A FOURTH expansion???

[Anaki]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

Isn't there supposed to be a land to the Far West as well? Maybe not ... but think I saw a mention of 'a land to the far west' in an item description.

i think the far west was talked about being filthy rich in cop i remember a cmment about a boatload full of gold ingots being brought in a hope to buy the star of tavnazia

[largedopantwhite]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

If they allow 75/75 Job SJ .. we'd basically be able to solo everything haha. ^^.

75/75? Are you kidding? God no. :D
I was thinking, at best, 75/50 or something. Even that'd be too much.
Or they could just up the level cap (80-85, or, dare I say, 99?), tho that already has its own thread.

[Pai Pai Master]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

We've seen that the FFXI development time is definitely not like Sony Online Entertainment. They obviously like to take their time with things, and if that weren't true we'd have 5 or 6 expansions by now.

I highly doubt Square Enix will "postpone" content from Aht Urhgan to a next expansion, especially considering how much of the content is central to the Aht Urhgan region and story.

While I'm sure Square Enix glees at the fact that FFXI has a very dedicated fanbase that gets about as excited for each FFXI expansion as people do for any of their complete game titles, I think they've proven that they'd rather take their time to really work things out as planned before pushing it aside for another expansion pack.

[Kitalrez]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

someone posted before about a few NPC convo references to the Gigas homeland in the Northlands.

I think that was me, though I can't really remember the thread. The reference I was pulling for that wasn't from NPC convos, it was a section of the Vana'Diel Tribune article that talked about TAU and COP areas. Little mithra talking with a Galka about exploring Vana'Diel. Apparently, the northern regions contain the Orcish Empire and Gigas Homelands. Now, considering Northern Furs have been in game since at least RoZ, and that certain CS where 'you know who' from the opening movie gets dragged before 'you know what' in Ulegrand Range by a small army of Orcs who look like they're a little too organized to be Davoi Orcs, it does stand that there's at least a chance of having content added in that direction. Something has to make the fur in Northern Furs, and as we know what Buffalo Hide is used in, I'm doubting Ulegrand Range is the source.

Everyone's thinking it'll be the Far East, mainly because they figure there were enough war references in CoP and TAU to support it over anyplace else. The problem is that SE likes to litter expansions with teasers of how big the world really is, whether they go there or not. For instance, why are Ninja and Samurai available in an expansion that added the pirate city of Norg? Norg doesn't have anything to do with either the Near or Far East other than the fact they plunder shipping. One would expect Norg to have more to do with Corsair or something like Necromancer given their occupation.

As it stands we have references in game to:

1. Southern Lands. I.E. Tsahya and the Mithran Homeland, which judging by the mask will have an African theme. Suspecting Egyptian influence as well, Southern Mummies anyone?
2. Northern Lands. Gigas/Orcs. We've been stuck with the remnants of their armies since at least the original with Davoi, and RoZ with Delkfutt's Tower. SE has never contradicted themselves that these are anything more than invading forces.
3. Far East. CoP references, NIN/SAM jobs, etc.
4. Far West. Native American theme?

Problem I see with adding Far East at the present time is that we only have the eastern half of Aht Urgan. Whitegate isn't the capital city, if you listen to the ingame conversations, we're only seeing the seat of one half of the empire there. Apparently, there's still an emperor on the other half that's dealing with the war effort with the Far East, (which also explains why Al Zabbi is missing the normally huge contingent of soldiers you would expect to be defending a city that big). You have to cover this mystery ground before you can really open up the Far East. Either that's going to be an ungodly large expansion, since supposedly the Far Eastern empire is as big as Aht Urgan, or it's going to be two expansions.

[Legal Fish]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

CoP could be seen as the "filler" of FFXI's storyline

Might just be the dumbest thing I've ever heard, at least if you are speaking in Anime season terms.

[Legal Fish]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

Oh, yeah, since it has to be said a million times:
The Middle Lands, the first map of Vana'diel containing the Quon and Mindartia continents could be seen as Europe, or at least western Europe.
Africa/Mithra Homeland to the south
"The New World"/Native American world to the west
The Middle East and Far East world to the east
And the savage north/gigas/orc/barbarian world to the north.
Those are the known continents, most of their names can be found in the current canon.

