Categories of Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE, Part V!

[Matsume]

INTRODUCTION:

This is meant to be a compilation of the recent Questions from the official Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE, PART V thread. As you can see I separated them into 5 general categories: Cosmetics, Progression, New Content, Technicals, and Miscelaneous. Each category is then broken down into subcategories regrouping individual questions.

Keep in mind that I included the majority of the questions thus far posted. This will inevitably include duplicate questions. You will also notice some questions appear in multiple subcategories, as these tend to incorporate multiple game elements. However, I did omit a number of questions from one specific recent poster (JSexpert?), for appearing as troll posts.

If you see a specific question that you are particularly interested in seeing answered, then simply press on the >> button in the top right hand corner of that quote (at the end of the quoted players name) and it will take you to that players original post where you can "like" it as desired by ARR's dev team.

For questions that may have already been answered please reference Zantetsukens thread: Producer Live Letter V questions - already answered.

PART I. COSMETICS

Appearance Change

Will the appearance change and remodeling of our old characters be available during phase 4 or will it be enabled at release?

Will male Highlanders have the option to have eyebrows?

Will there be a better Mithra-like nose option for Miqo'te characters in ARR? The option available in 1.0 was hardly noticable and tied to only one face type.

For the Lalafell males, have they been slimmed down? I loved the race as it reminds me of Link, but they are far too fat. I was looking at the Lalafel screen shots but could not get a good look at their girth. I cant seem to find if this has been stated, will we be able to change race/appearance upon launch of ARR.

How many more options for hair will there be, or is only cross race hairstyles planned for launch?

Will it ever be possible to change other proportions in character creation such as making females more muscular and shortening Elezen necks?

Cutscenes

Will our characters be less useless in cutscenes and actually do something? I hate being continuesly saved by other NCPs who then take over the entire cutscene with us in the back.

Any chance to have our character voiced? Only for the Cutscenes that are voiced, not EVERY cutscene =)
Something really simple. Just a few different accents for each language.

Any plans for some action-y cutscenes? To rephrase, will we see our characters/party in a chocobo chase before getting dismounted by the bad guy then it switches to a fight on foot. Or a cutscene showing our character/party fighting a bunch of bad guys then the game switches to fighting mode where we gain control of our characters for the ensuing battle?
PS. I hope you count that as one question, I just rephrased it a few times for understanding =D

Are there any plans for further focused storytelling (such as the Dalamud related content of 1.xx) or will the game go in somewhat all directions now that the time limit of the previous story is no longer an issue?

Can we expect to see the full cutscenes in the beta? I mostly want to know if my computer can handle that aspect. Will this be thoroughly tested in the benchmark?

Will Bahamut be full voice acted in cut scenes or just roar like a beast?

Flying

will there be real flying mounts like in other MMO's, and not just "hovering" mounts?

I'd like to complement this with another question:

- Will the monsters be real flying monsters in ARR, as opposed to hovering ones as in 1.0?
(I always hated how the monsters were not flying and simply hovering while following the terrain in 1.0...ugh)

Lore/Localization

What kind of plans do you have for making the game world feel alive and interesting for players? For example, will there be reasons for players to actually travel through areas instead of instantly teleporting and how much open world content is there?

I'm also hoping for paying attention to detail when planning different areas and all areas having their own atmosphere (XI did this extremely well), and NPCs being alive and doing something instead of just standing still and waiting for the player to talk to them.

What do the following have to do with each other?

*Tomb of Xandes I (per Cid questline, located at the great underground Aetheryte with the symbol of Thaliak, the Scholar. Located Southwest of the lake.)
*[Powerful energy signature] (Lore discussed by Erik in Ul'dah, the same NPC who you speak to for Monk quests. Located EAST of the lake.)
*[Seal broken by Ceruleum explosion] (1.0 Intro movie depicting an echo of the Battle over Silvertear Falls depicts a cataclysmic crash which broke the seal in the lake, both releasing Primals and decimating Mor Dhona. Allegedly dead center of the lake, where Midgarsormr resides in 1.0)
*Crystal Tower (Only visible reference has it piercing the clouds as seen from a cliffside with Behemoth. Is it also in Mor Dhona?)

Will NPC's have dialogue? Not just blurps you read, but real voice acting? And not just a few key characters, but all of them? I just detracts from the game to not hear voices. They could all speak Japanese and I would be happy!

Role of deities in storyline… Will there be content geared towards the deities? i.e. Deity specific quests, gear blessed by specific "gods", etc…

Will it be possible to re-devote ourselves to a different deity in game (aside from the one time recreation which may or may not include this)? Even if it requires a quest or something, not everyone likes being forever locked into their early decision, especially with such little known about the Twelve so far.

Will guardian/nameday have any effect on our character or is it just for RP ? If there is an effect will the information be available on character creation so we can choose the effect we want ?

In FFXIV 1.0 primals were linked to beastman tribes. Since the primals will be under a new 'wondering' system that was mentioned, will the primals still be linked to specific beastman tribes as they used to be?

If primals are still associated with beastman tribes in ffxiv ARR as they were in ffxiv 1.0 ... which beastman tribe will Shiva be linked with?, and Rumah? ... It is hard to imagine them linked to any existing or mentioned beastman tribes.

(ifrit -> almalj'aa)
(garuda -> Ixali)
(King Mog -> Moogles)
(Titan -> Kobalds?)
(Leviathan -> Sahagin?)
(Siren -> Sylph?)
(Shiva -> ?????)
(Ramuh -> ?????)

Out of pure curiosity. This question is regarding the dark lore between Ul'dah, Sil'dah, and inside the Thaumaturge guild. Can you please share any secrets? More to the point, is Necromancer being considered as something new for the franchise in a later expansion?

Will we get to see our agent of inquiry, Hildibrand, again soon? I simply loved his quests and appearances in Final Fantasy XIV 1.0.

Awhile ago the localization team mentioned a lore book, including race/clan naming conventions and history throughout 1.0
Can we expect this before the official release of ARR?

Mounts

will there be real flying mounts like in other MMO's, and not just "hovering" mounts?

Will the legacy chocobo be its own mount or is it a skin for the regular chocobo?

In the original 2.0 "Concept" Screenshot you've introduced the idea of having your Chocobo Companion fight along side of you. Since then you've shown a few concept art pictures with gear your Chocobo can use (like White Mage, Dragoon and Behemoth gear)
Can you show us more about this feature, like in-game footage?

Can we get Dodo Mounts?

Will it be possible to tie Goobbue to our account so that characters created in 2.0 can still unlock it on their level 30+ classes if that account previously unlocked it on an older character? Many people will be rolling new characters with 2.0 launch and don't want to lose their friendly mountains

A while back, we saw concept art for job-related gear for chocobos. Will goobbues and other possible future mounts be able to use the same job-related gear that chocobos can, or at least have some unique form of their own barding? Also, will they be able to fight alongside us as well? I would personally love to see my goobbue decked out in plate armor tanking mobs for me!

Will Goobbues jump?

When, if ever, will we see different color chocobos?

Name Changes

Will we able to change our old character's name?

I asked same question last time but...will we get our one time name change option?

Will we be able to change are name?

New Map

Could you show us some sneak peeks of Limsa Lominsa and Ul'dah? Screenshots or, even better, in-game footage?!

Will the maps be recognizable from what they were in 1.0, or can we expect everything will look different? How much bigger is the world of 2.0 compared to 1.0?

How mutch new regions will it come if it will come? Like Mor dhona, La Nocea, Black Shround Will there come new citys?
(Sry for my bad English)

How big is the overall game map going to be? FFXI, WOW and GW2 all have expansive maps with varying methods of transportation. From what ive seen of ARR via the released videos the gaming region of the Black Shroud seems rather small, with a camp being literally under a minute away at any given point. This kind of negates the need for Chocobo, Airships and whatever else is devised. Travelling needs to be an integral part of the game. Id hate for ARR to simply become tele to an aetheryte point then run 20 secs to the nearest dungeo, rinse repeat. I do understand this is just the basic game and expansions may come later!

Do you have any more pictures of Thanalan and La Noscea that we can see? Besides concept art.

Vanity

Before the final save we recieved confirmation on vanity slots from the devs. is there any idea of when we will see this? and again for gear dying.

Can you explain the changes made to the dye system? How expansive and varied is it?

With the new graphical and server systems, will it be possible to introduce full flowing capes in 2.0? It was said that this wasn't feasible with the old systems, that it would be too hard to do capes that flowed and fluttered (like the already existing flags in Limsa), but the new systems seem to counter many of the problems of old.

