A Moogle Kupo d'Tour - SE's Tour In Vana'diel

Chris "Pwyff" Tom was invited by Square Enix on a guided tour of their latest mini-expansion, "A Moogle Kupo d'Etat." Is this a sign of more communication to come!?

A few weeks ago, a very surprising email was sitting in my inbox. It read: INVITE - FINAL FANTASY XI VIRTUAL MEDIA TOUR. When I initially read it, I'll admit that I had to do a double take, as, to me, North American Public Relations and Square Enix just don't seem to mix very often; or perhaps I should say they don't mix often enough! Personally speaking, I've been a constantly recurring character within the world of Vana'diel since the North American launch, but 2009 did not see me firing up PlayOnline on a daily basis - I was taking a break from all of the drama that came with several of SE's banning sprees, as well as the game in general. In the end, I suppose I was also a little bit disenchanted with these absentee landlords who developed the world we lived in, but were missing when it came to maintaining any form of decent communication.

I'm sure everyone remembers Thayos' and ElmerThePointy's very well written article, "Has Square Enix Banned Logic?" where they scolded SE for their complete lack of communication regarding our latest credit card conundrums. Even earlier than that, we have Thayos' "The Silence Of The Devs," where the topic may have been different, but the core theme was definitely the same: "SE needs to speak up." Finally, even earlier than that, we have things like the salvage duping bans, which, while they were applied with good intentions, ended up, once more, exposing those lost lines of communication between SE and their most dedicated player base.

All in all, things looked fairly bleak until I received this invite to the FFXI Virtual Media Tour. I'll have to admit, however, that it's fairly depressing when you realize that Square Enix so rarely communicates with their player base, a media tour is considered some kind of developer communication - it's really not! Either way, I walked into this armed with a few questions of my own as my in-game tour guide, Matt Hilton, proudly showcased SE's second mini-expansion, "A Moogle Kupo d'Etat - Evil in Small Doses." Matt let me check out the new Ninja abilities, the newest monsters, the latest Moblin Maze Mongers addition, the neat player created events, the new quests and upgradable weapons from the Pixies, the 'union' treasure system in Campaign and SE's cool new imbuing system that uses tabs earned from Fields of Valour. I also realize that most of you have checked this stuff out already, but perhaps there are things that you missed, or forgot to check out.

First of all, when it comes to the latest of SE's mini-expansions, I must say that I really like the quality of the cut scenes that I was shown. There are many things that Square Enix is, but unprofessional is definitely not one of them; I'm always so surprised at the quality of the cut scenes they can create with the in-game engine. Of course, I wasn't able to walk through the entirety of the Moogle Kupo d'Etat missions, so it could be that it just turns into another "get me this, this and this" type of quest, but I found myself chuckling at my poor Moogle's plight.

For the new Ninja abilities, I was very happy with the direction in which SE seems to be taking the game. A friend of mine once mentioned that, as a game gets older, it needs to 'evolve' its fundamental game play in order to remain fresh and new in the market. The new Ninja stance changes, "Yonin," and "Innin," give Ninjas a solid choice when approaching their battles, and this obviously goes along in theme with the RDM and WHM stances, as well as the SAM and SCH ones. You can probably guess that SE will be giving everyone a 'stance' system at some point down the line, and I really like the concept of it. While I wouldn't like to see my beloved FFXI transform into some kind of World of Warcraft 'mash-1-until-out-of-energy" game, most players will certainly agree that having more low cooldown abilities (with around one to two minute timers) gives the user more room to develop a unique fighting 'style' and makes combat, in general, a lot more dynamic and intuitive. Here's a suggestion, SE: don't give Warriors stances that grant bonus defence or evasion, just give us a tanking stance that lets us proc Retaliation more! Nothing says absolute happiness like a full DD Retaliation tanking WAR/SAM with a solid healer behind him.

Finally, with the smaller changes implemented by SE, like the addition of the 'union' treasure system and the Fields of Valour imbuement concept, it does feel as though SE is paying more attention to improving their current content, rather than throwing out random mini-games to distract players from their problems (Chocobo Racing and Pankration, anyone?). While they did add a new Moblin Maze Mongers mini-game, I'll admit here that I never did do much in the MMM; it still seems incredibly complicated and a little bit difficult to find anything worthwhile.

During the in-game tour, I also attempted to engage Matt Hilton on more sensitive topics, like the recent credit card bans, and generally grill him about SE's lack of communication. While Matt's responses weren't entirely satisfactory, it's easy to see the limitations that can be imposed on a North American 'branch' that operates as an extension of the main Japanese company. Hilton noted that SE knows about the problems, but they're still "looking at how [they] want to approach the issue." I hope this means that SE is planning some kind of reimbursement for all players instead of meaning that they just don't want to talk about it right now, but eventually everyone will forget about it and move on.

