12/22/18Nasomi: Short history of the server: we started 5 and a half years ago, we progressively grew and got more popular. It's been a lot of fun. I learned a lot!
ToAU: Treasures just launched, I'll touch a bit on that; phase 1 there was a problem with a mission: ToAU 15, that's got a problem and we're gonna get that fixed. It seems like ToAU is really popular and everyone is enjoying the experience points. We're working on phase 2, a BST revamp, a PUP revamp; BST is in 2 phases, one was kindof a nerf but it put it back into place. The 2nd part is gonna be the real revamp, where we're going to put jug pets back into retail status.
How long do you plan on doing this? As long as people want to play. There's not a whole lot of games in this market space, that require a group play, the difficulty, the time investment. We have people who came here and have been playing here for 5 years and they still have things to do. What other game can you name that has that type of content, that longevity? It's exciting, and it's constantly growing.
Is Nab Nasomi? No. A totally different person. Nabutso is a guy that is very passionate. He supports us and he has infinite patience, I have no idea how he's doing it. It just blows my mind sometimes. The amount of people that he's helped; hundreds and hundreds of people that he's helped get installs going for, quest issues, etc. He's been a huge help for me; Nabutso, thank you, I really appreciate everything you do.
Christmas event We're adding more NPCs to Lower Jeuno, so if you had a full inventory and missed your Tidal Talisman, you can still get it. That will be covered in the next day or two so you don't have to worry about that, and there will be an announcement once that's been done.
What are the exact spawn conditions for White Coney? I released the conditions a few weeks ago, but apparently he's been offline, bugging or glitching, so I'll have to look into that. In the last couple days I've been busy mitigating these DDoS events, things happen. Whatever the DDoS throws at me I'm going to answer back to, the server will stay up and be as stable as possible. It's not easy - it's stressful, aggravating. Waking up at 2 AM to twitter and facebook messages that the server is offline... I'll admit I sometimes roll over and wait until 5, but, you know.
Please confirm: does Mononi: Ichi drop from a BCNM? Yes.
Which BCNM?Let's see... "Die by the Sword", "Let Sleeping Dogs Die", "Undying Promise", and "Factory Rejects".
What hardware do you use to run the servers? Right now we have a 25U rack loaded up, 4 nodes Dell C6100 with 192GB RAM and 32 cores. Connected to that is the storage server, which has 2 DAS (direct attached storage), one containing 18 SSDs and another containing 14 4TB drives, giving us about 6 TB of SSD space and 50 TB or "slow" space. All of the SQL servers, game servers, VM servers, all of them are run on SSDs. The spinning drives are strictly used for backup. We keep 6 months of rolling backups. The entire DB is snapshotted every 30 minutes. I can go back to any point in time and restore anything if we have problems. Also, there is offsite backup. I use AWS and Google Drive automatically sync'd for the 6 months of backups. There is 2 TBs in AWS and 1 TB in Google Drive. We're using Microsoft Hyper-V 2012, each cluster that you see on na.nasomi.com/world will specific which cluster and each one of those is a virtual machine on one of the 4 nodes. We have automatic load balancing, failover protection, live migrations - everything going on to keep maximum uptime. Each VM (Hydra, Ifrit, Titan, Carbuncle etc) contains 37 individual application servers, 1 for each zone. There are 270 live zones and each one can be taken down individually if we need to do maintenance or things like that. Each one has their own source code, so if something is wrong with the source, we can fix it in one zone, take it down, and bring it back up without problems. That's the same way Square operated back in the day, the same way they do today, and that's the best way I found to do it. It gives you maximum uptime, reliability, and minimum lag or latency problems. You can see each zone, how much CPU it uses, how much RAM, so if I need to offload something like Valkurm Dunes to a server with less load, I can do that fairly easily.
