Patch 1.19 Preview

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Ifrit in Final Fantasy XIV

UPDATED - Patch 1.19 Notes Outline (9/30)


Out of the loop? Well, 1.19 is tentatively being released on Tuesday, October 4th. Lots of things coming in store. I hinted this in the last post, but the Final Fantasy XIV YouTube channel has been pretty lively with upcoming teasers of what's to come. Naoki Yoshida is also planning on doing a live Q and A session on that day via a live YouTube feed.


See also: Letter from the Producer XIX (9/27)
See also: Upcoming Recipe Changes (Crafting - 9/28)

Official patch notes will be posted on Friday, 9/30, and this post will be updated accordingly.

Ifrit Fight:













Beastmen Strongholds:







Chocobos:





 

      There are also additions to physical levels being abolished, guildleve revisions, and things of that kind of nature. Please refer to the posts below for other upcoming changes. (1.19 seems like it's going to be monstrous) and it's just what XIV needs, interest is starting to really wane from all of the stuff that has been added already.



1.19 Changes: UI Adjustments, Guildleve Revisions, etc...


1.19 Changes: Enemy Claim System, Physical Level Abolishments, etc...

Facebook Social Networking: The Future?

Okay, I'm not liking it anymore. Seriously.

Had I not established all of my groups that I lead on Facebook, I would have probably closed the account by now. Facebook is changing it so we can see a timeline and all of this needless information. It went from a simple site to share what you're doing, to having the site tell me what's important to me.

Eh? I think I can figure out and sift through what I like and don't like. That's what the filter was for. This whole side-bar thing is taking it too far.

Some people may read this site and figure "you have no right to complain if it's free". You're right, in a sense, but less users means less advertising revenue. Maybe I'm more attracted to the simple interface of Twitter, so that's just me.


Anyway, just felt the need to let that out. 

Lots of stuff going on. Busy for once!

I wanted to really try to have a new BETACinema video debut with this blog post, but I didn't finish it in time. Sucks, huh? I don't think I'm very motivated to work on it, but I hate going against my word, so I'm going to finish up the rest of it. I'll post it on Tuesday, at least I'm hoping to.

I think.


Lots of things are going on, though. My textbooks were lost in shipment and somehow got sent all the way to Las Vegas due to Amazon's shady shipping policies. I'm not driving all the way up there to get them, so I'm requesting a refund and ordering them again.

Classes have started last week, and I'm enjoying them thus far. I'm hoping for good marks this quarter. I'm already knocking out the first of my Physics homework.

The Selatria team has expanded quite a bit. Got a lot of interest and ideas going around as chapter 1 is being finished up with the cut-scenes and development is going to Chapter 2.


That's about it, I'd rant on more, but I think everything is up to speed now. Until next post.

Selatria: New Logo

We have a new logo for Selatria. I'm very impressed by it. Derrick Frainee illustrated it and subsequently was added to the team for the contribution.

What do you guys think?

Naoki Yoshida: Part XII and my thoughts on FFXIV's chaotic first year

See also: Letter from the Producer, XVIII (09/21/2011)
See also: Foundation Day Cometh! (09/16/2011)
See also: Caravan Security (09/15/2011) 
See also: Beastman Strongholds (09/12/2011)
See also: UI Adjustments (09/12/2011)
See also: Guildleve Revisions (09/09/2011) 
See also: Grand Companies of Eorzea Page Updated! (09/07/2011)


There is also supposed to be a new fight against Ifrit coming too, along with the new raids listed under Beastmen Strongholds.

In any case, this is the anniversary of a very rough year for Final Fantasy XIV. If you've been following the game, it was critically panned at the release and became somewhat of the laughing stock of the industry as far as MMOs are concerned. In a wide-spread company public relations move, last December they replaced the original producer (Hiromichi Tanaka) with Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi-P) who was the producer and director. His outgoing and unique personality (especially from Square-Enix who was notorious up until this development team revamp for ignoring players in favor of the development team's concerns) inspired me to do these write-ups. This whole series is the most viewed out of my blog entries, and personally I love writing up on the game and explaining what I'm looking forward to and seeing this game change and evolve as I'm playing it.

However, it is kind of unfortunate (as if you see my blogs from a year ago) that I was really hoping that this game would be a success from the start, and it might get its chance to have a decent playerbase, but it's a year later and the game still needs a good amount of improvement.

I find the game to still be impossible to recommend to friends, and some probably think I'm a little crazy for trying to stick with it after all of this, and I'm still fairly confident that this game will eventually turn out to be fun. Maybe I'm just a sucker for patience though, we'll see...