Hilton did mention that these North American Media Tours, while primarily aimed at simply "getting FFXI out there in the eyes of the people," are also a product of SE attempting to participate more in the community. Hilton went on to say that "community wise, we're trying to get more time with the premiere sites, like Allakhazam, and talk more via Q&A." Hilton did acknowledge that they have done Q&A sessions in the past, but he noted that these were few and far between, and they typically took months to get back to the sites; he hopes for a faster turnaround and more frequency when answering the community's questions.

On a final note, while most of you know that Shantotto's Ascension, the third 'mini-expansion,' will be coming out eventually (Hilton said that they have not confirmed a date as of yet), the SE team still needs to decide if they will continue along the lines of these mini-expansions for Vana'diel, or if they'll go back to the good ol' massive releases, like Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urghan and Wings of the Goddess. As well, apparently a lot of media outlets took Tanaka's words a little bit too literally when he said that they had "content planned for the next year or so." What Tanaka meant was that, just like any other MMO, they still had at least a year's worth of content already planned out, but this in no way suggests that FFXI will stop receiving updates in a year's time.

In the end, while my in-game media tour with the North American FFXI team did come two weeks after the expansion was already launched, and no real 'new' information could be pried from my guide's brain, I can't help but feel a little glimmer of hope after this tour. While SE certainly has a lot to learn before they can get to the level of public interaction that Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street, Blizzard's Lead Systems Director of World of Warcraft, has maintained over the past few months, I think going from zero community interaction to a nice little in-game tour is still quite an improvement. It was a very confident Matt Hilton who informed me that he believed FFXI still had a long future ahead of itself and, after checking out some of this newest stuff with him, I think I'm finally inclined to agree.

P.S. A very warm thank you goes out to Dana Whitney of One PR Studio and Tyrone from the FFXI team for helping me with my corrupted FFXI installation woes.

Christopher "Pwyff" Tom
Editor
ZAM.com

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What I think most of us are thinking.
# Aug 19 2009 at 5:08 AM Rating: Decent
I think that if Se is going to succeed in fixing relationships with players they will need to do a few more key things.
1.
Treat FFXi and the upcoming FFXIV community as a whole the same, no matter if its JA NA EU or whatever.
I mean just take a look at the different billing systems as an example, when you have different ways of doing billing from one area then you do another it adds a ton of confusion and a lot of misunderstand.
I was personally double billed more then 4 times and when my bank cought it and i had the fee's reversed I got hit with the ban stick. They resolved the issue as soon as I called but I got hit 2 more times each time they did there sweep even though my account was supposed to be fixed.
Maybe a rechargeable game card or some other system would help out a ton.
Just think of all those people out there that for one reason or another cant use there credit card/gift card because of banking issues or even the lack of a card that 99% of retailers accept but they wont.
This even treatment should also apply to there communication with all there subscriber base.

2.
Be more active in developing/fixing there GM and Telephone/Online support system.
It just seems to me and I would say a good number of other players that different GM's and different staff have completely different answer's and policies on how they handle issues that come up in game. One GM says he cant help and the next one says np. Just makes ya wonder who was training some of these guys/girls.
This also includes not jumping off the deep end when some glitches come up. I know more then a few of these players had no idea that they were doing anything wrong till they were lm17'd.
A stated warning or a deduction in gil/items would be a much better way to handle stuff like this, especially when it is an account that has been in good standing for quite some time.

3.
Speak more and more often with all there player base.
Allakazam has done a great job trying to bridge some of the gap but dymlos made a great point about the need for a main interaction between us and SE on there site. If they haven't created a division of SE that is dedicated to an exchange of ideas between players and dev team then they should and they should do it now. Break the game down into sections and areas of topic and let the community speak. I really believe that some if not most of the frustration people have is that unless something is said 10000 times here and on other sites, it wont be heard.
We know theres the gm's in game and the customer support now but honestly it dose not seem to be working and there needs to be a team in place just to deal directly with the player bases issues and suggestions.
I love this game, been playing since right after NA release and I think they can do an excellent job of things when there tuned in and on the ball. It just seems that lately they more into damage control then game play improvement.

I really hope they get the next one right and set up the back end stuff well in advance of its release. I would love to play these games for 10+ more years.
I guess I will just have to wait and see what happens.
Peace.
Mini expansions?
# Aug 12 2009 at 10:22 PM Rating: Good
Quote:
It's up to us to vote with our dollars. If you want to keep receiving partial content releases with a bunch of fetch quests, then by all means buy the mini-expansions. If you want actual content that might actually keep this game alive, then for the love of all that's holy, boycott those mini-expansions for now(you can always pick them up later when SE regains their sanity).
Some poeple aren't paying for the quests, they're paying for the item you get for beating it. These items, I should add, are quite powerful considering the relative ease they are obtained and I hasten to add, customised to the individual.