Friend's list Friend's list was a function of PlayOnline. It's not gonna be easy; yes there are plans, but I don't know when. I said "no 'when' questions" because things happen. I was planning on having a whole bunch of stuff released yesterday and today but because of issues that took up my time, a lot got delayed. That's unfortunate, but it happens. Things come up, priorities change and shift all the time - it's a living world, and I do what I have to do to try to balance that as best I can, but sometimes things just get delayed. So 'when's, I'm not gonna promise any 'when's, but Friend's list I am working off and on. This will be integrated into the boot.exe, but hopefully we're gonna have an autopatcher soon so you don't have to worry about putting things in the right directories, copy stuff and all that, it's all going to be taken care of for you once that's rolled out.
What will be done about PW drops? There is a lot of controversy circling that right now. It's a difficult decision and there's really no right decisions. ToAU has over 3000 monsters, and there are a few ways that monsters can spawn: scripted, or respawn times. Scripted monsters have no respawn time, and monsters with respawn time aren't scripted. Some of that got messed up and some of the ZNM and monsters got switched to non-scripted, which means they had no respawn time and were instant pop. With 3000 monsters, it's easy to overlook, and it shouldn't have happened. We're trying to take steps to fix that: we're offering a buyback of PW gear. We have exactly figured out what gear and what items will be bought back or removed. We still need to figure out the level of impact. As far as taking pictures of monsters and Zeni: the system we're going to roll out is using pop items. You can buy pop items for 100k or so and you can use those to pop the tier 1 mobs, and the tier 1 mobs will drop tier 2 pop items etc etc. Hopefully it will be really interesting. Stick around and enjoy it!
Ever consider adding skillchains to Beastmaster's pets?I was looking into and thinking about that with BST testing while looking into what needs to be adjusted. It makes sense: if you use Sic and then your pet does this cool ability, you should weapon skill on top of that.. I haven't made any final decisions about that but it would be really cool. It feels like it should happen.
Is there any way I can get a name change?Name changes are not supported right now. It's complicated. There are a lot of different things that go into that - a lot of ways can use that to negatively impact the game and the people around them. So for now, no. In the future, we'll talk about it.
Do you have kids? If so, where do you take them to celebrate their birthday?Yeah, I have a wife and 2 kids. My kids are 15 and 16. My daughter is starting to drive right now, it's terrifying. I bought her a Mini Cooper S with a 6 speed manual transmission, basically the last car that a 16 year old should be driving, but it's a fun car. We buy cake, and then I make them rake leaves in the yard.
Would it be possible to implement Field Manuals?No. Once upon a time, when we had 30-40 people online, we did have Field Manuals, when the server was in it's infancy. Parties were not really viable, everyone was just starting out, and monsters weren't solo friendly. Field Manuals were implemented but as soon as I hit a population that I felt could support the removal of Field Manuals, they were removed, about 50-60-70 people, at least 5 years ago.
Will ENMs be fixed soon?Yes.
Windy rank 10?Yes, we are working on that. We have everything all fixed up until the BCNM fight, and the BCNM is halfway done, so depending on timing that may be in this maintenance, the next, or the next couple weeks. We're trying to balance things between Windy's Rank 10, ToAU, etc.
PUP?Puppetmaster really needs the most work, and it needs the most time investment. It's not a thing that I can just bounce around. With ToAU, BST, minor fixes it's really easy to bounce around. But PUP is going to be a really involved process where I need some dedicated time where I can really concentrate on that. I'm hoping Spring 2019, probably inbetween ToAU phase 2 and 3. Phase 2 is gonna be the next big step: we're probably going to get ZNMs in tiers between all the phases. PW needs a rework similar to AV's, so there's gonna be a lot of work that goes into that. Hopefully the content is exciting, fun, and challenging.
My brother and I had characters quite a while ago and the accounts are gone! Did the server somehow shut down and lose my accounts?No. Accounts have never been wiped. All characters, accounts etc are retained. But many times, people aren't serious, they make a character and they'll play for a couple of days and they'll stop, play something else, and forget about it. The only thing I can suggest is: if you make a character, make the login memorable. Don't make it testaccount. Make your real account!
Are there any plans to implement Gardening?It's a whole lot of work. Obviously, there are plans to implement everything that was in-era, and maybe a couple of things that aren't; we do have White Coney, OWNMs, a couple different things here and there, but we want to get as much implemented as possible. It's all relevant to the experience.