As for Naoki Yoshida, I have nothing but pure admiration for his charisma and work ethic towards improving the game. Most MMOs that launch in this same situation are abandoned like a sinking ghost ship and the developers try and brush it off and move on while leaving a skeleton crew to keep the game on life support. Yoshi keeps the players going and actually communicates changes that are coming, and takes time to read player suggestions and give feedback. Maybe I'm just not used to it after playing FFXI for the last decade where we were ignored and pretty much had to just deal with things, but I really wish he was in the XIV Development Team early on.

As always, I'm still looking forward to the changes and hope that one day I can actually recommend this game to friends to join and adventure with me in Eorzea. I say the game is leaps and bounds from what it was a year ago, and I wish it would have waited until now to be released. I'm willing to bet it would have gotten a far better score. But the problem with the game lies now that there are players of all levels that the new and upcoming changes has to cater to. Both level 50 endgame players like myself and the newbies and PS3 players that will be coming in the future. That will be hard for a struggling MMORPG that's hanging on and technically getting revamped from its core.

Selatria: Open Positions for Development Team

This post has been updated, the updated post can be seen here.


The current version of the Selatria project can be played here.

Synopsis:


Selatria is a game largely developed as a collaborative effort between game designers, artists, musicians, actors, and the like. As such, it is a for-profit using mostly original-created resources. As such, each person who contributes resources used within or for the project gains a share in ownership in the project and will receive a percentage of any profits gained from sales of the project. (Percentages will not be determined until completion of the project and will be agreed upon by the group.)


*Indicates a new position that has opened.


Position -- Priority

-Monster Artist/Antagonist Designer -- HIGH
-Environmental Tile Artist (Buildings, tiles, grass, bizarre environments) -- HIGH
-Icon Designer (For Status Effects/Weapons) -- HIGH


-Ruby Script Programmers  -- MEDIUM
-Voice Actors -- MEDIUM* 
-Event Planner -- MEDIUM*
-Spell Animator -- MEDIUM*
-Webpage Designer -- MEDIUM*

-Sound Effects (SFX) Producer - LOW*

-YouTube Trailer Video Editor - LOW*

Current Development Team:

Director/Producer/Lead Game Design and Concept:
Grover Wimberly IV

 
Game Concept/Design Team:
Grover Wimberly IV (Lead)
William John Merriam III
Jonathan Dishaw
Jabari Smith


Storyline/Plot Team:
Grover Wimberly IV (Lead)
Airen Blakovich (Co-Lead)
Jonathan Dishaw
Johan Flynn
William John Merriam III

 
Art Team:
Teresa Wambold (Lead)
Derrick Frainee (Title Logo Art)

Programming Team:
Grover Wimberly IV
Matthew Estrada
Also - Scripts Used (See Below)
 
Music Team:
Luke Simpson (Lead)


Voice Acting Team:
Jonathan Dishaw - TBD
Vikki Ceballos - TBD
Jabari Smith - TBD
Jenny Wang - TBD
Johan Flynn - TBD
Aron Friend - TBD




Scripts Used (With Permission):


Map Effect Pack - NoorXp
Credit Script - Jet
Splash Screen Script -  Vlue L. Maynara
Font Modifier - ChaosOverLord
Defense Script - Synthesize
Map Name Script - Falcao, edited by Grover Wimberly IV/Matthew Estrada
Custom Menu Script - Grover Wimberly IV
Battle Result Script - Woratana, edited by Grover Wimberly IV
Level Up Heal Script - Woratana 


Tanketai Battle Script -
Original Script by:  Enu
English Localization:  Kylock, Mr. Bubble, Shu
Contributors & Special Thanks: Shu, Moonlight, NightWalker, Enelvon, Atoa, AlphaWhelp,       blackmorning, Mithran, Kaduki, Enu             


Front-View Battle System Script Add-On- Grover Wimberly IV

Selatria -- Battle System Alpha Test Phase III : Now Online!

The new version of Selatria is now online! Unfortunately, this is going to be the last big demo of the game until the free release of Chapter 1 next year. I hope you all enjoy it! Please take a look at the credits/acknowledgments below for the team that helped design what we have so far as well.

Download Selatria Alpha Test Version -- Phase III (163 MB)

System Requirements:

Operating System: Microsoft® Windows® 2000 / XP / Vista / 7
CPU: PC with 1.0GHz Intel® Pentium® III equivalent or higher processor

RAM: At least 256MB of system RAM
Minimum Disk Requirement: 200MB available hard disk space

Resolution: 1024x768 or better video resolution
_

Screenshots:

_

Selatria Development Team: 

"Selatria" Copyright (c) 2011 Whim Independent Studios, All Rights Reserved.