[Caspian]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

Aht Urghan is the Near east continent right? So there's still another continent even farther east, where Tenzen is from, correct? Or if not another continent, then a continuation of this one?

[Kitalrez]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

Aht Urghan is the Near east continent right? So there's still another continent even farther east, where Tenzen is from, correct? Or if not another continent, then a continuation of this one?

Now see, that's the question, isn't it? If the other half of the Aht Urgan Empire where the Emperor and all the soldiers are currently stationed is on the same continent as the part we now have access to:

A. Tenzen's homeland in the Far East is on a different continent altogether.

-or-

B. That's one ginormous continent, and it'd be either one mother of an expansion, or more of what we have currently, where we get parts of that continent with each of two expansions.

Your guess is as good as mine until someone leaks a world map that includes all these pre-planned but unseen areas, I suppose.

[framerate]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

New expansion? Yay! :D
I've pretty much given up that Squeenix will up the level cap or allow a higher subjob level, so I can only pray for two things....
Geomancer Time Mage

God yes. Time Mage {Can I have it?}

[bside]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

Since the google translation Xeion put a link to is only translating a part of the page and missing the part on the next expansion, here you go;

Source: http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/game/...7/ff11tgs2.htm
(One before the last section is a part on the next expansion.)

Regarding the "next expansion package"

Tanaka: It's been 4 and a half years of operation and continuous updates. Currently, there's already a set plan for 1 year ahead of things like updates, and we'll continue (updating the contents) as long as the service continues. Ogawa is working hard on things like next expansion.

MC: Mr. Ogawa is scowling lol. ToAU is a Near East, and what directions are we going next?

Ogawa: Vana'diel is very large, so I think it's going somewhere... Please look forward to it.


Memo by the author on this part;

Though very short, it was revealed that they have started working on the next expansion. There has been worries among users as to until when they continue the FFXI service, partially due to the now-developing next generation MMO, but it certainly casts those worries aside. We don't know when, but we'll look forward to it enjoying the ToAU in the meantime.



Seeing that the update plan is already set for another 12 months, which is likely the "ToAU plan," I highly doubt they'd come up w/ the next expansion before then. As w/ past expansions, all of them came w/ the related missions, so at least until ToAU mission comes to an end, it's unlikely anyways.

[eticket109]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

most likely one group is focused on closing out ToAU while the other group works on the new expansion. If they waited til ToAU was finished before they started the next there would be at least 2 years between releases, which is far from the pattern so far. I would expect it about this time next year most likely.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

The time between RoZ and CoP was about a year and a half, Time between CoP and ToA was a year and a half as well.

While it does sound like things are ramping up in ToA, I think we still have til summer at least before the major endgame content hits and that the next expansion would beout about this time next year. Sandoria has had thier hand in the story line, now Shantotto from Windurst is going to play a role and that still leaves Bastok for future missions. The three nations always have to be involved.

There's still much of Aht'Urghan's map to be uncovered in terms of zones and I'm sure there's a mercenary rank above Sergent. Not to mention that all-too-telling empty desk in the Commissions Agency, there's gotta be another Assault zone waiting out there.

[Kitalrez]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

most likely one group is focused on closing out ToAU while the other group works on the new expansion. If they waited til ToAU was finished before they started the next there would be at least 2 years between releases, which is far from the pattern so far. I would expect it about this time next year most likely.

This sounds about right. If you'll remember back to CoP, when it was released they told us they already had a team working on what turned out to be TAU.

[klvino]

Re: A FOURTH expansion???

There's still much of Aht'Urghan's map to be uncovered in terms of zones and I'm sure there's a mercenary rank above Sergent. Not to mention that all-too-telling empty desk in the Commissions Agency, there's gotta be another Assault zone waiting out there.

With Sergeant rank, we'll be using 7 of the 8 maps used for each assault area, which hints there is one more rank to use the last map for each of those areas.