Some of my friends were talking and what happens if you die? Please don't die! Like, ever, thanks.Well, I haven't died yet, so that's good. There's no contingency plan in the event that I die, so I'm sorry. But, as far as server stability goes, if I die, it's probably gonna last quite a while until my wife gets tired of it and presses the button!
Will Wedding Ceremonies be implemented?No, Wedding Ceremonies were strictly a GM performed function, and there is not a whole lot of GMs going around, so... we're busy enough as it is.
Will you ever consider implementing Lockstyle?No. Earn your gear. Get good gear, get matching gear. It was disabled for 2 reasons: there was a glitch that causes a crash and people were complaining that people were showing up lockstyle'd in great armor, but were actually naked, and actually sucked, and they didn't realize until it was too late, etc. It was taken out because of the crashes and was left out because people were happy because it was disabled. Except for like 3 people.
Any chance mounts can or will be ported from retail?No. This is based on the 2005 era. Obviously we have some things that are slightly out of era or custom to the server, but we don't want to get too far away from that.
Can I get out of jail please?No. About 3 years ago, I had to implement the 1 strike rule. That was implemented because I was spending more time jailing people, deciding on punishments, and even if somebody cheated, exploited, hack etc, and I deleveled them to 65, 55, or even 1, taking all their levels, they still leveled up again. It wasn't really a penalty - FFXI in large part is about leveling. It wasn't really a punishment. Jail is a one way street.
Can we get a "Cancel auction item" on the website AH listings?I thought about that for a while, but it's just not a priority. It's not a bad idea, but things are busy. We're doing what we can. We're trying to get things done as fast as possible that are critical and have the biggest impact.
How do you see the future of Nasomi if SE decided to make a vanilla version of the game?I fully support that. I am #1 in line for Square to release a vanilla port of the game. I don't know where they'll stop, if they're gonna be CoP, ToAU, WoTG.. because WoTG is still 75, but in mind WoTG, or even ToAU was the beginning of the end. We had vanilla, which was 50 cap, then RoZ which raised the cap and added new areas. CoP was an incredible expansion which added more areas, but ToAU started replacing areas. For the first two expansions, they were building and building, but with ToAU, Jeuno turned into a ghost town. Nobody went to... I can't even begin to pronounce them, but Boyohda Tree? There was no leveling there after ToAU. Ule Range? There were tons of areas where I was leveling 60-70-75 cap EXP parties, but once ToAU came out, nobody went there anymore. Everybody was at Whitegate, and you had to spend half an hour shouting for a teleport in Jeuno. It was frustrating, and disappointing. The RoZ and CoP areas were diverse, vibrant and exciting. When ToAU came out, I went out the front door of Whitegate and it was just "grind birds for the next 25 levels". You hit 50: bird party, bird party, bird party, bird party, and it killed mage parties. They were roaming, constantly moving - if you were trying to level anywhere where you needed to rest, it was just gone. It was really difficult to level like that. I'm not personally a fan of ToAU, but... I've decided to bring it back anyway. Because, hey, you guys complained, complained, and complained. I revamped high level zones in RoZ and CoP, but, you still wanted ToAU!
How much does it cost to keep a server the size of Nasomi running?It's expensive.
Electricity: about $400 a month.
Gigabit pipe: about $100 a month. Thanks to FIOS, we've had over 99% uptime. When FIOS dropped out for issues about 3 years ago, I also picked up Comcast as a secondary, but I haven't needed to go back to Comcast. A year or 2 later, FIOS dropped again, I spun up Comcast, and Comcast didn't work. The one time that I needed them. I dropped Comcast so FIOS is the only connection we're running.
Hardware: I've had 2 SSDs fail since the new hardware. These SSDs run around the clock, being
pounded. They're Samsung SM843T SSDs. There's 18 of them, 480 GB. They cost about $700 a piece. They're in 3 Raid 5 configurations, so 2 TBs per volume. Raid 5 has parity, so there's extra writing. These drives are rated for 11 complete drive writes per day, that's something like 2 PB drive life, but failures happen. These were the only drive failures in the past 3 years.
