Cait Sith in Action :D

[Antanias]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5QvU04SnSI

I was hoping we could see it use some special abilities, but something's better than nothing :D

[Okipuit]

I see you discovered the video before I could even tell you about it... :(

This is indeed the new Cait Sith video that we mentioned was in progress. Please keep in mind that this is still quite early in development and is rough footage, but we wanted to give you guys a first look! Enjoy. :)

[Infidi]

She's so tiny! Daaaaw what a cutey patootie that can kick arse. :D Love the sound effects she makes when attacking. Should totally have her theme as the battle music when she's summoned! :D

[Antanias]

I see you discovered the video before I could even tell you about it... :(

This is indeed the new Cait Sith video that we mentioned was in progress. Please keep in mind that this is still quite early in development and is rough footage, but we wanted to give you guys a first look! Enjoy. :)
Someone on Guildwork found it and I thought I would help ya out here Oki :D

[Demon6324236]

Its nice to see, just seems saddening that its "still quite early in development" when it was supposed to already be on the test server. None the less, its nice to see its getting some work & has not been completely forgotten.

[shigen]

Oh man, that 15 seconds of auto attack was simply enthralling.

[Vagrua]

I look forward to the day it is released.

[Scuro]

It's a start, but would of loved to at least see some kind of special move lol

[Kincard]

I'm trying to think of a way to say this so it doesn't sound like I'm trying to be a jerk/unthankful (Though I have every reason to be that way since I'm paying for this game after all...), and I'm coming up short, so I'll just go ahead with it:

Why did it take something like a year and a half to take a model that already existed (Including the combat moves) to be repackaged into a different file for player use?

[Kriegsgott]

Why did it take something like a year and a half to take a model that already existed (Including the combat moves) to be repackaged into a different file for player use?

because anyone of them was bored enough to add this finally to the summon function

[Thelona]

It does look like a copy/paste 5 min job just to have a video ready, I doubt it was being worked on at all.

[Secondplanet]

now what? we'll have to wait 5months before moves get added to the test server, another 3-4months before it gets added to the game and they'll make it some god awful quest that requires a whole alliance.

All i have to say is this avatar better have decent abilities and not just a show piece.

[Caketime]

now what? we'll have to wait 5months before moves get added to the test server, another 3-4months before it gets added to the game and they'll make it some god awful quest that requires a whole alliance.

All i have to say is this avatar better have decent abilities and not just a show piece.

in b4 it's the most irritating thing you've ever experienced in FFXI for a novelty reward that you'll stop using shortly after acquiring.

[Dohati]

fluffy feline fistcuffs! ^^ adorable! real talk though... better be useful... <.<

[Scuro]

in b4 it's the most irritating thing you've ever experienced in FFXI for a novelty reward that you'll stop using shortly after acquiring.

AKA Odin.... and now with the updates, Alexander

[Babekeke]

If it turns out that it has the same BPs as the Cait Sith in the WoTG Battles (the animations for which already exist) and SE are still too busy to add them to this avatar, I'm going to be a sad bunny.

[Kristal]

Looks like it's a full blown MNK, with the punches and kicks. Hmm.. maybe if I glue to some of it's fur onto the Harlequin automaton, I'll have a MNK maton to brofist with!

[Phogg]

now what? we'll have to wait 5months before moves get added to the test server, another 3-4months before it gets added to the game and they'll make it some god awful quest that requires a whole alliance.

All i have to say is this avatar better have decent abilities and not just a show piece.

The funny thing is your time frame is probably overly optimistic.

[Cowardlybabooon]

You guys have really crappy attitudes. They didn't have to post the video, but they did it as a courtesy with a disclaimer that it won't be much yet. SE has done a ton of work on a ton of projects and they have already explained that completely revamping both the old and new "2 hour" now 1-hour abilities will push some things back. It will also completely change how we handle all content in the game, so I would actually prefer that they take their sweet time. Not to mention they're building a FULL expansion simultaneously. Assuming it the expansion will be something more like ToAU than WoTG, I imagine it's an outrageous amount of work and requires a large sum of money and resources. Take your BS about paying for this game somewhere else and realize that they have been adding massive overhauls and new content every 2 months for the last year. 13 bucks is just beer money anyways.