In the past, it was mentioned that there would be slots for vanity/appearance gear. Does this include "vanity weapons" as well?

Will we have an accessory slot that is purely for looks? I want a Black Bow on the end of my tail...

Weather Effects

Will ARR be featuring Dynamic Weather Effects such as thunder and lightning, storms, gale force winds etc?

I'm curious about snow or rain weather effect.
Will the snow covered trees and waterfall around Black Shroud area have a visual frozen display or just have another snow effect like in previous version?

Is it possible to reflect the passage of time in-game through environmental growth physics? Such as the sprouting of a seedling tree, the growth of a young sapling, the maturing of a tree (loggable), and finally it's decent and decay (harvesting mushrooms off the decomposing log).

will be implemented any sort of weakened status caused by weather? (ie.: if there's a lot of snow, our pg will move slowly and if it's too hot our character will need to drink something, i mean something like a mix of assassin's creed and monster hunter)

Question:

Will we see different weather seasons in different parts of Eorzea?

For example...since Thanalan is a desert, will it only rain a total of 5-10 days per Eorzean year? If the Shroud is a rainforest, will it be rainy most of the year? Will an area like Limsa see snowfall towards the end of one year and the beginning of the next?

What dangers, if any, will there be at night time such as aggressive nighttime monsters, undead, bandit raids, etc?

What sort of non monster related content will night time effect? Will NPC's still be standing/sitting (or roaming, as has been stated will be introduced in 2.0) in the same spot all day and all night? Or will they have actual sleeping patterns and certain types of NPC's only coming out during the day or only during the night? Will stores and services only be accessible at certain hours? Etc.

Running

Has the Lalafell running animation been changed?

Zones

are the zones going to be level ranged specific or will there be mixed content so you have content to do at any area when in max level?

Will we see something like "fame" for certain areas or cities again?
Like say if you quest (and therefore help the people) in an area you gain fame or reputation and unlock more or rather better quests or content from associated NPCs?

Will there be, at the start or in the future, zones which mix both PvE and PvP?

Will zones contain both low, mid and high level content; so there is a reason to return to a previous zone as you become high level; and so to keep traffic coming into all zones as opposed to leaving "newbie" zones to become like graveyards as the MMO matures.

[Matsume]

PART II. PROGRESSION:

Achievements

The Achievement log and Lodestone history have long had overlapping information. Are the plans to merge the two, so that they display identical information?

I am in support of this, with one exception: My fear is that some older ones listed in Lodestone History will cease to exist, even if there are no duplicates. That seems unfair to those who took the time to earn them (example: live/GM events)

Armory System

Does the dev team fell limited by the Armoury system? If so in what ways?

This question has been vaguely asked but I want to be more specific.

It's been discussed in depth on the forums but, the armory system seems to limit the number of jobs available to us as players. Having to create a new class every time you want a new job seems tedious. Are there any plans to adopt more than one job per class?

With the reworking of the battle system and the tossing of the old, will we get rid of the lock on weapons to jobs/classes?

is there any plan to abolish the armory system?
if not then how do you plan to have more than one job come from a class

Will Jobs/class be able to use different weapons? For example Ninja can use katana or throwing weapons, sam Great katana, polearm, bow, dark knight can use a wide variety of weapons.

If these jobs came out would they be stuck using only 1 weapon or finally able to use different weapons. Also if they can use multiply weapons would there abilities/weapon skills change based on the weapon?

Do you think the armor/class system might limit this?

How do the developers plan to distribute current and future jobs into roles? will the jobs be put into niches or will multiple jobs be able to cover the same role in similar capacity?

Will there be any incentive or benefits for a player to simply focus on one particular class/job in Version 2; because in Version 1 even achievements were presented to push players to level all jobs and so it felt like a punishment and discouraging to only play the class/job I liked.

Will each class and job have a unique buff that can be activated and shared with other party members so as to encourage diversity with classes and jobs in parties; for example inviting a conjurer to party gives all party members a buff of 10% magic accuracy whereas inviting a white mage might give 10% bonus to heals received.

Battle Dynamics

Will the focus of bossing continue to be on dynamic elements? ex.) Garuda's Cyclones, Ifrit's Plumes, Van Darnus's Meteors.

Are there any plans in adding a system of Skill Chains like in FFXI, something that can be used in small parties.

During the Alpha version, a lot of people were concerned about the global cooldown on weaponskills being 3 seconds. Are there any plans to reduce this to a more resonable level, or to remove it entirely?

If auto-attacks will no longer generate TP, how will auto-attacks be made into an interesting aspect of battle? Why not just remove auto-attacks and rely solely on activated skills?

Will we ever see spells, weaponskills, & skillchains simular to that of FFXI. Sry but FFXIV has nothing in the way of spells, weaponskills, & skillchains and hopefully will see that in ARR...
Would like to see (your charatcer's name) so and so skill has increased by 0.1 again...

Can we get an expanded explination on how the battle system/weaponskill cooldowns will work? I would like to know how strategy and skill is going to play a part like managing tp with weaponskill combo timers such as in 1.0 instead of mashing the same one or 2 buttons every 3 seconds in 2.0.

In version 1.0, I always found it annoying when using moves like Firaga on a group of mobs, but the specific mob I was targeting died before the spell finished casting, causing it to "fizzle" and not hit the remaining mobs. Some other moves like Flare, Holy, and Steel Cyclone could be used without having to specify a target, and did not have this problem; you simply stood amongst what you wanted to hit, and used the move. Are there any plans to utilize "ground-targeting" or a similar system for similar AOE moves and spells?

Question:
Could you give more information about the Limit Break System? What are the requirements? How often can we do a Limit Break? How many types are there? What determines the Limit Break the party does?

Will we be able to cast the Cure spell on Undead enemies in ARR? I just kind of miss this from other games.
Will the elemental resistant/weakness 'wheel' be changed at all in ARR? This was always mildly confusing for some players when trying to take advantage of elemental weaknesses.

Class/Job System Balancing

Can you describe for us your plans for the class system in the future ?
There seems to be not much reason to play as classes once jobs are unlocked. Will more class/job combinations be released in the future ? Or will you simply add more jobs to existing classes ?

will Warrior job have major change in term of Skills and play style? and would like to have information on Monk and how the job will change.

Will classes no longer be completely overshadowed by jobs, and possibly have quests for their own AF and relic weapons?

Will dragoon get to see some pet love too or we got to wait? =)

Will Conjurer, Thaumaturge, Black Mage classes stay the same as before? Many people have been complaining their skill sets don't make sense.

Will some old skills from early 1.0 return? there were plenty of interesting skills that were removed.

Are there any plans to add more than 5 skills to jobs before level cap increase? It doesn't feel like 5 skills is enough to give the feel of a new and powerful job. Maybe Jobs can get a new skill every 3 levels instead of every 5 level?

Please show us how you made Bard more Bard.

What ever happened to bringing back the Battle Regiment System? I don't think we've seen anything official in a long time.

Since players are more mobile, will the AOE spells work the same as in 1.0, or will we have an aoe indicator for those spells? Same for aoe skills like Rain of Death. (Would be cool if thunder spells had a chain lightning effect to change it up, just sayin. )

Are there any plans to include the Ultima spell for Black Mage or any other job, perhaps even as a Limit Break? Can we get more examples of Limit Breaks?

The monk was said to be getting the biggest overhaul. Can you go over some of the changes, perhaps give a demonstration?

PALADIN!!! in FFXI I was a tanking machine premiere, I played Ninja and Paladin for like ever, haha. Loved it! But I can't say I felt the same love for Paladin in FFXIV 1.0. Is there any plans or is Paladin going to be re-designed to where it actually makes sense to play as a solid tank?

What are the plans for Thm/Blm spells?.

How do you plan on keeping the balance between lower base damage weapons (Swords, Fists) and higher base damage weapons (G. Axe, Lance, Bow) when building TP is no longer relevant? A while back you explained that TP will regenerate over time, but you never went into detail so are we to expect something like the speed of the weapon will factor in how fast TP will regenerate over time or will it be a flat rate regenerated across the board?
It's just a concern because, if the TP regeneration rate is the same for all jobs then 2-handed weapon wielders will have a ruthless advantage over other 1-handed jobs in almost all instances.

In what ways will you be making classes more relevant in comparison to jobs? (Examples: having new jobs arise from existing classes, utilizing different weapons, availability of skills to use in combat, etc.)

In Version 1, I did not feel that I could focus on just one class/one job in the long term due to bad game design which led to demand for specific jobs for different events even after the change in development team; so in Version 2 what will you do to ensure balance and avoid frustration from players?