We're looking at upgrading the servers yet again! To 4 node Dell C6220s with E5 CPUs and 256 GB of RAM. Some areas are still approaching their theoretical limit as some of you have noticed. In the latest launcher, we communicate twice as often with the server, so you're sending and receiving twice as many as before. So CPU load for these are doubled.
Will you change White Coney to have proper TP moves for each form as it changes throughout the fight? This would make the fight more challenging. White Coney is another fight that I want to re-balance. It's an exciting mob to fight and watch, so...
12/23/18Let's pick up where we left off yesterday...We had some complications yesterday, but now we're back, so here we go!
Does day, direction, and moon phase effect crafting at all?I can't answer that. Use your imagination!
Monomi BCNMsIt has been nonstop since last night. There have been over 400 runs in the past 24 hours, which is really exciting! I see a couple people actually got the scrolls already (
https://clips.twitch.tv/ScaryLivelyOrangeHeyGirl).
Are you planning to add Ballista?The PvP system Ballista we're not planning to add. What we'll have is more of an arena free-for-all system. There will be teleports in Lower Jeuno into the PvP zone and players can have at it. There will be no EXP loss and players can make their own rules (at this point). Later down the line we're going to try to offer something tiered, like capped PvP for lv 30, 40, etc, that way everybody has a chance to participate.
Are there are plans to "fix" Black Mage?Black Mage is kinda a moving target. There are plans to revamp pet experience points for mob pets so Black Mages can EXP on them again, so that's good. Magic Accuracy is also coming down the line, in the next couple weeks.
Can we get a server message history added to the quick links tab?I think we can do something like that. Yeah.
With the influx of players, many of the Kings/HNMs etc are laggy and overcamped. Do you have plans to add pop items?No. There are no pop items and there aren't going to be. FFXI is about the competition - half of the excitement is about getting one leg up on another group. We have an anti-claimbot system in place, we're working on improving lag and latency as well. Last patch there was a big improvement to that.
Why do you release broken content?It's not our intention to release broken content, it just happens like that sometimes. I make every attempt to fix stuff and get things rolled out accurately - I test it, but there are only so many scenarios that I can encounter by myself. Sometimes large groups of people encounter situations and scenarios that I didn't even think of or could never have dreamt up to begin with. If I release some content, and there is a bug or some problem, I try to get right on that. That's why every once in a while when we have maintenance, there is another maintenance to fix it within a few hours. Bottom line, it's difficult to test every scenario. We're not gonna give up. We'll keep fixing things as long as we can.
Any more thoughts on the server shutting down?No. There are no plans to shut down the server. We'll be going at it as long as possible. People ask me: "What if something happens in real life that takes you away from hosting the server?" Well, things already have happened, life happens - it's about what we do to react to that.
3 or 4 years ago I got laid off from my job. It took 8 months to find another job. During that time, I basically just concentrated on development of the server.
1 and a half years ago I had a stroke. I was on my way back from Thailand. It was a 24 hr flight, and at the baggage collection I had a stroke that resulted in Broca's aphasia (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expressive_aphasia). Nothing physical was affected but I lost the ability to speak for about a month. You're still hearing the effects of it in my voice, because that area of my brain is still damaged. I can think and everything, I have definitions in my head, but as far as making the words, it becomes difficult. One of the reasons for this and future streams is because it's a type of physical therapy for me. I can use this to help re-map those parts of my brain - it's gotten better, but it's still nowhere near where it was before I had that stroke.
8 months ago my wife was kidnapped. She was missing for 35 days, it was ridiculous. I was not sleeping, I was not eating, I was not going to work. This server and my job got me through it. The end result was flying around the world, breaking down a door, and rescuing her after she went for 35 days with no food and minimal water.
What happens if life comes up? Am I gonna shut down the server? No. Life happened already.
Although, if Square actually rolls out a classic server, there may not be a whole lot of development, because I'm gonna be playing over on that one. It's not just me, but hundreds have been asking for it, and I assume everyone here is rooting for the same thing. It would be better than half-assed botched maintenances.