SE knows it, which is why they advertised the items when they announced the expansions along with a comprehensive list of all the things you can attach to your new armours. We can no doubt expect similar items obtained through Shantotto's expansion too. Take away those rewards and the incentive for paying for these relatively minor expansions has all but vanished.

When compared to other 'real' expansions, there's no contest. You pay roughly half the amount of a full expansion and get not even a quarter of the content. All of the other main expansions without exception added more areas, countless quests, missions, items and NMs. They also, generally, added more jobs and new concepts to the game (Promyvion, Besieged, Campaign etc). The same cannot be said about these mini expansions.
Full expansions + communication = <Impossible to gauge!>
# Aug 12 2009 at 10:50 AM Rating: Excellent
SE should just dump the scenarios and add full blown out expansions again. Mostly focusing on the other continents of Vana'diel. Sure fighting in the Crystal War is nice and all, I would rather see the rest of what Vana'diel has to offer.

The best way SE wants to communicate with its players base? Make a f'ing official international forum on the main site and actually engage with the players, talk to them like they're buddies. Don't give us the whole 'we'll talk to you when we feel like it' approach.

But most likely SE will not take these suggestions to XI AND XIV and will continue their cold shoulder approach to the community.
What needs to be seen/heard
# Aug 12 2009 at 12:06 AM Rating: Decent
I"m sorry but can you guys get any more Cynical? Honestly, I realize a large well small portion of the playerbase got shafted in the rear fun hole, but really if you act suspicious someone's gonna suspect you of fowl play. If you do as RMT do regardless of your intent you look like RMT, we make gil playing in game so do RMT. People were banned yes we all know, it happens. So you don't like fetch quests, I don't like fetch quests but when I think from the perspective of my character they aren't so bad. Something has happened to the average Player, they've lost their imaginations, that came with the fall of the Roleplayers and the rise of the stat counters. This game is about escaping from reality yet people bring it on in the game with them and insist on afflicting everyone else who can read with their problems. Just stop it, if you don't have something nice to say don't say it, if you don't like losing yourself in the adventure then don't buy the mini expansions. In fact just log the hell out and cancel your account already, because I am sure nobody wants to be around a sad sack who can't enjoy the game for all the negativity he/she spews continuously.

If you don't like that then too bad, it needed to be said, and needs to be said again, and again until the lesson is learned.

Excellent post OP, and thank you for sharing.
The game's direction.
# Aug 11 2009 at 10:17 PM Rating: Good
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3,211 posts
The Article wrote:
On a final note, while most of you know that Shantotto's Ascension, the third 'mini-expansion,' will be coming out eventually (Hilton said that they have not confirmed a date as of yet), the SE team still needs to decide if they will continue along the lines of these mini-expansions for Vana'diel, or if they'll go back to the good ol' massive releases, like Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urghan and Wings of the Goddess. As well, apparently a lot of media outlets took Tanaka's words a little bit too literally when he said that they had "content planned for the next year or so." What Tanaka meant was that, just like any other MMO, they still had at least a year's worth of content already planned out, but this in no way suggests that FFXI will stop receiving updates in a year's time.


It's up to us to vote with our dollars. If you want to keep receiving partial content releases with a bunch of fetch quests, then by all means buy the mini-expansions. If you want actual content that might actually keep this game alive, then for the love of all that's holy, boycott those mini-expansions for now(you can always pick them up later when SE regains their sanity).
hope they learned
# Aug 11 2009 at 10:02 PM Rating: Good
Hope they learned from FFXI and could apply the knowledge onto FF14. Indeed, SE took too long to add level-syn and item-augment systems. I am a hardcore FF fans. I play FF because I know it has high-quality of graphic and kickass background music. However, I feel FFXI is not a very dynamic or flexible online game comparing to WOW and others. As you have mentioned above, players can hardly differientate themselves by playing in an unique way.
Too little too late.
# Aug 11 2009 at 3:57 PM Rating: Good
**
777 posts
Quote:
Hilton noted that SE knows about the problems, but they're still "looking at how [they] want to approach the issue."

Hilton did mention that these North American Media Tours, while primarily aimed at simply "getting FFXI out there in the eyes of the people,"

I can't help but think... This should have been finished and done with 6 years ago.

There's really no excuse for the very poor public image Square has created via their handling of FFXI. It should not take 7 years after a game's release before they consider working on hyping the game, and communicating with the customers.

