacobs probably has a pretty good handle on real costs. He can take a look at his actual development costs for a game about to launch, Warhammer Online, and use a multiplier, and maybe a big multiplier to determine how to compete against a four-year old juggernaut in WoW. Jacobs would not comment on how much it cost to produce WAR except to say it was less than $100 million but still a lot of money. In addition to the discussion on battling for the top spot, Mark did describe his vision of success for WAR:

"Would I like us to be number one? Well, of course. Do we have to be number one to be successful? No. I want us to be no less than number two; that would make me very happy.” For the number two spot, Jacobs reasoned that “Warhammer” would need at least a half-million subscribers, which he guessed was close to what “Final Fantasy” and “EverQuest 2” have now. “Let’s just say north of half a million would mean we’re successful. Now how a far north? I wouldn’t mind being a little bit cold.”

Interesting take on the projected FF and EQ2 numbers. Read the rest of the interview at MTV.

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It's really not that we have anything against consoles," Chilton said. "I mean we love console games also. And I'm sure there will be a successful MMO sometime on a console. So it has nothing to do with that. It's just more like a square peg round hole thing for our game. It just wasn't designed with that in mind.

• Blizzard's take on MMOs for consoles; no WoW for consoles
• Kojima: stop asking for an MGS4 Xbox 360 port already
• Square Enix stock shares rise after FF13 Xbox 360 reveal
  
• Leipzig: new PS3 Wireless Keypad announced
• Xbox 360 Messenger Kit now going for only US 19.99

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the issues that have resulted from a steady stream of new, low-level players joining an existing game world populated by scores of high-level veterans, and is part of the ongoing effort to clean up the FFXI community and remove players in violation of the users' agreement.

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Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Game mechanics, News items

Square-Enix is taking another step towards making Final Fantasy XI a little bit more playable for the masses by implementing what it calls the "Level Sync" system. The feature resembles the mentoring systems found in EverQuest II or Age of Conan in that it allows higher level players to drop down to friends' levels and adventure with them while gaining experience.

In its announcement of this feature, Square-Enix went out of its way to emphasize that it has built in the system safeguards against abuse by powerlevelers and gold farmers. There are also some reasonable limitations intended to keep the game streamlined, fun, and balanced. For example, equipment-based stat bonuses will scale down with each level a player drops.

There are explicit details at the official Final Fantasy XI website about how experience gains and equipment scale. We approve of this addition (as if you needed us to); in fact, we wonder why certain other games still don't have it. Being able to play with friends regardless of their time commitment and experience is a big positive, and we can't even think of a substantial drawback.

[Via Allakhazam]

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Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Events, in-game, Forums, Game mechanics, Guilds, Patches, News items, PvE

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Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, News items

Continue reading Final Fantasy XI collectible confers unique in-game ability

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Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Forums, Game mechanics, Guilds, Endgame, News items, PvE

Continue reading It's Pandemonium in Final Fantasy XI

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