Bring back the chocobo circuit!No, no more instant warps from city to city. That's too much, there's just too many people. Grab your teleport, grab your chocobo, and run there. Or grab your Outpost warps.
How did Nasomi get so awesome?Just don't give up. I work at it, everything I do. I put in 110%. Practice, practice, practice. Everything takes time, but eventually if you work hard enough at something, you're gonna get good at it.
Are there any plans for OWNMs to not aggro?That's actually not a terrible idea. I'm not completely opposed to turning off aggro for OWNMs and that way people can travel safely through them and only people who are looking to fight them would have to deal with them. That's something I'll earmark and we'll look at it down the line.
I'm stuck in a cutscene but Unstuck isn't working?Chances are if you got stuck in a cutscene, you're running at 60 fps. The response to that is to just hit the Print Screen button. Otherwise, close the game completely, go to
https://na.nasomi.com/account/login.php and use the Clear Session tool. You can also use the Unstuck button to take you back to the previous zone at the zone line.
(Nabutso note: An incorrect game version may cause a CS to freeze too. Type /ver ingame - if it doesn't say 30170329_0 then you need to make sure you use the Nasomi installer to get onto the right version. Already used the Nasomi installer but still have the wrong version? Installing retail or any other server may have caused you to launch their game files instead. To fix this, use the Retail/Nasomi swap found on http://nasomi.com/wiki/index.php?title= ... Installing. If you continue to have issues, either with the swap or with a frozen CS, feel free to come to https://na.nasomi.com/chat/ for further assistance).You obviously put a whole lot of time into this game. Do you ever play?I did. When we were first starting, about 6 months in I had players hiding stuff from me (exploits, cheats, stuff like that). I needed a man on the inside so I could see what was happening and get the inside scoop from players who didn't want to tell me, whether things were just too easy, bugged, exploitable etc. That's when I created the character named Pepsi. So I played Pepsi, Sprite, and Coke for quite a while. It was to listen to players who did not want to talk directly to me and to test content. A lot of times a lot of the content I didn't do over and over and over again, I would do it once to test it as a player, something I couldn't test on my own, with players in the world. Early in the day there were not a whole lot of players crafting so I also leveled WoodWorking, GoldSmithing, all these crafts... but now Pepsi is officially retired. He's outlived his usefulness, so that's why I can tell you about it.
Yes Oddin was the server GoldSmither, but then Oddin bailed, so... I think because of the gilpocalypse.
Suggestion: hit 2000 concurrent players by the end of the yearHey, if players want to join, that's great. We'll take anybody who wants to play. We have a mostly welcoming and healthy community I like to think. Sometimes things on the forums get a little out of hand, but for the most part players are civil to each other.
Any plans for Chocobo Raising?There are so many things in the pipelines... someday, maybe. But in the immediate future, probably not.
Do you like waffles?Yeah I love waffles! Although, I don't like those Belgian waffles, where they're really think. But I do enjoy myself a good waffle every once in a while, with syrup and butter.
Will WoTG be added to the expansion list?No. Definitely not. I know I said there were no plans for ToAU, and now we're doing ToAU, but WoTG definitely not. SCH, DNC, they're just too powerful and redundant. Although, I have been toying with the idea of using the Past zones for events, so that may be something we see in the future.
What is your longterm vision for the server?I'm pretty much booked a year out, and beyond that it's anyone's guess. Just get as much stuff as possible working and functional.
Is it possible to get SCH, GEO, DNC?No. If you want those jobs, retail is the way to go. I support SquareEnix in every way that I can if you want that type of gameplay.
Has Square ever reached out to you?No, they haven't. I'd love to have a dialogue with them if they do at some point.
Let's switch gears a little bit...
Nice, we've got some EXP going.
Meteor them!*laughs* I'm not gonna meteor them. That wouldn't be very nice. In the early days I did play with the players a little bit, but those days have passed.
Can you confirm that you once Doomga'd a party near the boat in Valkurm?I did Doomga a party that was near the boat in the dunes. They were glitching mobs. If you're circumventing intended game mechanics, glitching mobs on certain terrain, bypassing certain things, that's not cool, and it's against our rules.
