Greetings players! The rumor mill has been full steam ahead, so I thought I'd shed a little light on where things stand and where they're going.

The Q&A is slotted to be finished before year's out. If you have not already submitted a question, you can do so on the maintenance tab of the account page. If you wish to change your question, simply submit a new one, and the old one will be overwritten.

ToAU was disabled a few years ago for a few reasons. The mobs were horribly broken, the content was uncoded or coded poorly, and a lot of work needed to go into the core to have it function properly. I felt that with current population levels hovering around 300 online at peak hours coupled with the massive amount of work that needed to go into the base game, RoZ, and CoP expansions, it was best that it would simply be disabled so all mobs were put at level 99.This prevented most of the content while retaining the ability to unlock the ToAU jobs.

Over the past couple years there have been tons of work on the the back end regarding mob ai, evasion, accuracy, and exp re-balancing. With population boom after population boom, some areas are becoming a bit cramped. I feel that at this point, focus needs to turn to re-opening up the ToAu expansion.

The expansion will be gradually phased in as content is completed:
• Phase I: Mobs & Missions - The mission aspect has been completed with only a little work needed on some of the battles to get them coded properly. The mobs are being completely reworked from the ground up, and there's over 3000 of them. Phase I work began two weeks ago and should be ready by week's end.
• Phase II: Quests & Notorious Monsters - ToAU has a ton of engaging quests and exciting notorious monsters. This type of content is important, otherwise it's just a hack & slash grind to the top. The most important factor separating FFXI from other MMO's is that there is interesting content at all levels, and we're going to keep it that way.
• Phase III: Assault & Besieged - I believe these are important into keeping the world dynamic, changing from one week to the next, instead of playing in a static environment. It adds a sense of realism to the world, and adds the ability for the players to engage and make a difference.
• Phase IV: ZNM's & Beyond - Not going to get to ahead of myself, we'll see how things are when it gets to this point.

These content updates will necessarily be sequential though. BCNM50's, 60's, and ENM's are still being worked on, BST and PUP re-balancing is also on the table. And Windurst 9-2 certainly has not been forgotten. These updates will come either separately or coupled with one of the ToAU Phases.

And last but not least, cheating/RMT is still prohibited, and will not be tolerated in any way. Another RMT sweep has gone through, this is critical to keeping a balanced economy and combating inflation. Please play fair™.

The Starlight celebration will be kicked off by a level 1 Fun Run from Beaucedine Glacier to the Cloister of Frost where players have to make their way without dying, the details will be announced closer to the event. The first 3 to arrive will receive special items, so please look forward to it!

~Nasomi

Does salvage fall under assault and besieged?

With no mention of any meaningful content (nyzul, salvage, einherjar) this doesnt really excite me. Assaults are ok I guess, but who knows when that will be released especially with BCNMs still not being completed and that was talked about forever ago. More exp camps are needed but thats not anything groundbreaking.