Combat. Will Skills have longer durations. Things like spinning heal and outmanouver? Sometimes I think durations are really short.

Crafting/Gathering

Will it be possible for Disciples of the Hand to craft furniture to use in A Realm Reborn's housing? Do you have examples of such furniture?

Will there be crafting and gathering quests that somehow improve the local services and facilities of an area? Such as stocking a store or repairing an Aetherite?

Can you please give us some information on how fishing will work in ARR?

Are there any group simultaneous crafting/gathering party like activities planned? Maybe even something like a FATE but for the non combat Disciplines?

Are most of the DOH recipies going to remain the same as 1.0 or are there gonna be lots of changes?

Are there any Disciple of Hand friendly quests to level on? Because grinding becomes tedious and makes the actual process of crafting meaningless (it seems that way to me anyway).

In what ways will crafting and gathering classes remain relevant and useful outside of their niche tool functions?
Hamlets are being fully redesigned, I am worried this means DoH and DoL will again lose relevance.

Will we see something like FFXI's synergy system in FFXIV? Group crafting was a really unique idea in FFXI, and it would make wonderful sense in XIV considering the focus on making DoH classes a major focus with their own content. Why not have crafting xp parties to match taditional xp parties?

Armourer and Blacksmith have the same guild and a lot of overlapping recipes. Are there any plans for either combining these classes into one class, or separating them more to give them each their own identity?

Will crafters and gatherers be able to make any real impact on the world around them? For example, a miner could clear a collapsed tunnel in a dungeon and a crafter could fix a door. Those in a party with the gatherer and crafter who had previously unlocked a passage could now have access to additional content there from treasure to boss fights. I can think of dozens of other things gatherers and crafters could do (aside from stocking their own retainer/stall) and would love to see such avenues explored by the non combat classes.

Will there be a clearer understanding of how stats (such as Craftsmanship vs. Magic Craftsmanship) and things like time/moon phases affect gameplay?

We have already seen the renovations to the basics of crafting and gathering functionality. What new gameplay aspects can we expect to see (similar to hamlet defense) for DoH's and DoL's to make them more relevant? (Examples: creating various aspects of player housing, building airships, high-level blacksmith gives bonuses to GLA/PLD's sword damage due to more knowledge of the weapon, FATE(?) events that involve repairing damage to a camp after a beastmen attack, etc.)

Question:
Can you give any info on Culinarian? Will food effects change in ARR? If so, how?

Well.. Dont know if anyone asked this yet, guess its not really a question either <....<, but i would like to see crafting parties where like if your lvling different crafts you give bonuses to other crafters in the same party and as you lvl they get different bonus or such. Anything like that planned?

In 1.0 players were unable to level all the DoH/DoL to 50 without having to level a DoW/DoM. Many people I know do not wish to do any questing outside of crafting quests. Will it be possible for players to play exclusivly as Crafter/Gatherers if they so chose?

are we gonna have storylines for Disciples of the land and Disciples of the hand classes? besides ¨craft this object and deliver to X-npc¨?

Gear Progression

What are the plans for the longevity of end game gear pieces? When a player obtains a current best-in-slot piece, how long will it last as such before something better will be added making that piece obsolete? Are there going to be pieces that will be very difficult and slow to obtain but which will last a long time?

This about quest reward and class specific gear. If the quest or leave quest have reward as class specific gear, Do player can chose the reward to fit their class?
Or the npc will just give a Hempen cloth and an Ash Cane to a poor Gladiator, pet him on his shoulder and ask him consider again about his life as a Conjurner, lay down his blood stain sword and start a new life as a healer for his party.

Will the issue of "gear used in lower levels often being skipped over until cap necessitates upgrades" be addressed? Such as an exponential increase in enemy strength requiring players to keep their gear up to date? Otherwise, most lower level gear will never be used because it won't be worth it, levelling past that level range too quickly and unable to sell the gear on to put the funds towards what is needed for the next upgrade.

Those 4 pictures held up at the end of the last live letter that look like job AF. Can you tell us more about this?

With all the changes 2.0 will bring what will the process be to obtain relic weapons?

Are you still planning to make most of old content/gear obsolete after every major patch ?

primal weapons, we have them. Can we upgrade them and how?

It has been said that Grand company gear will be restricted to the GC which you are currently enlisted. Will there be exceptions, or rewards which require (for example) achieving a minimum rank in all 3 Grand companies?

One thing I loved about FFXI's content was that there was gear that would specificly enhance certain abilities. Things that gave Cure Potency +10%, Enhances Fast Cast, or Increases Weapon Skill Damage. It allowed there to be a wide variation of endgame gear for people to collect, rather than the standard new pieces just have higher stats and are overall better than anything already in the game. Will we see endgame gear in FFXIV follow the path that FFXI had with more variation, or will it tend to follow the more traditional path of new gear is just more powerful than the previous endgame gear?

Can we expect a relic weapon for SMN, or will jobs added after the implementation of relic weapons not get one, like in FFXI?

In line with questions like below. How do you plan to manage "Power Creeps" in ARR (situations where new content almost instantly makes old content worthless and obselete) Will contents be varied enough that there is never just one "best in slot" piece?

With 1.0 and I'm sure ARR it seems all gear has some kind of stat bonus, would it be possible to make non-HQ gear stat less thereby making materia attachments/HQ more interesting and possibly encouraging more double and triple melds?

How will the progression be handled for those of us who were still in the middle of our relic weapon quest when version 1.0 ended? Will it continue where we left off, or will we have to start over again? How will the quest as a whole be different from 1.0?

Could to explain a little about how gear will be classified based on rarity such as a color index type system - (Purple, Blue, Green etc..) and how will these items drop from endgame bosses - (how many rares drop per boss, drop %, do tokens drop?)

Level Progression

How is the leveling focused after one or two jobs are max level? Is there anything else beside the good old group grind or will there be some sort of repeteable/daily quests?

Will there be more of an emphasis of content on the way to cap rather than the current "race to cap" mentality? I'm concerned that the vast majority of content will be condensed to the last 5 levels as opposed to over all 50 levels.

I would like to see skill-ups return in some form, elemental/healing/evasion/parrying/weapons etc! Do you have any plans to bring something like this back to give a little more depth to our characters.
Thanks

Are there any plans to introduce class progression restriction in the future, such as specialising in only a single craft or one job locking out another (for example you can't be both paladin and dark knight)? I think this goes against the proposed "do anything and everything on a single character" idea but it has been suggested many times in this forum.

Will the dev team make a balance between all the ways of leveling up so that grinding enemies, quests, leves, and FATE will all have about the same experience per hour?

Will we be able to level through experience point parties along with quests? being equally effective and efficient.

When the level cap is eventually raised, how will it be implemented? Will it be automatically unlocked when a patch/version update/expansion is released or will there be some sort of quest involved to unlock the new levels? If so, will there be a quest to fist fight Hildibrand?

Will ARR be like most MMO these days where people jump to 50 in a week and grow bored of end game content in a month? Do you plan to make ARR along these lines of most mmo these days to appeal to the casuals or will you be stepping back and taking a page from FFXI where leveling was a long process and endgame wasn't "the game" This question also refers to DOL and DOH.

What are the plans to keep lower level zones becoming "ghost towns" once the majority of players have out leveled those areas?

Merits?

I'm curious if there will be some form of character advancement once we've leveled all jobs that isn't item-based.

will anything get caps in it? dungeons, missions, party play stuff, maybe even quests so that mini bosses are relevant as well and exciting to fight, or even NM's that are for low levels? caps for at least a long period of time and it becomes harder to find people at least?

Questing is supposed to be a (if not THE) major levelling mechanic of 2.0 but will quests facilitate the levelling of all 19 classes (8 combat classes including the new Arcanist, 8 crafting classes and 3 gathering classes) to 50? Or only the 8 combat classes? Or only one or two classes?

can you give us a list of all things made for party play in ARR? like will we have missions that are full party?, main story, quests, grinding at all still?

Choices...what are the possibilites of having more choices in ARR, especially when it comes to leveling (party basd/grind parties vs quest grinds)

Level Sync

And another one, can you confirm is Level sync will be finally present in ARR? If so, will we be able to test it on the beta?

Will the planned level sync mechanic be purely optional or enforced? Can you give us any more details on how this will work, including when it may be used and its effects on our characters and our characters' gear?

Quests

Will there be any freedom of 'choice' in quests? i.e. Will there be one-time instances that will have either text-choices or choices that lead to alternative places with varying degrees of difficulty enemies and enemy numbers (Different scenarios) AND/OR Choices leading to different loot in the end, based on these choices? Perhaps given a one-time quest, the resulting reward is a rare, unique item?