I understand that they've never done MMOs before. But they are a long and powerful and well established company. It should be expected that a company with the resources that Square had, would be capable of at least hiring someone who can teach them how to do AT LEAST a bare skeleton of a human relationship with their customers.
Too little too late.
# Aug 16 2009 at 8:54 AM Rating: Default
Quote:
I understand that they've never done MMOs before. But they are a long and powerful and well established company. It should be expected that a company with the resources that Square had, would be capable of at least hiring someone who can teach them how to do AT LEAST a bare skeleton of a human relationship with their customers.


Yes, but (and forgive me for referencing, because I'm not trying to turn this into anything political) the world climate, particularly from our end (US) has not exactly been friendly. At the time FFXI came out 6 years ago in the US, we had the war in Afghanistan, starting the war in Iraq, we'd spit in the face at France for not joining us "cowboys" in our conquest (remember Freedom Fries?), and in general we've made a nuisance of ourselves to nearly every other country in the world (look at India's reaction to detaining a Bollywood star at the airport).

I don't think anyone from Japan is really feeling accosted at the airport for being Muslim, but I can't help but think that the world climate has a LOT to do with how SE has been reacting to their NA customer base. We (the US) don't exactly put out a friendly world image over the last decade that says, "Hey, wanna come over to my house and play a video game?" It feels more like we're the local neighborhood bully who's asking that same question to the thin, nerdy Asian boy - and while we may not really be a "bully", I can't help but think that their image of us doesn't exactly make us feel like we're worth playing nice with.

Over this last decade, a new kind of prejudice has been appearing over the world towards Americans. We think of "racism" as being whites against blacks, but there is a cultural or ethnic prejudice that the world has towards Americans right now, that I can't help but feel has a lot to do with this.

It's not just SE. Look at how hard it was for Nintendo of America to get more Wii systems - Nintendo was shipping them to Europe just fine, but they didn't exactly feel America was "worth" dealing with to ship the system to.

Again, not trying to bring politics into this. Just trying to see the situation from another perspective - and maybe give some insight onto the root of the issue between SE and NA relations.
Too little too late.
# Aug 11 2009 at 11:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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Don't look at this tour and assume they just started doing them. I took a media tour like Pwyff's back in 2005, so they've been doing them for a very long time.
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Too little too late.
# Aug 12 2009 at 3:50 AM Rating: Good
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777 posts
Oh Pikko, I don't assume this is new.

That doesn't make Square's PR over the past 7 years any less abominably bad.

After this many years, I have low expectations for Square to actually improve their PR with regards to FFXI. Maybe they will fire their PR Advisor and hire a new one, but I halfway suspect they never bothered to hire anyone at all.

I would happily eat my own words if Square suddenly turns around and begins forming a less neglectful relationship with it's players, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
Too little too late.
# Aug 12 2009 at 12:46 AM Rating: Good
I dont get what this "media tour" is - did they just sit him in front of a PC and said look, FFXI has this and this in it... (?)

There's plenty of questions we've asked - but seems that Pwyff didnt get the answers from them*. No insights either from this article.

In summary sounds like: "I dont play FFXI anymore, I was invited to FFXI North America office and we played a little game, got drunk, went out pulled some babes, told Hilton that "I love ya man" and facebooked him 4Eva!, wrote a puff-peice of journalism as a way of thankyou for a good night out"

To be honest I cant see much to complain about this article because it has no substance to it.

*
Quote:
I walked into this armed with a few questions of my own


... so what did they have to say to them? Your article says nothing - should we be expecting a follow up piece to this with actual meat to it??


Edited, Aug 12th 2009 8:47am by Abbottone
Too little too late.
# Aug 12 2009 at 1:13 AM Rating: Excellent
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Media tours are to show the game to writers for sites that have not seen the game or, in this case, the new expansion. It's not a media press conference where you can get answers from SE about issues in the game, which is why there are none to give. This is done for PR purposes.
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Hope, Hope and more Hope - when does it stop?
# Aug 11 2009 at 2:46 PM Rating: Decent
"The horses have bolted - lets close the gates"
Hope, Hope and more Hope - when does it stop?
# Aug 12 2009 at 10:52 AM Rating: Decent
Mods please delete this reply due to double post.

Edited, Aug 12th 2009 2:55pm by DymlosAileronBahamut

Edited, Aug 12th 2009 11:00pm by DymlosAileronBahamut
Hope, Hope and more Hope - when does it stop?
# Aug 12 2009 at 2:47 PM Rating: Excellent
Deleted



Edited, Aug 13th 2009 3:37pm by Abbottone
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