Cityhunter? Wow, that is a name I haven't heard in a long time.
That mechanical keyboard though... (it was loud on the stream)No, it's not a mechanical keyboard at all. It's the Microsoft ergonomic keyboard. The only keyboard I can type on without my forearms flaring up after about 5 minutes of typing.
Auto-homepoint?That's something we're working on getting implemented. For those of you who are unaware, there are 2 codebases: Darkstar, and Nasomi. Nasomi was once part of Darkstar but we branched off about 4 years ago. They fixed Auto-homepoint recently and someday we may get there but not today. Their codebase is very different than ours and very little is compatible.
Can you summon a cool NM?No, it doesn't really work like that. The abilities of a GM are really stripped down. There isn't a whole lot of stuff I can do in-game because isn't much need for it.
Linkshell list length!So, there's a complication with the LS list length, a packet limitation. There are only so many characters that can be displayed. I can send you more information, but the client crashes. There's going to be some form of LS administration on the website at some point.
Oh, cool, a DM from Ninja...
177 in the zone, and most of them are probably right here. We're really pushing the limits here. Let's see.. we've got 2.3% CPU overall, so that's 18% of one core. That's not bad.
Someone bring the OWNM over there!Yeah... that wouldn't be cool. Actually, just in case....
Oh, sweet, drops. We got a Bat Fang, Platoon Axe, Translucent Axe, and Gunromaru.
Will we ever get increased run speed?No, you already have Flee, Chocobos, Chocobo Mazurka, Track Pants +1, a half dozen other movespeed items. Work towards them!
Talk about AV!Absolute Virtue is a pretty tough mob from what I hear. Linkshells keep failing to take him down. He kills a lot of people. That's all I have to say about that.
What are the mechanics of Treasure Hunter?No! Trade secrets! Figure them out for yourself. That's part of the whole experience of FFXI, figuring out how stuff works.
Who is the richest player?Mentioning his name wouldn't be fair. Everybody would go asking him for handouts, and that's not cool.
Chocobo Digging?Actually, it kindof works. I got the framework done years ago but got sidetracked. It's not far from finished, but nobodies really asked for Chocobo Digging, so...
Gardening?Gardening is one of those things that's... difficult. But yeah, there are plans for it. There are a lot of things on the horizon, but we can't do everything at one time. I easily spend 50-60 hours on the server a week - I neglect my job, my family, and my other adult responsibilities, but I make it happen.
Are you going to begin taking help on the server?Here's the problem with additional help... once upon a time I accepted help, well a couple times over the years. One guy did all this hype with Fishing, screenshots, videos, telling me had Fishing working and all that stuff. But right when he was about to hand it over, he just disappears without a word for 2 years. And then another players helped me develop Sea and Sky, but was ostracized to the point of not playing. He did a lot of work on it, but he got harassed to the end of the Earth and ended up quitting. I don't want any players to be put in that position.
Speaking of which, Deadwing was not banned. A lot of people think he was, but actually he approached me and said "Hey, I got these 3 characters that I can't access anymore and a truckload of gil, all these high level crafts - would you be willing to trade them for potentially opening up additional Mule slots for a set price in gil?" I thought it over for a bit, and I thought that was a reasonable request. A whole bunch of gil went out of the economy (450m), so there will be additional Mule slots that can be unlocked on your Account page for 10m for the first, 15m for the 2nd, and 20m for the 3rd additional slot. Deadwing gave up all that stuff, all that gil, all those craft levels, to make it happen. I'll work towards that and maybe that will be done by the Summer.
Kubi lies.Kubisnaxx lies.
I need to pour some more Coke...
Will EXP party comments ever be enabled?Yes, they are already! You have search comments, seeking party, recruiting, etc. You can set them ingame and access them on
https://na.nasomi.com/party.php and
https://na.nasomi.com/search.php. You have a mentor finder:
https://na.nasomi.com/mentor.php (Nabutso note: If you wish to become a Mentor, trade 100k to Zelma at (H-8) in Upper Jeuno). Auction House:
https://na.nasomi.com/auctionhouse.php. Bazaar Browser:
https://na.nasomi.com/bazaar.php. etc.