Reputation

Will we see something like "fame" for certain areas or cities again?
Like say if you quest (and therefore help the people) in an area you gain fame or reputation and unlock more or rather better quests or content from associated NPCs?

Will there be some form of Reputation system like in another mmo?

Seasonal Events

Will the seasonal items from previous years be available? More specifically, will there be bikinis for the new race variations? I'm curious about a Female Roegadyn in a bikini.

Will there be consideration of adding new events similar to current 'Seasonal' ones?
E.G (Festival of the Hunt) finalfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Festival_of_the_Hunt

Will there be any unique festivals/celebrations in ARR that were not in 1.0? Like "Meteorfall Day" which celebrates the anniversary of ARR?

As well as "fun and easy and pointless" seasonal/transitional events, will we also see some form of long term dedicated transitional events with more purpose to reflect the fact we are at war with the Garlean Empire.

(For example, having different zones transformed into a battlefield for 2 weeks with boss mobs dropping end game gear, or an airship Dungeon in certain weeks as Garlemald attacks, to make the world feel more living and breathing, to give incentive for long term commitment to the game)

(yes I ripped this from SWTOR which has introduced end game events appearing for set periods of time and goes away again before coming back in a different area)

[Matsume]

PART III. NEW CONTENT:

Behest a.k.a. Guildhest

You said months ago that behest would be completely redesigned, to the point that it might even be renamed. Could you give us some new detailed information about this change?

Question:
What exactly are Guildhests/how are they different than behests?

Card Game

So... How's the in-game card game coming along? Will it be ready for launch?

Will be implemented in the future a mini-game as triple triad or tetra master?

Chocobo Breeding

Will we be able to use our chocobo from 1.0 and legacy chocobo for breeding purposes? (both are male of course. the female chocobos is in the dragoon city :P )

When do we get baby chocobos? Are we getting them at launch?

Can you share some information about chocobo breeding? If not now, when can we see this?

Can you share some information about chocobo breeding?
Do we catch chocobo's in the wild and wait for them to mate or something? Or do we have to go to a stall and buy an egg?

Cock Fighting

In the original 2.0 "Concept" Screenshot you've introduced the idea of having your Chocobo Companion fight along side of you. Since then you've shown a few concept art pictures with gear your Chocobo can use (like White Mage, Dragoon and Behemoth gear)

Can you show us more about this feature, like in-game footage?

Crystal Tower

Can you tell us anything about Crystal Tower how will be implemented? Like:

How many floors and paths will get at launch?
How the difficulty would escalate in each floor as we reach to the top?
How many floors you have planned to add in each patch/expansion?
If you add a new floor in a patch/expansion, would make that make each patch/expansion Crystal Tower harder due the length of number of floors to complete?
The semi-bosses and final bosses of each floor would get harder as we progress through the floors, and of course the last boss of top (present) floor on an different level?

can we see more info about crystal towers?

Dungeons

Are there any other Dungeons you can show us (next to the Tam-Tara Deepcroft Dungeon we've seen in the previous trailers)?

Are you planning to implement secret areas in dungeons? i.e run against a specific wall, find out it was a mirage, explore a new previously unmapped area. Alternatively, can be accessed by secret sequence of switches, or even doh/dol actions.

Will each Dungeon have more than one type of "run"; for example, normal mode, hard mode, boss mode, story mode, class/job quest mode, solo mode; with each type of "run" having different mobs and objectives.

End Game

will the game gonna have hardcore stuff

Can you describe your vision for the 2.0 end game boss battles? How are you planning to make "classic FF elements" vs. "current MMO standard elements" meet so that the players who are used to either one will feel comfortable? Will the 2.0 end game battles be similar to the 1.0 boss battles, namely Garuda and Van Darnus Hard Mode, in terms of mechanics and difficulty?

What are the plans for the longevity of end game gear pieces? When a player obtains a current best-in-slot piece, how long will it last as such before something better will be added making that piece obsolete? Are there going to be pieces that will be very difficult and slow to obtain but which will last a long time?

Checked the thread and didn't see this posted:
Will there be any other mean of character progression different from gear upgrades at max level, similar or alike the merit system of ffxi? There could be class/job quests to unlock special skills, or armor sets that when complete can add a new ability, and not just stat upgrades.

Can you tell us about some new bosses that may be in wait for us?

Titan, Odin, Ramuh and Shiva have been announced via concept art, through the "End of an Era" and "A dawn to a new Beginning" trailers and the official Final Fantasy XIV Blog. Will all 4 of these Primals be available at launch? Or soon after?

Do you believe that the hardcore content is present in ARR as well as the casual?

What other Primals can we expect to see besides the ones shown, and will the be any new ones unique to FFXIV?

is there plans for lots of large scale events? will we ever have full linkshell events like sky or hnm's?

if 100 is the max players in endgame company does that mean we might get 100man endgame at one point?

When the looking for group tool is implemented, with there be any restrictions on it such as only grouping with people from your country or language etc.
Will there also be a looking for group tool for end game content as well?

Question: Will we ever take the fight to the Garleans?
So far, we've been on the receiving end of this invasion. Will the Eorzeans mount a counter-attack in ARR? Maybe visit Garlamald?

Over the course of 1.0's span, we saw dramatic improvements in terms of endgame encounter complexity and difficulty. Can we expect endgame encounters at ARR's release, i.e. Bahamut's Labyrinth and Crystal Tower, to pick up where Rivenroad (Hard) left off?
Part of the joy of playing an MMORPG at endgame takes the form of reaching a high skill ceiling, represented by: extensive planning around mechanics and itemization; having to make many decisions during combat that have consequences; and raw reaction speed. What steps are the designers taking to implement a high skill ceiling in ARR?

will we have any kind of content that will involve full company linkshells?

Why make linkshells casual and free companies hardcore/endgame...in XI linkshells served both uses, cant you make free companies part of the storyline for grand companies...kind of like secret missions?

Will the main story line been more epic and awe-inspiring than that of 1.0?
One thing I hated in 1.0 was that the main story was entirely solo and mostly underwhelming. No epic shadowlord style battles or even low level dragons in giddeus style fights. Just a great big solo walk in the park that felt like you hadnt really done much at the end of it.
You finished the main story in 1.0 and felt kinda dissapointed or "is that it? surely there must be more" Will ARRs main story be something more challenging and gripping. (dare i say something like CoP standards, one of the best ff storylines both online and off)

Given the failings of other recent MMOs in lacking endgame content, can you reveal to us more endgame event types and their timescales for inclusion?

F.A.T.E.

Will the ABTS be announced server wide when a ABTSE (active battle time system event) is underway? And will skill chaining/magic bursting return to the game?

Can you tell / show us more information on how F.A.T.E will work with things like hamlet defence? I had envisioned it as some kind of besieged / campaign style event would that be close?

Will there be a special FATE that everyone gets to participate in at launch?

Amazing work as usual, I cant wait to play. Will you be able to give us more details on the F.A.T.E system? I'd love to see some of the new content in action!

Can you explain how FATE and HNMs work so we finally end that debate? Will there be NMs outside of FATE? What can we expect for respawn times on NMs OUTSIDE of FATE?

When FATE events are underway, are we forced to actually party with people, or can we just all go up and fight the NM, like in Guild Wars 2?

Sorry if my questions are posted already, I don't have time to read 30 pages, and I wanted to make sure my questions had a chance to get answered.

Free Company

Free Company Reputation System.

Any comments about what kind of task, rewards, and perks this system will involve? Will Summoning Primals be linked with this?

Free Companies:

Do the initial 4 characters starting a Free Company need to be from 4 separate Square Enix Accounts?

If 4 people create a Free Company, and then 2 leave or are removed, will the Free Company dissolve, or remain with just 2 members?

Is it going to be possible, when you make a new Linkshell or Free Company, to customize the design, colours, form, etc of crests to be unique instead of default ones and get repeated?

Because is a little annoying to see like 2-4 LS/FC with same crest and colour.

#2 Its understood that Free Companies are going to take over being more "event" and "endgame" type content groups and it was said that 100 was the limit on the amount of members (which is less than the amount allowed in a current ver 1.0 linkshell). Again taking into consideration that we have a fairly large current linkshell community, is there any plans to increase that number, or to allow formal alliances between Free Companies?

Since we can only be a member of one Free Company, choosing one will be very important decision. Will we be able to resign/quit/leave a Free Company and join ANOTHER one (right away?)

Will there be costs associated with free companies for creation and/or upkeep of either the FC itself or for FC housing?

