Silly me, checking BG before bed. Silly me, checking in the on FFXI proposed-updated-revised-roadmap for Oct11-Spring12. It bothers me a little to read the things people are writing. The quick-and-dirty:
Voidwatch
New BCNMs
Dailies
WAR/THF/SCH "adjustments"
Level 99
"The Last Stand"
Rehashed Nyzul
New Weapon Skills
NPC to 95
Voidwatch
Merit Revisions
"Dungeon Crawl System"
VOIDWATCH
Rehashed Limbus
Rehashed Einherjar
Merit Revisions
Now, these aren't necessarily bad things in-and-of themselves. However, seeing the idiots on the forum arguing one extreme or the other is ridiculous. It's a wash of "NO CONTENT CANCELLING ACCOUNT" and "YOU ALL SUCK THIS CONTENT IS GLORIOUS" followed by the sound of dicks being chugged at light speed.
The truth of the matter is sadly somewhere in the middle leaning towards the former. The base of the argument For SE seems to be "How can you say there is no content when all of this is planned?" This, of course, is ignoring the fact that this is not what most people think of when they say "content." If a new chapter of Star Wars is slated to be produced and instead we get a shot-for-shot remake starring new actors, that is not a new movie. That is what it feels like SE is doing; We're not getting new content, we're getting level-adjusted old content. These are not the same thing.
Voidwatch blows and the reasons for this have been beaten into the ground. SE refuses to change the fucked loot system, progression is draconic in form and function and the droprates themselves are sadistic and very Tanaka.
People are saying we should be excited for Last Stand and the Dungeon system, but really, why should we be? There hasn't been anything revealed for them besides a tentative name and a pair of screenshots of a zone. There has been no story. No characters. No anything. SE has basically said "We're making something in the future, get excited." It is pure hype. There is no reason to be excited over something nonexistent. For all we know we're getting new Pankration and Moblin Maze Mongers with names. Get fucking excited!
As Mai put it, the people yelling about all of this being awesome are the people who are refusing to let anyone ruin their notion of XI still being a lovingly-developed game. I can't help but look at the wreckage from my vantage point and I feel bad about it; I'm now one of those people who don't play the game anymore yet still casting judgment from a proverbial On High as if I'm some arbiter of how things Are or Should Be. I'm not, and I'm not saying I've got the only right ideas here, but I feel more associated with the guys saying "This isn't content, what the fuck is SE doing to XI" than I do with the "THIS UPDATE WILL MAKE IT FUN AGAIN." The fact that it stopped being fun in the first place should be all that needs to be pointed out. Putting faith in SE to do XI right feels like a silly concept at this point, especially when that really falls into either blindly hoping two completely-unknown scenarios are excellent and make up for how terrible Voidwatch is, or you're hoping that the Limbus/Nyzul/Einherjar expansions make those events fun again. The latter, of course, meaning that the ENTIRE UPDATE TO THE GAME since the 75 cap will be compromised, since we'll be doing the same exact things at 99 we did then.
The full weight of that last revelation is still being heaped upon me. I didn't realize it until now; All of the bitching about people's Relic gear and Sea gear and Abjurations are truly finally getting their way. Relic weapons have gotten incredibly easy to obtain comparatively to a fully-leveled Empyrean counterpart, and if you happened to own a Mythic already the trial required to level it now are completely trivial. Nyzul Island making a comeback will most likely bring us the not-Abjuration level of gear it brought us at 75. Limbus returning will cater to all of the whining butthurt folks about their precious Homam gear got outdated. Einherjar will presumably give us Mega-Odin with updated V.body and the like since we know how original the dev team is capable of being right now.
Everything that almost made us think we were getting some actual new hooks and enjoyable stuff is being shoved out of the way for a return to the Old Ways that people got sick of doing week-in and week-out hoping that the Random Number Gods would smile on them that day. All we need now is for SE to happily announce New HNMs sometime after 99 finally hits.
Fool me once, SE...
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