Dev Tracker - Discussion

99% of players are breaking TOS without multiboxing. Hardly news.

The game client won't let you run multiple instances of itself without third party software altering a bunch of things. So, if you're going by the letter of the TOS, even the 2-boxers are breaking the rules unless they have multiple PCs side by side.

SE doesn't care. It's income ;)
80% of the server is being payed my multiboxers and rmt's. Maybe even more.

Funnily enough, I do know people that do just that and with more than two even. Separate PCs, controller for each character.

Obligatory:

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2017-02-03/japanese-video-rental-store-owner-has-truly-insane-gaming-setup/.111697

Honestly, that setup he's got is pretty awesome. You have to give a nod of respect to someone who follows their hobby's that vehemently. How many of us wouldn't love to have a collection like that? I will say this though... as someone who's been in multiple different organization's server rooms over the years and helped set up layouts myself, that mess of wires and cabling at the end makes me cringe. Everything else in the article though is a video game/anime fan geek's dream lol. That manga and anime collection is like a literal bookstore in itself.

Tri-Box now though so...

Sugarcult. Wonder if he’s still selling duped alexandrite. Actually I shouldn’t assume duped, let’s say unlimited alexandrite.

I'm an old man so I started at NA release on PC and purchased the game again for PS2 when it came out the next year. Most of us that I knew with both clients were using PS2 to play and PC to browse. Some people leveled the alternate accounts in spare/off time and I think this was probably the beginnings of multiboxing in XI.

The tools I'm referring to specifically however, are the ones that automate and broadcast. The idea is that you play as many accounts as you want to, but you actually have to play them.



You don't need to defend yourself and I think you're missing the greater point here. We've already established that multiboxing is pay to win. People who participate are making that decision because of the perks and personal convenience; not because the evil developer has placed some arbitrary barrier in the game that can only be overcome by purchasing and subscribing 6 accounts.

Interview with Fujito dropped in JP media:
https://dengekionline.com/articles/179097/

My notes:
Fujito
- began career in ffxi working on chat and linkshell system, item management, choco raising
- Became director in 2016
- Producer from March 2023
- No one will replace Fujito as director, he will continue as both Producer and Director
- Fujito says working both positions won’t really change anything as he and the team were already doing the work anyways
- Fujito thinks it’s important to provide opportunities to the dev staff to work on other projects, using new technologies, involving elements that they have little exposure to when working on ffxi like constructing new systems, stories, etc. in order to support their further career development
- Reason for the above being that there is no way that current dev staff will be supporting ffxi 10, 20 years from now
- So, the number of ffxi developers will decrease. However, we also expect other developers on other projects to be rotated into ffxi for learning opportunities too
- For 20th anni, they began creating the website and started the VR story from the 18th anni
- Player numbers increased a lot after these announcements and their collaboration with Cygames’ GranBlue Fantasy
- The number of players signing up in the month post the GranBlue event was unprecedented (no #s)
- Monthly updates to continue for RoE and Ambuscade; however, it’s now going to be difficult to add new content given their dev structure
- One new focus will be ensuring the play environment for players is stable
- Fujito would like to focus on things that motivate or get the community together rather than new content through things like more seasonal events or even external events
- One idea is to create something to e entire “world” works together towards (he apologizes for the vagueness). Can expect more details maybe May/June.
- Something like conquest, besieged consecutive record for a server, etc. (he is just raising these as examples, not saying this is what he’s planning)
- They’ll account for pop differences across diff servers for this new idea
- They plan to continue with the digest but may not be as frequent
- Want to address unauthorized play more going forward
- End of VR is May
- They’ve been preparing the final battle content for two years and want to create something fresh and unique for players
- New music for VR content coming
- The new area will be the first area they’ve made since Reisenjima, which was made years ago and whose dev has since moved on. They’ve asked them to come back and help.
- On a side note, VR was originally delayed by a month because they were using dev equipment that they had to assemble themselves. The dev equip broke midway through, causing the delay.
- He understands players might feel uneasy hearing that but he assures us that their commitment and desire to improve ffxi will never change and they’ll continue to find new opportunities
- Odyssey is done at V25. Sortie is continuing.
- New master trials are being created in part because he wants to have content where the new prime weapons can be used. Would be little meaning to create a weapon and then have nowhere to use it.
- They have some assets they haven’t implemented for the white aura weapons that will be used as rewards
- Will be quite difficult content
- VR completion will be required to finish prime weapons
- Can finish prime weapon solo at your own pace. “Fast people” could probably finish within this year. However final stage will be quite difficult.
- Interviewer, “so it would take around half a year to make a prime weapon?”. Fujito: “yes. The content required to make them, Sortie, is time-gated so…”
- His mission is to somehow preserve FFXI. Doesn’t know what form.
- The end of FFxI is not near! Just because a producer is being replaced does not mean service is ending. In fact, older servers are being replaced this year for ffxi. Prime weapons will take some years to finish. We can’t end service midway through!
- We are focusing on stabilizing the play environment for years to come.