Why make linkshells casual and free companies hardcore/endgame...in XI linkshells served both uses, cant you make free companies part of the storyline for grand companies...kind of like secret missions?

Can you reveal any further information concerning how Free Companies will operate, their administration, and what ingame features there will be to encourage players to join up together besides any features already revealed; for a guild should operate like a community in all of its aspects to live in essence "an online life" as opposed to purely being "other players who you need to group with for that hard boss"?

What type of organization or interface do Free Companies have? Ranks, Rank Names, Rights, and Et Cetera.

Future Content

Is there anything being purposely postponed until later release of expansion packs?

This might be something for a bit down the road, but after a lot of the fan service is over, will we be seeing unique never before seen summons/jobs/monsters/bosses(e.g Van darnus)/abilities/magic/etc. Just something unique only to FFXIV 2.0 and maybe its content/lore. I'm all for bring back old classics and everything, but would like to see some new creative stuff.

Once the things already mentioned have been completed (gold saucer, crystal tower, various jobs, etc.), have you thought of what to do next?

Not sure if this one has been asked.

Do you know how often you will release new updates/expansions after ARR initial release or how often you would like too?

Gear Sets

For gearsets, will there be an option to 'share' a given piece of equipment across multiple gear sets? In the past, to use the same piece of armor or accessory between two gear sets, you had to have two of the item. One for each set. Will you be able to now only have one item to share between multiple sets?

Gold Saucer

Are there any updates to the Gold Saucer type area that you can pass along, such as location, types of minigames, etc.?

With regards to the Gold Saucer(or however you wish to name it) area. Will fan favorite mini games be making a return? Possibly with little twists?

Housing

Will it be possible for Disciples of the Hand to craft furniture to use in A Realm Reborn's housing? Do you have examples of such furniture?

Could you give us more details about housing? Whats the difference between Free Company housing and personal housing? Will they both be available at launch?

Can you show us some in game footage or even concept art of the inside of housing, with furniture/decoration that's movable/non static and has been crafted etc?

Will there be a fishable pond in either private and/or free company housing?

I would like to know more about housing. I know way back when, In Ultima Online when you bought a house you were able to give certain people "Permissions". Like for example if you were in the same guild, you could set up chests that only a few people would have access to. And then another for like community. I was curious if it was going to be similar.

Can you tell us a rough estimate of how much housing will cost, both private and for free companies? You said a level 50 would have to put a lot of their money towards it but most of the people playing previously probably have at least 1 capped class and their playing style (and thus their resources) vary wildly from player to player. An actual rough gil estimate would be great!

Will it be possible to store thousands of items in your fully upgraded personal house (or your quarters in a free company house, not counting shared storage with others) or just dozens of items or something in between? Assuming you have whatever cupboards and other storage items it will be possible to craft or buy of course.

♥ Can we expect to see more expanded housing/items along the road? (i.e. will be be getting rare drops for trophies or furniture from dungeons and mobs in order to fill a house?)

Question#9
Will there be mannequins as a furniture item in BETA or after launch?

Can you give us some more information on the availability of land for our homes? If I miss out on the initial large land plots will I never be able to acquire one?

Will there be airship guild housing, navigable airship housing, and being able to dock at floating-city-PvP arenas? Thanks!

Will Couples be able to share housing?

Will Housing be available to our other characters we create on the same server or just one house per character?

Can we see some in-game footage of what player housing will be like?

For housing, will we get weapon & armor racks to show off our gear? (think Skyrim!) Even if top gear becomes obsolete over time, it would be nice to be able to show off gear that was hard to get in it's time.

Loot System

Could we get information on the Need, Greed, and Pass system being implemented for ARR. Will it be available for testing during any of the Betas?

Can we have more specifics on the tokenised loot system? In 1.0 I would often repeat 1 piece of content 100s of times just trying to get one specific item from the list of all possible rewards from that content. How will tokens alleviate this?

Will the chances of actually getting the item we want from chests and coffers instead of the annoying frequent "dark matter 4" be more prominent in ARR? Higher drop rates on items please!

will we see very low drop rate items in ARR? items with very long progression to get? ?

Will you use the Garuda loot system in 2.0 for more similar content (guaranteed progress + small chance of direct drop) ?

Materia

Can you tell us more information on the new materia system?

Will it be possible to request secondary (and beyond) melds of other players without trading, like the single meld request feature that existed in 1.xx?.

How will materia be changed in ARR? Will it continue to merely just be stat-stacking, or will it actually bestow us with unique abilities, like in FF7?

Is there a possibilty of scaling down the materia to just 3 tiers instead of 4 and limiting melds to just 3x not 5x. How about rewarding materia orbs for guild leves, quest or even from behest, the orbs would be scaled according to level/rank of the quest or mission or leve?

Will we see materia expanded to grant or enhance abilities and spells like in FF7 as well as simply boosting raw stats?

What does Yoshi-P think of reducing all gear to only have 1 materia slot, HQ to have 2 slots?, and certain boss loot to have 3 slots?

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New Jobs

The Red Mage is one of the most classic and iconic jobs of the Final Fantasy saga. Is there any chance to see it implemented in A Realm Reborn in the near future?

Besides Arcanist, will any other new classes be available at the official launch of ARR?

Are there any plans for a class that uses the Gunblade as a weapon?

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is the only MMO to my knowledge without a stealthy assassin type class available for play. Are there any plans to implement an Assassin / Ninja like class that offers this style of gameplay anytime soon ?

Good morning,

You previously have mentioned a possability of implementing more classes/jobs like samurai, ninja and dark knight. Would the implementation of additional classes/jobs be coming in an expansion or would you possibly add more in an update/patch?

Thank you very much for any insight on this subject.

When will a third dow or dom class be added in limsa? So all three cities have 3 choices?

Where the hell is Thief and Ninja! <3

Will we see the addition of a proper thief-like job, specializing in daggers and high-output melee dps?

I'm not here to ask a question.. I just want to say..

Dark Knight! Dark Knight! Dark Knight! Dark Knight! Dark Knight! Dark Knight! Dark Knight! Dark Knight! Dark Knight! Dark Knight! Dark Knight! Dark Knight!

I think I got my point across.

As far as the Dark Knight (DRK) job is concerned...

We are aware that it will probably be implemented in the future, but what weapon will it use and will it be able to cast any kind of magic, i.e. dark magic?

Thief and/or Blue Mage, one day any day, Can we have it?!

In an earlier Live Letter, you mentioned that you wanted to lock the Classes until you reach level 10. From level 1 to 10 you would be a "Class-less" character, a "Squire" if you will (like in Final Fantasy Tactics). Just so that they can get used to the interface before selecting a class.

In the Character Creation pictures i've seen so far, it would appear that you will be able to select a class after all?

Do you still want to use the "Class-less" "Squire" approach for the first 10 levels when ARR launches?

Are there any plans down the road to incorporate a Beastmaster job / class to the world of Final Fantasy XIV?

When is thief and puppetmaster going to be added?!?!?!?!

Blue Mage in the future?

When is dancer going to be added?

You've given mention of various jobs (NINJA, Thief, Samurai, etc.) through surveys, concept art and interviews, but will you give us a clear cut answer on what jobs will be available at launch and which jobs will be implemented later on; also to add to that information on how to obtain certain jobs. (Example: what class would Ninja derive from, or Samurai?)

Can we have a Gunblade job?
Can we have a Necromancer job?

1 - My favorite class in FFXI and in other MMOs is the Thief or Assassin type. Is there a chance that this job will be implemented after the summoner? If that's the case or not and if some work has been done on it already can Yoshida san show us some designs or early artworks of it?

2 - If my question 1 is replied positively would the skill Treasure Hunter be implemented?

Are there any plans for introducing more DoL or DoH classes in the future?

Any plans for a new job for the Archer class? Bard is weak sauce!

Obviously there are several ideas for both new classes and new jobs. Can you give us an idea how wide the scope for classes/jobs extends? How many classes/jobs are in development/testing/consideration? How many will potentially be available at launch?

Arcanist

Can we see some gameplay footage and analysis of Arcanist in the live letter?

Arcanist was revealed the better part of a year ago. Can we see some in game footage of arcanist/summoner?

will at any point in the beta test arcanist be available?

What role will Arcanist play in the party and how many avatars/pets will we be able to obtain?

Summoner

Will the summoner job be available at launch?

Could you tell us more about the summoner job? Will we have a personal pet, or will the pet appear as attack animation then disappear (Yuna in dissidia)? Can we see some pet artwork or screenshots?

Arcanist was revealed the better part of a year ago. Can we see some in game footage of arcanist/summoner?

