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Busy day today.
Busier day tomorrow.

Bought a new magazine/book hybrid, known as a mook.

Lots of info, little time so…

Let’s get to the good stuff: Developer Q&A!

Let’s see if I can bang this out before if have to go and give you guys something to chew on till tomorrow

Enjoy!

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While I clean up some of the stories done early this year, enjoy a couple that Chipya of Gilgamesh got right the first time:

Seeds of Happiness
Translated/Edited by Chipya

Heaven Cent
Translated/Edited by Chipya

Followers of the original thread back in March/April may remember some of these stories. Luckily, Chipya has offered to re-edit them, so I hope to get through them and to some new ones soon. Keep watching the Manga section for new translations!

A set of interviews 5 years in the making, these massive sit-down Q&A sessions made up a large spread in the pages of Vana’diel Memoirs, a 5-year anniversary book released in 2007. These interviews marked a milestone in the development of the game, so the questions asked and the information gained delve more deeply into the core of Final Fantasy XI and its development. I hope you enjoy reading about how the developers brought their initial visions to life and if what they saw for the future has come true within the past year.

Next up: Nobuaki Komoto, Chains of Promathia Director.

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Just 10 more days until VanaFest! I can hardly wait to hear what we can expect from the new update. In my last post, I talked a little about issues people have had with getting tickets. This time, let’s talk a bit more about where VanaFest 2008 will be held, look back at last year’s Altana Matsuri, and finally, make some guesses at what we can expect at VanaFest 2008.

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December’s issue of Connect!On magazine contained a whopping 65 pages on FFXI. 4 of those were dedicated to research the FFXI Connect!On team did on level sync. The first section compared using a level 72 weapon and more level-appropriate weapons.

First, for those people who would like to try to recreate their experiment, here are the general rules they followed and other basic information.

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1) The Manual Translator has been updated with submissions!

2) On their upcoming show, Pet Food Alpha will be discussing phrases and terms that you feel are missing from the game. They have an ongoing thread located here, so be sure to submit some topics for them to talk about on the program.

Ticketing seems to have become a big issue this year for both Fan Festival (Hollywood) and Vanafest (Tokyo).

It’s not very clear how many tickets have been issued for either event although it’s likely between 2000 and 2500. Fan Festival is being held at the Renaissance Hollywood. According to their website, the largest ballroom can hold 2000 people. Vanafest is being held in the JBC Hall at Meetsport. The JBC Hall can hold a maximum of 3000 people but people have been quick to point out online that 3000 is including standing room only areas that won’t be used for Vanafest.

So, maybe tickets sold out before you could get one. Maybe you tried to get tickets for Vanafest but didn’t win the lottery. Maybe you live far far away from either event and really wish SE would do something on the East Coast/in England/in Hokkaido. You could complain about it. Or you could do something like some other creative people have….

For example, FailFest. It started out small and now there are a couple of FailFests for people to go to instead! Can’t make it to California? Couldn’t get tickets? No problem! Join a different event or make your own. A day at an amusement park sounds like a lot of fun.

One Japanese fansite decided to run a mini contest after having problems. Michael’s Site is one of the major Japanese fansites for FFXI. However, despite being a prominent FFXI fansite, the owner was not directly invited to Vanafest. He tried to get tickets through the lottery but that didn’t work out either. So to try and cheer himself up about the whole thing, he’s doing a fake Vanafest report contest for his site. People can send in funny fake reports about what they think will be annouced at Vanafest (in Japanese). The best report will win a giftcard to use at Amazon.jp.

On a side note, Japanese players often do their own meetups at different times. An LS may do their own event in a town where many of the members live for example. There are also unofficial Final Fantasy events from time to time where players can get together and have fun. These types of meetings are often called Off Meetings (off-kai オフ会) referring to the fact that they are offline events.

One of the interesting things to come out of the developer’s comments on Group 2 merits was the relation between Desperate Blows, Hasso, and Haste gained from Job Abilities. A couple people requested a translation of the whole page on Dark Knight Group 2 merits to see if there was any additional information. This is what the magazine wrote about Group 2 merits and doesn’t come straight from SE although I’d like to think they fact-check their work since they had the chance to talk to the developers about them.

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Finally back, home sweet home, in my apartment far far away from busy Tokyo. It’s been an amazing but tiring 3 days. Even so, I am completely pumped for VanaFest!! (Just need tickets…)

Tokyo Game Show falls on a three-day-weekend in Japan. The train station was incredibly crowded, all the lockers were taken, and there was a giant line for the cloak check. Having no alternative, I dragged my suitcase (so many fat chocobos in there) from Tokyo Station to Shinjuku Station and transferred to the Keio New Line which takes you to Hatsudai Station.

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TGS is over for 2008! To all the staff working at the various SE booths around the center, otsukaresama deshita! There was still plenty of things left for me to see (and take pictures of) today. Even found more hidden FFXI references!

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