So as some of us were saying, transitioning to true maintenance mode.


Alright good, Valhalla is real.

Is no denying maintenance mode now, however, Seems we are getting valhalla, and the prime weapons are a fairly long grind that seems to involve possibly additions to sortie, and on top of that master trials coming. That's pretty on par with content we've been getting for a few years honestly.

Wish/Hope they aren't done with some balancing adjustments still but probably are.

Nice, thanks for your notes.

So much to unpack. Gotta say, at least they are communicating which is a solid win to start.

Hopelevel: Low.

Still, the server-wide “goal” or domain invasion-like experience might add something interesting. Never know.

They'd really have to re-think how they implement it if they want something similar to domain invasion.

No point in just playing hide and seek with mobs that don't wanna appear when the content is actually popular enough to have many players participating.

I look forward to the FFxi multiverse, in which each server is its own universe. Asura being the alphaverse of course.

Is it clear in Japanese whether he's referring to a new Reisenjima-like outdoor area, or just a new instanced battle arena?

Because I recall an interview sometime in the past year where they were asked specifically if we'd be getting a new Reisenjima-like area at the end of VR, and they said it was something they considered but decided against, in favor of a new instanced battle arena for VR's final fight.


Yeah, could be. TBH I wish they'd just scale Besieged up to make it fun again (and make the loss titles obtainable for masochists who do Mastery Rank).

just reposting what i wrote on discord

i don't speak japanese so don't just take a grain, take a whole-*** rock of salt with my perspective here:

It's difficult to really discern because the interviewer refers to it as バトルフィールド (batorufirudo/battlefield) but fujito responds saying it's the first time making a new エリア (eria/area)
because area is equivalent to a "zone" for us, we could say it could be a full zone, an instance, battlefield, wtv. it's non-specific.
there's room for interpretation that him not just saying battlefield means it could be something more, but it could just be what he defaulted to in the interview.

Could for sure just be a battlefield, I take it new zone to mean just not re-using existing map assets.

Like escha zones were just reskinned versions of their original zones, sortie is just outer ra'ka, Odyssey is just WoE. New area is just not an existing map most likely. Doesn't mean it isn't just a battlefield.

This is spot on. Not enough context is given to know if it’s a battlefield, zone, etc.

Edit: I’m hoping for a new MMM maze zone where Gloom Phantom is revealed to be running a simulation of vanadiel, the revamp of the Pankration colosseum, or revamp of evoliths to augment Prime Weapons.

I dont like it

hmm, maybe they actually will add +2 boxes.

Wonder what that means. Faster dealing with RMT? Banning people multi-boxing or using LUAs? Doesn't sound like taking care of pirated servers, but well, it is so vague that it could mean everything.

Given the context probably "unauthorized" meaning not allowed or against the rules. So imagine botting/rmt/addon usage type of things.

This comment was included in a section where they discussed the new filter function. Fujito commented that, here with a more complete translation, “we want to make changes that help support a comfortable/pleasant play experience. We have received lots of comments to deal with harassment and misconduct/unauthorized actions and we’d like to take measures to deal with these. The term filter was a single aspect of this.”

It seems like this would be a weird time to crack down on Windower and peoples ability to tab out of the game.

Thank you for the explanation.

That depends on how passionate Fujito feels about those things vs. how not so passionate Matsui felt. That could swing the development prioritisation.