What are some examples of summons that will be available when the Summoner job releases, and how will they be obtained? If not through leveling up, will there be a solo option for obtaining summons?

What role will Summoner play in the party and how many avatars/pets will we be able to obtain?

What type of skills will SMN have? Will summoning a Primal have an effect on the world in any way?

Musketeer

Are there any plans yet for when Musketeer will make it into the game? Will the Musketeer guild still be in the new Limsa if it's implementation has been indefinitely delayed?

What are the plans for musketeers and their guild? Will the guild still be in Limsa Lominsa in ARR or possibly added later with the class?

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New Zones

Can you tell us more about the following locations?

NMs/HNMs

How will HNM's be implemented in ARR? It would be nice to get more information on the topic so that we can finally end the speculation.

How will Notorious Monsters be handled in A Realm Reborn? Roaming NMs will be removed in favor of F.A.T.E. ?

Can you explain how FATE and HNMs work so we finally end that debate? Will there be NMs outside of FATE? What can we expect for respawn times on NMs OUTSIDE of FATE?

Since there is an NPC based off of Yoshi-P, can we have one based off Soken? Like a BRD that sings songs about knee socks Or an NM Hyur, whom upon defeating drops a pair of knee socks

Will we be able to have the lottery NMs, timed NMs, etc. like we had in XI that I spent years total camping? If there are NMs that we work to get to..... will we be able to make a living off of those drops without the R/EX restrictions? Those are some of my fondest memories from XI and I would just LOVE it to be able to have something like that.

Past FF Content

can we expect to see any references from Final Fantasy IX cropping up? We know of things like the Crystal Tower from III and the Golden Saucer from VII, as well as there being talk of something from XIII making its way in, but with the 'high fantasy' setting, I'd love to see more from IX! A Tantalus theatre troupe, perhaps, or the Knights of Pluto?

Will there be special guild leves/instances that allow you to do battle against past final fantasy characters/bosses?

will the phoenix appear in ARR?

The the magitek armor, mandragoras, primals and other aspects from other FF games are there other characters, or game elements you have plans for integrating into XIV in the near future?

Pets

Will the 40 new pets (such as baby Behemoth) fit within the current lore of the world? For example, will we find that baby after slaying its mother and take it in as a young but wild creature? Or will pets just be sort of tacked onto the side of the game, not really integrated beyond perhaps a shop keeper in Uldah?

PVP

Can you give us more information on PvP frontlines and arena? In what ways will PvP be "meaningful"? Will their be level brackets?

could you tell us about how you think to implement PVP contents? FFXI was really poor of it

With PVP content. Will you be separating the pvp skills from the pve skills?

ie: lancer has true thrust. True thrust does 192(X variable number) damage to monster targets and 192(Y variable number) damage to player targets. This allows tweaking to happen to the skills on 2 sides, meaning pvp and pve can be balanced separately and players don't have to feel punished if they pvp and are hit with a pve nerf, or vice versa.
As a result if players are doing ok against monsters, but they feel they are doing too much against players. You can reduce the Y variable number only and leave X where it is.

How work the pvp, is group our duel?

Will there be a Capture-The-Flag PvP mode?

I would like to expand on this.

Team Based:
Capture the Flag?
Territory Control? I liked Ballista and Brenner Just not having to meet that days lvl requirement / alignment with certain city . . . specially before lvl sync. But by that time no one played pvp in 11 at least on my server.
Attack vs Defence?

Single Player:
Some type of death match?
King of the Hill ~ Start match with X points, Lose points for being at the top of a hill, first one to reach 0 points wins?

Will there be PvP specific battle stats and PvP specific gear?

Will there be, at the start or in the future, zones which mix both PvE and PvP?

Can you allow PvP duel requests in any zone?

Can you allow Linkshell/Company Leader duel requests that will automatically flag all Company members in the zone so Linkshells/Companies can have showdowns?

Races

Will there be any more playable races and if so how many and what are they?

Do you have any plans to give the races and clans more presence in the game world ? Right now there's really nothing in the game environment to define the culture of the individual races/clans such as architecture, clothing, dialect, or nationality.

I'd like to see cities or villages implemented that are considered the native homelands of each race/clan so that I can visit them and experience the culture of each race/clan.

Are there any plans for such places ?

Awhile ago the localization team mentioned a lore book, including race/clan naming conventions and history throughout 1.0

Can we expect this before the official release of ARR?

Retainer Tasks

Can you give us more information on retainer tasks? I am especially interested in more information on retainer gathering!

There has been mention of levelling up retainers. How will this be done and what will be the costs and benefits of doing it?

As someone who was NEVER able to put a retainer in the marketplace (hence I am for an auction house), is there any comforting news you can give to help relieve my fear that I will not be able to add my retainer to the marketplace because it is flooded?

Skirmish

Will Skirmish be in Version 2 or was that simply a Version 1 event? If so will you be greatly expanding it to cover low, mid and high level Skirmish, and opening up a lot more battlefields?

Spiritbinding

The new spiritbonding system is a hot hot topic on the forums! Can you give us more details on how our equipment becomes bound to our characters?

Can you please explain the rational behind adding the spirit binding system? I have noticed there are some players passionately against this system, if you explain why you think it's important it may alleviate some concerns.

With the introduction of Bind on Use to all our non U/U gear, will there be more valuable methods of disposal of said gear aside from turning it into materia (which is great, don't get me wrong, but isn't always an option) or NPC'ing the gear for a handful of gil or throwing the items away? Ideas proposed by the community include desynthesising and trading more gear in for some sort of reward like fame or points or lesser items of some sort (that are still less of a waste than the other luck based or immediate options).

Treasure Chests

What does yoshi-p think about treasure chests in final fantasy ? I always liked exploring the world's of classic final fantasy to find all the treasure chests hidden in the world. In online final fantasy most treasure chest just appear from monsters or in instance raids.

I want to explore the world to find the treasure chests like classic final fantasy.

[Matsume]

PART IV. TECHNICALLY SPEAKING:

ARR Launch

I have a question about promoting ARR's official release. Is it possible to promote ARR at the upcoming London MCM from Friday May 24th to Sunday May 26th at the Excel Center? Gamespot UK always have a Q&A demo space set up there for the weekend and it would be a great way to get some promotions done for FFXIV.
I'm being very serious, a mixture of live beta gameplay and Q&A at this event would do great.

Will the game client be available through Steam digital distribution?

Will there be a special FATE that everyone gets to participate in at launch?

There is a caveat in the beta roadmap stating that some progress from open beta may not be able to be carried over to the retail version. Could you share with us what some of those things might be?

Will ARR have any presence at March's PAX East? SE could make it a very interesting weekend with ARR's beta being underway, as well as the new XI expansion launching a few days after.Better yet, will Yoshi-P himself make an appearance?

Will SE be planning to release ARR as a digital download for new players through websites like Amazon, Steam or Gamestop?

If there are any new bonus items for purchasing/preordering A.R.R.(lets say like for PS3), will we be able to register the bonus item to our existing 1.0 created character?

I haven't heard any mention of it lately so..... Will 1.0 players still make it in the credits as previously stated?

How will our existing character first log in to ARR at launch (or Beta 4/Open Beta, if that is the case) - will we have to select a server or, will we arrive on our existing server? If we will have to select a server, will the server names be announced in advance?

How many Gigabytes size do you expect for Final Release client

Can we get clear information about this NPC that will hold your extra items if you were over the the 150 inventory slot cap.

Will we be able to explore Coerthas at launch?

Beta

Will the appearance change and remodeling of our old characters be available during phase 4 or will it be enabled at release?

Will our existing 1.0 characters be kept on the same servers for Beta Phase 4/Launch?

This might be a main question but no one asked it yet so, When will the beta launch?

Beta Testing:
Can we create a character for Beta Phase 1, play for a few days, then delete the character and create a new one for Beta Phase 1? Or, once we finish character creation are we locked into that character for the duration of Phase 1?

will at any point in the beta test arcanist be available?

Are the Alpha and Beta Clients different? Will previous alpha players need to delete what they installed and re-download and install another client for the beta?

What is the current date the Beta will start?

When will we be able to explore the revamped maps of version 1.0 areas other than Gridania and the Black Shroud, or possibly some completely new areas?

Will we see any improvement with the download client, or will I still need to monitor my connection all day downloading the beta?

How many Gigabytes size do you expect for Beta client

On behalf of all non-Legacy members out there:
Can we get a chart showing the number of Legacy members compared to the amount of people allowed in Phase 1 of the beta? It would be nice to see if there's any room left.

Will the Beta period be compatible with Windows 8? Will FFXIV 2.0 be compatible with Windows 8?