Scoreboard?It's been taken down temporarily because of people scraping it for ToDs. That wasn't really the goal of that system.
What's your favorite memory?Probably in Qufim, where Pepsi and Searain were butting heads. I as Nasomi had to step in and take Pepsi and Searain into an area and have them talk it out. If Searain ever finds out I was Pepsi he's probably gonna blow a gasket. Pepsi was Nasomi the whole time!
Talk about some of the rulesInitially, the rules were just copied from Square's website, but there has been a lot more Account sharing, Real life vs game life, etc. These rules have come many times and it's frustrating, these rules are more to protect me than you, so that I don't have to deal with it. One time, a guy and his wife were playing, but the guy was hitting on a chick in-game. This guy's wife finds out because they play together, so she logs into his character and deletes all his stuff. He asked me to restore his stuff... and that's why we have these rules. Even spouses - if you share your account with anybody, you run the risk of having your stuff deleted or lost and I'm not gonna help you!
What made you want to make this server in the first place?I played since NA launch, for years and years, through WoTG. When FFXIV was coming out, I played through the beta, submitted bug reports, the launch, etc. When they took down 1.0, it was frustrating. With 2.0s relaunch, I was in the Alpha, and by the time of the 2nd Beta I could tell that the focus was shifting, to instanced areas - dungeon finder, party finder etc. That isn't the way I wanted them to go. FFXIV has been hugely successful and has made Square a whole lot of money but it isn't my type of gameplay. I enjoy the parties, the grouping together, non-instanced areas, actual competition over monsters etc. I went back to FFXI and realized that the game had changed at it's core. I was leveling a new job (Bastok #1 btw) trying to find a party and it just wasn't the same. People said to go find Trusts, solo this stuff, Abyssea parties. Your job from 1 to 75 is a chest popper. Everybody else is just spamming monsters in a free-for-all. It wasn't what I remembered or enjoyed. They say after a certain age you stop liking new things and I guess it was about that age for me. 26~27, I'm 32 now. I was trying to find FFXI private servers, a throwback. I didn't find anything that I really wanted so I rolled my own. 5 and a half years later we have 1500 people online at 1 AM EST.
Don't try to kill people in the Dunes! Seriously. Oh, Crab Apron, nice.
At what point do you think the server will be fine with where it's at and will focus on bugs only?ToAU. Once that's fully rolled out it's basically just bug fixes beyond that. At one point players will get bored and want more to do, but ToAU at the speed I'm releasing it will be 2~3 years of content with the difficulty, rarity of pop items etc. There are easily 2~3 years left for development.
Addons?It's complicated. You have to draw a line in the sand somewhere. Early in the game I said, OK, these type of addons were beneficial and probably should have been built into the client from the start. Tparty, Recast, Timestamp, and Distance. Tparty Square did actually add to the client (though it looks ugly). Timestamp Square added as well (and it looks terrible). Recast is kinda nice to have. These things weren't horribly game breaking.
Are there plans to fix level sync bugs?Obviously there's plans, seriously! We just had a huge party fix where now you can see where people are zoning in the party list rather than enter the menu. There are some complications with getting things synced up between the many zone servers.
Cover?Cover is coming. I have a form in testing but it's not currently up to par.
Parsing?If you're looking for weakpoints in your party, look at who is not paying attention, or isn't doing what they're supposed to be doing. The game is not intended to easily single out a weak or strong person. Obviously, SAM and RNG are going to way out-damage some of the lower end DPS classes. As far as checking your gear and seeing what's better, you should be familiar enough with your gear to figure that out.
Any plans to add the Mog Bonanza event?We did that about 6 months ago as part of the 5th anniversary celebration.
Anyway, have fun, do the experience play fair... oh.
The plan is, going forward, for each maintenance we're going to have a live stream on the patch notes and stuff like that - talking about new features, fixes, etc. Anyway, talk to you later, have fun!
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