Thought this might be fun to share with everyone. Poor Square Enix has been taking quite a beating in the Japanese news lately. Final Fantasy XI is being targeted in the midst of a media frenzy regarding… Online Gaming Addiction *thunderclap* .

Livedoor News decided to take it one step further and depict an MMO-addicted father in the emotionally scarring comic you see above. I translated the provided version, but you can see the original on their site if you are bi-(lingual)-curious.

A lot of the buzz concerning “netoge haijin,” or people addicted to “interNET games,” seemed to stem from the release of this book, aptly titled: ネトゲ廃人 (ne-to-ge hai-jin), which delves into the lives of such people and offers illuminating quotes and statistics about what such an addiction can do to a person. The book also references Final Fantasy XI directly more than a few times.

The Livedoor news article mentions an 18-year old boy who got sucked into the world of Final Fantasy XI. He would spend 20 hours a day playing, subsisting on just bread slices and milk. His life consisted of being behind the computer screen on in bed, but if he had to sleep, a friend would take over in order to camp monsters. “I lost an enormous amount of my life. If young people spend all their time playing games, they won’t be able to work. If net addiction increases, I can see it being a serious problem in Japanese society.”

A look through the news recently shows that many other Japanese people feel this same way. More than anything, this kind of pressure might be what drives Final Fantasy XI’s shift towards casual play, and brought about the promises of a more relaxed MMO experience from Final Fantasy XIV.

Source: Livedoor News

About a month ago, Elmer and I posted about the new Star Onions CD called “Sanctuary”. One of the extras that came with buying the actual CD here in Japan was a special code you could enter on the Japanese Square Enix Members site. You would register the code and then get another code later via email to receive a Star Onions T-shirt to be worn by your Square Enix Members site avatar.

The codes for the T-shirts were finally sent out tonight! I went ahead and claimed mine and played around with the avatar system a bit.

The front is a little hard to make out but it says The Star Onions. The back is a little onion character. You can see a better picture of what the character looks like by visiting the special website for the album. I hope they offer more things related to FFXI in the Avatar section.

If you haven’t bought the album yet, you can still purchase it via sites like Amazon.co.jp or Play Asia. If you only want the music, you can find it on iTunes as well. I highly recommend it! By the way, my favorite tracks are “Gustaberg” and “Rapid Onslaught -Assault-”. Elmer likes the dynamic “Fighters of the Crystal”. What’s your favorite track off of the new CD?

Here’s another 四字熟語, four-character idiom. Check out Shade’s artwork at the link above if you like it!

Nobuo Uematsu is undoubtedly one of the most famous composers for video game music. This year he turns 50 and decided to celebrate with a year long project album called “10 Stories”. All the lyrics and music for the album will be written by Uematsu himself.

The first song in the project “Here comes Conga Boy” is already available on iTunes. You can also check out a short preview by visiting the site itself. This is a silly happy song entirely different from what you may be used to hearing from Uematsu. It sounds like it would be perfect as the theme song to a show for young children.

Maybe to underscore that it is more on the silly side of things, it’s being released under Nobiyo Uematsu and the Dog Ears. (Nobiyo is a nickname that the staff also uses to refer to him in the Dog Ear Records blog.) Chances are he is working on this, the FFXIV soundtrack, and other projects at the same time. I wonder how much one project ends up influencing other ones.

Ideas can come from the strangest places. I was at the cafeteria looking at what to order for lunch. Now that it is warmer and we are heading into summer, the cafeteria has started their summer menu of cold noodles: cold soba, cold udon, and cold ramen. However, cold ramen isn’t called ramen. The name changes to chuka (hiyashi chuka). The word chuka in this case refers to chukamen, a type of noodle originally developed in China.

While the usual word for China in Japanese is Chugoku (used in Chugokugo or Chugokujin), this is just a short form for the official title of 中華人民共和国. The first part, Chuka, is still commonly used in words like 中華料理. It can also refer to China or Chinese people but that usage isn’t nearly as common.

So what do noodles and China have to do with FFXI? I bet you can guess the obvious connection.

RMT

What follows are my thoughts on a change that occurred in how Japanese players refer to people involved in RMT. Sociolinguistics is an area I’m very interested in so I thought it would be interesting to see what I could learn about the change. (This article does deal with a sensitive issue as well. The goal is not to talk about which side is right or wrong but just examine the linguistic change. Hopefully nobody gets offended.)

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In the past, there have been sites that attempt to record the storyline of FFXI. However, it is a lot of work for just one person or even a small group of dedicated fans. There are missions to complete, jobs to unlock, and quests to fulfill all over Vana’diel. It would take a long time to collect all of it.

Thankfully, the people over at Studio BentStuff in cooperation with Square Enix have published the ultimate story guide to Final Fantasy XI. “Final Fantasy XI Story Ultimania Ver.090409″ went on sale yesterday and Elmer and I have both picked up copies of this massive guide. For 1900 yen plus tax (roughly $20 USD), you get nearly 500 pages of information on the world of Vana’diel. Some of this is stuff we’ve seen before in books like the World Concept book or Life in Vana’diel. However, there is plenty of stuff not published anywhere else making this an excellent purchase for any trivia happy Final Fantasy XI fan.

Let’s take a quick look at what’s inside:

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Famitsu Xbox360 magazine continues their coverage of FFXI with the “Behind the Scenes of Vana’diel” series. They interviewed GMs, the Localization team, the Effects team, and now the big guy himself, Hiromichi Tanaka.

The first part of the interview was published last month. It covered what Tanaka is responsible for as the producer, a bit on ACP, and how FFXI is unique for being available on multiple consoles. The second part was published recently and has some interesting stats and tidbits, especially looking forward at FFXIV and in light of our recent player survey. Here are some of the things Tanaka had to say this month:

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This time I tried out a 言い習わし, a type of kotowaza that provides some knowledge or pearl of wisdom. Think of it like a proverb.

No, that isn’t Final Fantasy XIV concept art you see to the left… it’s an image of what Final Fantasy XI could have been. Those are early renditions of the five race of Vana’diel from an art book: Final Fantasy XI World Concept. It was made available in 2004, around the same time shipments of CoP were defeated by a tornado.

Recently, we learned that the races in Final Fantasy XIV will receive a variety of alterations to differentiate them from their Vana’diel counterparts, while keeping them familiar to veteran players. We can’t look forward, so let’s take a look back (and get back to some FFXI-related stuff finally) and see how the races evolved into the avatars we know and love. Maybe some of the choices left on the cutting room floor will get a second look in Eorzea.

The pictures have been ripped (quite literally, my poor book ) from the pages of Final Fantasy XI World Concept, published by Shueisha V-Jump.

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As many of you may have heard, I was chosen to star in the new season of Paris Hilton’s BFF.

Unfortunately, I had to pass on that to take a position on the ZAM network. I will be working for ZAM now within their Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV sections. I don’t want to belabor the issue, but I felt the offer was something I should not pass up. I will be able to reach users on a much larger stage and receive some much needed support that will ensure I can keep up this hobby that I enjoy so much.

Before I descend into my digressive ramblings, I want to assure you that JP Button is not going to disappear or be deleted or stop updating. You can read on for more details.

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