Collectors Edition

Will there be a Collectors Edition available to purchase for FFXIV ARR?

And will there be any special way for old CE holders to get it (e.g. discount on the full physical copy/only the digital part of collection available for download)?

Will there be a collectors edition like FFXIV v1? I hope so cause i love collecting FF stuff and am more than willing to purchase it.

What are the current planned items to be included in the Collectors Edition of ARR?

Is there going to be a new collectors edition? and if so what will it contain? will it be better then the 1.0 one?

If you have the 1.0 CE and you make a new character in ARR will you recieve the bonus items on that character aswell?
Or will they be stuck on my old character?

Controls

Will the default FFXIV:ARR UI and controls allow PC players to use the keyboard without the mouse?

Will there be set default settings for special controller like the official ff14 controller in ARR like there was in 1.0?

If possible would you show footage of you controlling your character with mouse and keyboard using FFXIV ver1.0 control scheme. It was said that this option would be added for us M+K users instead of the 'global mmo' strafing style.

Economy/Market Wards

do you have any plans on how to correct the economic instability created by the carry over? and are any servers which will be 100% fresh starts with no carry over allowed for new players to feel confident starting on?

Will the market wards of the different cities ever be combined into one interlinked facility combined over all of the worlds? One economy over the entire game that will ensure constant supply and demand at all times of day and night on all worlds?

Will we have an Auction house or Market wards? How will the system work? Is it linked among the different cities? How will it allow for quick and easy buy/sell functionality?

The market wards and retainer system was one of the most frustrating experiences of 1.0 for me and many other people. Can you tell us more about how you will be changing this system for ARR?

With player housing being in seperate instances, the special add-ons to housing, and the massive congestion in the market wards, is there a possibility of being able to station a retainer at our homes to sell goods in a small stand out front? If this is at all feasible, it could reduce the market ward congestion significantly, as well as give players a real reason to wonder around the housing areas. Imagine visiting a famous free company's headquarters to buy the rarest loot, or stumbling onto a tiny house owned by an expert crafter that has all kinds of rare things for sale.

Graphics/Processing

What are the plans for system and graphical upgrades in the future? Will we be stuck with the current graphics and software/server structure 10 years from now or will these things be regularly assessed and upgraded as new technology/techniques become available?

Note that this question has nothing to do with PS3 limitations but a general concept of willingness to upgrade the game on all consoles/computers/gadgets/etc over the years.

What kind of options can we look forward for those with higher end machines? Like the graphical milestone update (DX10/11).
subliminal message: including grass. Flora and Fauna

Are there plans to have Final Fantasy ARR or future FF in 3D?

Is there any way we'll be able to see rag-doll style physics for corpses in ARR?

How are the development team planning for the future in terms of hardware changes, new standards in graphical quality among competitors and so on?

We heard last time that the next milestone is DirectX 11 compatibility - how is this going to be managed alongside the PS3 versions? I'm asking from a PC player viewpoint but I imagine that the PS3 players might be less than impressed if say, the PC version continued to get improved graphically whereas the PS3 is neglected, and vice-versa.

Will there be a x64 bit version for the ARR?

I have a low memory GPU would be great to use my system ram for processing.

1. Will physics be expanded on for something more than light swaying of hair and cloth?
2. Is there the potential for Oculus Rift support in the future? See also: Lockergnome

I'll have more questions later, but just tossing these out there for now.

To help the players that are getting Motion Sickness (乗り物酔い) from the Alpha Camera shown so far, will you give us the Option to Adjust the Camera Speed / Smoothness in the final game?

With the new graphical and server systems, will it be possible to introduce full flowing capes in 2.0? It was said that this wasn't feasible with the old systems, that it would be too hard to do capes that flowed and fluttered (like the already existing flags in Limsa), but the new systems seem to counter many of the problems of old.

At what stage of completion are shaders for the new engine?

I’m a Survivor and you know it

Will the survivor mark be avaible during the last phases of beta?

Are you going to put for sell the Survivor T-shirt you used in last live letter?

I think it's very cool that we'll get a survivor mark. However, I plan to make my lalafell a male miquo'te in ARR. Will my character still have a survivor mark? Or is that only going to be available to me if I keep my character the same exact way?

Legacy Members

When will Legacy members submit their names for the FFXIV 2.0 credits?

Will there be more chances to obtain legacy status if you missed out the first time?

Will the battle animations for charecters improve in Beta better than Alpha's battle animations? Alpha's battle animations seemed a bit lifeless. I can understand if they dont improve in the first phase, having the release of all races.

Linkshells

Can you tell us the exact number of the new size of Linkshells and how a community larger than 100 should go about setting up a Free Company?

Will it be possible in ARR to place linkshell logos on shields or other gear?

^ This
and even more specifically...

#1 We know that Linkshells are going to be treated as chat channels, as such is there a limit on how many people can be in a linkshell chat channel in ARR? Will the linkshell membership continue to be limited to only 128 people, or will it now be unlimited because it is merely a chat channel?

(personally I'm hoping it will be unlimited because we've have a large linkshell membership and would like to not have to make multiple shells just to include everyone.)

#2 Its understood that Free Companies are going to take over being more "event" and "endgame" type content groups and it was said that 100 was the limit on the amount of members (which is less than the amount allowed in a current ver 1.0 linkshell). Again taking into consideration that we have a fairly large current linkshell community, is there any plans to increase that number, or to allow formal alliances between Free Companies?

Will the Linkshell system have an option for removing players even if they are not logged in to the game?

I know this was an issue on several of the Linkshells I was on since some members got tiered of the game and quit with no word to others, all the wile there spot could have been given to a dedicated player and the only option was to break and remake the Linkshell

Music

Will the chocobo music be changed to something a little less boisterous? Will we have the option to choose between different "moods" of the theme, or have an option to turn it off and enjoy a zone's music while on chocobo-back?

I really just feel the chocobo music in 1.0 and the alpha was very over-the-top for 90% of the reasons I got on one.

Also, will the goobbue mount music remain in the game? In addition, will other mounts have their own music?

New Players

Is there going to be more of new player selected to join the beta? or most of player in beta will be only legacy player?

Can you tell me about if there's any plan to welcome the new player into ARR? Is there any thing like free to play trial?

Playstation

How do you respond to criticism from those that believe the PS3 hardware is holding back the developers from adding features such as additional hairstyles.
After 10 years FFXI has finally dropped support for PS2 and now is able to perform critical overhauls to systems such as the UI. Which were previously impossible due to 'PS2 limitations'
What assurance can you give that FFXIV will not suffer the same fate ?

Will ARR be playable on the PS4?
This will have a great impact on player-base if the PS4 is released in the next year, due to people trading in their PS3s to buy a new console.

Will there be anything for the PSVita such as cross-play or remote-play? Not a standalone Vita version, but something that works with the PS3 version.
For instance: playing the ps3 version using the psVita as a controller with a touch screen keyboard, inventory, map, etc... Or, remote play for playing on the go.

Will players that have a PS3 code attached to their account be able to get the PS4 version for a discounted amount when it comes out?

When (yes when, not if) the PS4 version is developed, will it simply be a port of the PS3 version or will the graphics be scaled up to take advantage of the new hardware?

Have your recieved the specs for the Ps4, and if so, would you all look to port of ARR if its built to be more user friendly for developers than the Ps3 was?

There was 2 codes that came with my FFXIII game case. Will both of these work for PS3's exclusive access too the ARR beta in phase 4? I could of used the wrong one if only one works.

Can I play on PS3 with EU SE account and US PSN account?

What will the requirements be for PS3 players?

When will pre-ordering the game (collector's edition and/or normal version) be available for the PS3 version? What bonus gear/items might be available with said pre-orders?

With the Ps3 version, will you still be able to earn Playstation Network trophies if you have been an existing player on PC and intend to spend time playing ARR on both PS3 and PC.

Will there be a Final Fantasy XIV style Playstation console released at retail?

Smart Phone Aps

Is there a plan to release a Final Fantasy XIV Realm Reborn application in the smart phones such as Iphones and Android systems? where we can view our quests logs information, chat with the linkshell members, view the auction house and further more, use it as a security token instead of the device!?

What are the plans for mobile gaming and apps in 2.0's future? On what sort of machines and which operating systems (Android or Apple or something else?) may such things be available, when will they be available, what will their functions/activities be, will they cost money, etc. Also, will using such devices and apps be required to meet the standards of the average player within the game or will it simply be something optional on the side?

Servers

Could you tell us more about the regional servers? And what kind of effect will it have on us?