Director/Producer/Lead Game Design and Concept:
Grover Wimberly IV

 
Game Concept/Design Team:
Grover Wimberly IV (Lead)
William John Merriam III
Jonathan Dishaw
Jabari Smith


Storyline/Plot Team:
Grover Wimberly IV (Lead)
Airen Blakovich (Co-Lead)
Jonathan Dishaw
Johan Flynn
William John Merriam III

 
Art Team:
Teresa Wambold (Lead)


Programming Team:
 Grover Wimberly IV
Matthew Estrada
Also - Scripts Used (See Below)
 
Music Team:
 Luke Simpson (Lead)


Voice Acting Team:
 Jonathan Dishaw - TBD
Vikki Ceballos - TBD
Jabari Smith - TBD

Johan Flynn - TBD



Scripts Used:

Map Effect Pack - NoorXp


Map Name Script - Falcao, edited by Grover Wimberly IV/Matthew Estrada
Custom Menu Script - Grover Wimberly IV
Battle Result Script - Woratana, edited by Grover Wimberly IV


Tanketai Battle Script -
Original Script by:  Enu
English Localization:  Kylock, Mr. Bubble, Shu
Contributors & Special Thanks: Shu, Moonlight, NightWalker, Enelvon, Atoa, AlphaWhelp,       blackmorning, Mithran, Kaduki, Enu             

Front-View Battle System Script Add-On- Grover Wimberly IV
_

Current Issues:
-When casting "Bolt", it does not appear as a title header.

Awesome IGDA-LA Conference

Hey all, I'm a little tired from doing lots of driving so this won't be a very long post.

I just got back from the IGDA [International Game Developers Asssociation] conference with my friends Jabari and Matt in Los Angeles, and it was a lot of fun. I got to hear the creative director and co-founder of Obsidian talk about downloadable content and its importance in modern gaming, and it got me very inspired to work more on Selatria itself. I wonder who will play it... or who to cater my audience to. That'll be something to sleep on.

Oh, and Matt won a PS3 game.

Until next time.

Grover's Bad Awful Day

Props to you if you can understand the beginning reference without having to click the link!

September 11th

Short post today, but mostly out of habit. Hard to believe it's been 10 years since the attack, I can remember where I was. It was my second week of middle school and it was supposed to be an important day as we were going to learn how Exploratory classes worked. I'm glad I didn't go, because my middle school teachers were really... REALLY awful. On the other hand, I stayed out of school that day to witness history, an unfortunate part, but history none the less. Lots of people's lives permanently changed that day.

Looking forward to weekend!

I want to take some time and get off the depressing-tone of my last blog entry.

I'm almost finished with summer classes! And I also saw who will be teaching the course for the Fall in my Physics lab. I can say I'm pretty happy with the schedule as is, but we'll see if anything changes. I heard one of my professors tends to be rude, but I don't tend to judge people until I've actually met them.

On Saturday, I'm planning to be back on the ball for working on Selatria and BETA projects. There will be two new movies coming out next week, look out for that!

We also had a new movie that was kind of in development hell for a while, so check that out.



Tomorrow I get to help feed orphans and do some filming. Until next time!

A mish-mash of what I'd like to do in the distant future.

I'm going to give it a go and write this post a day early. It'll auto-post itself at midnight on the 7th in any case.

If you ask the average person who has me on their friend list on Facebook or Google+ (or even this blog, depending on what posts were read), one would get this shallow assumption that I'm a person who just posts about games and doesn't really think of anything else.

It is true that I do love gaming, and everything associated with it, but I just don't like putting details of my private life on the interwebs. Well, not that much at least. I try to cater to my audience when making posts, whether it be on Facebook or YouTube or whatever. In all of that, whatever my real life details involve is kind of irrelevant. Most of my friend list is admittedly people whom I've never met face-to-face, and I keep information about me to a minimum if for privacy/safety reasons.

I think I went off tangent for what I wanted to post about... anyway one of the things I want to do when I get settled down into a career is to take some time and travel the world when I have my time off for vacation. I've never been in an airplane (some of you may be shocked), but I'd like to travel and see other continents like Austrailia, Europe, and Asia. I would also like to see the East Coast. A few years ago, I had a great desire to visit North Carolina for personal reasons, but reasons for that have changed and I would like to visit Washington D.C., New York, maybe even Florida.

Other than gaming, my main goals in life are to travel the world and write about stuff. I love exploration and writing. But I guess the latter is an acquired taste.

I don't really know where I was going with this post. Until next time.

Frustration!

Good place to vent, yes? And an appropriate one. (For whoever is reading.)

Here is the "rule of XIV", or so it's coined by me. Whenever I want to do something, the game will crash. The game will always crash. About to save the world? Game crash. Kill the ogre you lose 20 times on? XIV stops working.

Hey, it dates back to FFXI days, too!

Wanna fight Alexander? Nah, internet will go out for a week! (2007)

Riverne-Site #A01? Pfft, lets disconnect the Summoner so you can't do sh*t. (2004)

-

That's all. I just want to say that games hate me, or my computer, or my connection.

Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

Naoki Yoshida: Part XI -- My thoughts on upcoming content

FFXIV Airships as presented in Letter XVII

See also: Letter from the Producer XVII (9/1)
See also: Hunter's Moon: The Curse of Dalamud (9/2)
See also: Abolition of Physical Levels / Attribute Point Revisions (8/30)
See also: Battle Regimen Suspension (8/29)
See also: Materia: A Matter of Mystery (8/26)
See also: Changes to the Battle System (8/25)
--Changing to Claiming/Engaging Enemies
--The Enemy Link System
--Bonuses to Experience Points

As per a new Letter from the Producer, I'm inclined to post my thoughts and feelings of the state of FFXIV.

Background:

I tend to check the forums at Zam and EyesOnFF on a regular basis (okay, almost constant basis), and every time FFXIV is mentioned, it seems to cause discontent and skepticism among the gaming community. And rightfully so., the game undoubtedly sucked at launch, and there tends to be a chunk of players that don't believe the game will ever improve (or get a PS3 release, even.) I'm not one of these people, but that's what's out there.

However, while things get optimistic every patch or so and people start playing in droves wondering if the game is in a playable state yet, people get angry when it's not and go back to forums to complain, and then you get threads like this or this or this or this. Reviews/opinions are all over the place.

Anyway, I wanted to say that my hat is off to you, Yoshi-P. Most people don't realize that game development is a very slow process, and re-engineering it to tend to a pessimistic player-base is one hell of a detriment to morale. I personally think Square-Enix's biggest mistake was not having you on the FFXIV team sooner, but that's just me.

Okay, onto the topics!

-

Airships/Chocobos:

Coming next patch [1.19]. We will apparently be able to raise our own as well as ride one. In a Final Fantasy first, chocobos cannot escape aggro, and if you get hit enough, the chocobo can kick you off, leaving you to run. That also means there's no time limit or minimum level restriction. (To my understanding.)

And Airships will link Gridania/Limsa/Ul'dah together via a short ride. Honestly, that's a relief, puts less of a strain on my anima. However, I wonder what the requirements to ride an airship will be. In FFXI, it was pretty hefty. I would not be surprised having a company storyline requirement in XIV given a certain mechanic's appearance in the storyline, just sayin'.

It's also stated that it will be a short trip. Although I initially liked the immersive-ness of waiting 15 minutes for an airship and looking at all of the zones below in FFXI, it was too long of a time-sink, and I just don't have the time to play as I did years ago in XI. Especially if I'm in a hurry to do an LS event or catch up with a party.

Physical Level/Attribute Point Revisions/Suspension of Battle Regimen:

A while back we were given a poll on battle system if we wanted to have set stats based on physical level or get rid of physical level and do full stat allocation. I'm glad they did somewhat of a mesh of the two. We lose physical level, keep class ranks (now called levels) and have set stats with leeway for customization in 1.20. What worries me though is how is that going to change from what we have. Will it make future content easier or tougher. And with the suspension of battle regimen, how will that make Dzemael Darkhold possible?

Materia:

The famed system from FFVII is making an appearance in XIV as an addition to Weapons and Armor? Something like that. I hope the bonuses are great enough to validate the suspension of Battle Regimen. I just hope this system doesn't release in a broken state akin to the Evoliths in FFXI, because this isn't the first time they tried to attempt this.

Battle System Changes:

It's interesting that they're completely getting rid of the "claiming" system. Fighting current and future open-world notorious monsters may be a challenge if people are going to fight for 'rights' to the drop from the monster. But then again, it might foster a more helpful environment where people join in for the sake of speeding up kills or helping out someone who is struggling to solo or duo something with a friend. But it can also result in a lot of "kill steals".

Given that the majority of future content is going to be instanced, we'll see. But I'm kind of skeptical on this.

Fall Event:

Can someone explain what this entails? It's far too wordy to make sense out of it.

Miscellaneous:

I'm going to call it out right now, the second primal battle listed on the letter is going to be a fight against Leviathan.

Job system and redefined actions are also coming in the future, patch 1.20/1.21. Not 1.19
_


That's about it. That's most of the important things out of the letter and related posts. Or at least, what I feel is important.



.

Happy September!

Happy September! New blog look and theme for the occasion. It's more personable and to my liking. Or at least I'd like to think so. It also makes it easier on my eyes. The conflict in blues in my last layout hurt my eyes when reading sometimes, and I imagine that may have happened to you. Or maybe it still does, I don't know.

Anyway, as a ritual I always post this video on the social networking site every September. Back then it was MySpace bulletins, but now by the time this is posted, it will be on Facebook as well. It's about a woman on Family Feud back when Richard Dawson was hosting and what she answers when asked "during what month does a woman begin to look pregnant". Well, you'll have to see for yourself.





and then there's also this, for the sake of being adorable.






PS: I lied. I had this whole train of thought about talking about Final Fantasy XI, but then I figured what's the point?