Has the plans for server transfer for old characters been finialized and if so what are the details on this. Like will old characters get one free pass to move to an old server? I know that old characters can not move to new servers at the time of release.

It has been mentioned that Regional Servers will allow us the choice of playing with players of our own language/region or another region. However, with friends that were made in 1.0 in other region will I be able to communicate with them in 2.0 through cross-server chatting? Will I be able to build parties with friends on other servers through the content finder or is it strictly random selection only?
Is selecting a Regional Server a hard set choice that cannot be changed?

How will our existing character first log in to ARR at launch (or Beta 4/Open Beta, if that is the case) - will we have to select a server or, will we arrive on our existing server? If we will have to select a server, will the server names be announced in advance?

It is going to be possible to add players from other server to your friend list when you do cross-server content and be able to chat with them?
I would like to know because I could be in a different server and still be able to chat with them and do some content too.

User Created Content

GREAT HOPES: I have always been a fan of user created in-game content. Would you consider a developer toolset for ARR, where players could download and edit the 'skin' of ones own character (example: adding unique war paint to the face and body, or something stupid like an evil clown face)? There are not enough unique presets currently IMO.

For advanced users of Photoshop, some of us could also have fun experimenting with the look of character clothing and perhaps weapons !!!

The possibilities to engage the ARR community are endless! Later, perhaps 5 yrs from now the toolset would allow uploads of user-created dungeon raids, treasure chest animations, or new primal battles. OMG I'm rambling ....

UI Customization

Can we have more information on UI customizations? can we turn elements off not just action bars but maybe things like the mini map or inventory icons.

Will it be possible to choose a different type of inventory interface such as list or briefly titled item icons? If not naturally, will it be possible to do this with the add-ons people could make for the game?

Can we have more information about UI add-ons? What kinds of add-ons will people be able to make?
I'm thinking in terms of charts, rolling graphs, and other ways to visualize log data, similar to some utilities from that MMO that shall not be named.

When A Realm Reborn was announced, you showed the following "concept" screenshot:

When you compare them with the latest screenshots, a few things are different:

For instance, i don't see the Character Titles like "Dragonslayer" and "Materia Hunter" as well as the Linkshell / Free Company reference like "@FF14" around the nameplates anymore. Also the party roles "T1", "A2" "C5" have been replaced with the class/job icon. Can you tell us more about that?

Question#10
Will I be able to draw on my map and place markers?

Will the new interface require the use of a mouse at any time, or will it be possible to play with just a keyboard?

Whats is the Dev team most interested in testing in the upcoming Beta?

My apologies if this has been asked:
Can we get some sort of a notification process when someone from your friend list logs on or off?

Choices...what are the possibilites of having more choices in ARR, especially when it comes to the UI (menu based vs action bar/icons)?

If it proves impossible to create a menu style UI for XIV, will it be possible to use a gamepad for the mouse and keyboard UI as opposed to the PS3 UI.

I remember a long time ago, some talk that player-made addons will be usable in ARR. Will the FFXIV team be releasing a dev kit for the add on creators to use?

Voice Chat

Will be there some way to communicate between PS3 and PC in the future using a voice chat system supported by Square Enix?

Will you not build an in-game voice chat feature ever?
Third party programs are totally fine though.

[Matsume]

PART V. MISCELLANEOUS:

Miscelaneous

After official release what is the first thing you will do Yoshi-P? Start work on the expansion or enjoy the master piece that you and the team made? ^_^.

Is Ruki single?

You've mentioned earlier that Arrows will be abolished in A Realm Reborn. If so, what does the "Pack" slot (bottom left) hold? A (Gobbie) bag which will increase your inventory space perhaps?

Will we be able to re-obtain any lost/discarded AF gear? (Either through doing the quests again, or simply talking to an NPC)

We will be able to get a official baby behemoth plushie some time in the future =o?

Since there is an NPC based off of Yoshi-P, can we have one based off Soken? Like a BRD that sings songs about knee socks Or an NM Hyur, whom upon defeating drops a pair of knee socks

If you guys could put one feature into the game that you personally wanted to see in an MMO, what would it be?

Will we be able to obtain a Mentors Status in 2.0?

A while back you instructed your staff to play other mmorpgs, have any of them or you tried FFXI reccently?

Will we be seeing any in game sports soon? Such as Ballista or Blitzball! And if so would we be able to customize our own team uniforms and banners?

Hi,I will be moving from place to place over the next few years. Currently people were having their accounts suspended very easily for different IPs. How does you plan to handle people who access the game from different IPs in the future?

Will path companions be in the new version? And will they be usable in the standard game, and will we be able to control and upgrade their gear? Will they also have adventure content of their own, ie quest for a new ability or command function?

Will there be any sort of account based sharing of items or banks of some kind? If I wanted to move something from one character on account A to a different character on account A, an account B had to play middleman in trades with a maximum of 4 slots. This was cumbersome at best... With legacy and premium players having 8 character slots per world, I expect many will employ the use of mules even if they hadn't previously. Even without mules but simply role-playing with different characters may require the sharing of rare items between characters on a single account. As such, a much more manageable system for this would be appreciated.

Game Codes

will ingame item codes that we get from buying the game, like the garlond goggles, continue to effect all characters in that service account even for the future item codes that are bound to be released? Or will it follow the FXI route of only going to one character?

Will it be possible to claim/reclaim account tied items via moogle mail delivery? For example, items connected to codes that were previously only available on characters made after entering the code like Onion Helm or promotional items like Hermes Shoes.

If you have the 1.0 CE and you make a new character in ARR will you recieve the bonus items on that character aswell?
Or will they be stuck on my old character?

Longevity

will ARR be a mmo where we can live and play in it for years like ffxi or will it be a toss away mmo like most mmo's being released?

if this game bombs like all the other mmo's out there(or even if it doesn't) do you have any plans on going back to ffxi routes and bringing us a mmo like ffxi ever again?

So far there have been mentions of things common to other games such as housing, pets and breeding, common job types, FATE's (someone said there were similar things in GW2 and other games, though I'm not familiar with those things personally), pretty graphics, raids, etc. What revolutionary content do you have planned that will really set ARR apart from all other games? Something that can only be found in this game and not as a mishmash of features from other games we've seen many times before.

Though I will be judging ARR on its own merits, it certainly doesn't exist in a vacuum. What elements do you think make ARR a more engaging and worthwhile experience to rival, current-gen MMOs like Guid Wars 2?

Marriage

Will the Marriage Quest be implemented at launch?

Has the team decided on whether or not to incorporate same sex marriage at launch?

Has there been any decision on whether or not same sex characters are going to be allowed to marry in-game?

Missed Quests

If you already have a job unlocked from 1.0, will it possible to complete the quest for that job? I don't like missing out on story content, even if it doesn't make sense to be handed the Healer's Robe I already have.

Will it be possible to do any of the new story/class quests even if we completed all the previous class quests in 1.0? For instance, if I completed all the class quests for Gladiator back in 1.0 would it be possible for me to do new the ones if the story/questline has been revamped?

New Mobs

Having seen the sneak peek of the return of the Mandragora, can we expect to be graced once more by the beautiful presence of the Dhalmel?!

Will moogles be present in A Realm Reborn in any capacity other than mail carriers?

I'd very much like my own pet moogle.

Can we see Horses play larger role in ARR rather then just odin such as...

I don't think its been asked or if it has then oops but...I know its been hinted. pointed at, and talked about but can i look forward to in the future,Running away from a slow moving, lantern waving, knife holding, little fish like death machine? Aka the Tonberry? lol

Trains

Could you tell us more about the train system? Are they connected to all major city or any new city in the future?

Train transportation! Will it be available for use/testing during beta? If not during the beta test will it be available for the release?

Also will the train be a CS like the airship rides were in 1.0 or will it be more like an actual ride with a nice setup like this maybe?

or this

Will the train transportation if available at beta or release (assuming it is not going to be a CS) have monsters to fight at some point like a random encounter (like the pirates that every now and then showed up on the boat rides in FFXI)?

Also is there a chance of Doom Train to be tested during beta? Maybe as a F.A.T.E. encounter where it pulls up to the station or along side it instead of the normal train.

[Starlord]

Actually, Having this "Organization" will help SE out.

[Lady]

Thank you Matsume for all this work! Having it organized like this is awesome!

[Matsume]

how bored are you.

I prefer the term "Motivated"

I'm skipping out on League of Legends to compile this.

And I get no "Thank you"s? Ungrateful...

[Matsume]

Thank you Matsume for all this work! Having it organized like this is awesome!

You, miLady, are welcome

[AdorraEloom]

Will there be voice overs for all main story cut scenes? And not just a selected few at the start/end?