[Zagen]

You guys have really crappy attitudes. They didn't have to post the video, but they did it as a courtesy with a disclaimer that it won't be much yet. SE has done a ton of work on a ton of projects and they have already explained that completely revamping both the old and new "2 hour" now 1-hour abilities will push some things back. It will also completely change how we handle all content in the game, so I would actually prefer that they take their sweet time. Not to mention they're building a FULL expansion simultaneously. Assuming it the expansion will be something more like ToAU than WoTG, I imagine it's an outrageous amount of work and requires a large sum of money and resources. Take your BS about paying for this game somewhere else and realize that they have been adding massive overhauls and new content every 2 months for the last year. 13 bucks is just beer money anyways.
You have no clue what you're talking about. If you did you'd understand why people are outraged at the video because it is something that could have been done in 5 minutes time. When supposedly cait sith and atmos have been in development for 2+ years, even if they were on the back burner you'd think there'd be more than 5 minutes worth of work shown in the video. I'm being generous with the use of 5 minutes by the way.

[Cowardlybabooon]

It has been in the plans for 2+ years, not in the process of being implemented for 2+ years. Nobody is going to play the game for any substantial amount of time because they added a new avatar. Revamping Dynamis, Nyzul, Limbus, Salvage, and adding Meeble Burrows and Legion however, have added countless hours of playtime for the entire player base. Not to mention they probably didn't want to consider adding the new avatar until the level cap had been 99 for a while and they understood the content and how each job was able to participate. And I don't think you, me or anyone else on this forum knows what the process is like for creating a new avatar within the 10 year old extremely limited engine of FFXI. And you still have a crappy attitude.

[Zagen]

It has been in the plans for 2+ years, not in the process of being implemented for 2+ years. Nobody is going to play the game for any substantial amount of time because they added a new avatar. Revamping Dynamis, Nyzul, Limbus, Salvage, and adding Meeble Burrows and Legion however, have added countless hours of playtime for the entire player base. Not to mention they probably didn't want to consider adding the new avatar until the level cap had been 99 for a while and they understood the content and how each job was able to participate. And I don't think you, me or anyone else on this forum knows what the process is like for creating a new avatar within the 10 year old extremely limited engine of FFXI. And you still have a crappy attitude.

Keep going you're making it obvious you don't know what you're talking about. As to "programming" what you saw in the video, I'd enlighten you but then my post would get deleted, like I said for what they did 5 minutes worth of work is a stretch.

More than likely the truth is that they have 1 guy handling all the programming issues which is why everything is getting delayed, implemented buggy/broken, or written off as "working as intended".

I have a crappy attitude because I know when I'm getting shoved "crap" and being told it's awesome.

[Damane]

You guys have really crappy attitudes. They didn't have to post the video, but they did it as a courtesy with a disclaimer that it won't be much yet. SE has done a ton of work on a ton of projects and they have already explained that completely revamping both the old and new "2 hour" now 1-hour abilities will push some things back. It will also completely change how we handle all content in the game, so I would actually prefer that they take their sweet time. Not to mention they're building a FULL expansion simultaneously. Assuming it the expansion will be something more like ToAU than WoTG, I imagine it's an outrageous amount of work and requires a large sum of money and resources. Take your BS about paying for this game somewhere else and realize that they have been adding massive overhauls and new content every 2 months for the last year. 13 bucks is just beer money anyways.

you do know that FFXI money is flowing towards FFXIV and other project and thats why we are getting lackluster updates lately and things get pushed backwards constantly due to this. This is the reason people are rageing totally over. We are currently paying for the development of FFXIV, I wouldnt be surprised if Seekers of Adoulin gets pushed back too...

[Phogg]

It may only be $13 a month, but annually that's about the price of 3 new video games at retail. Considering how many "content updates" have been rehashed old content over the last few years, I think people are wondering where the value in that cost is right now. This sort of thing just offer a point to highlight that frustration.

[Zagen]

It may only be $13 a month, but annually that's about the price of 3 new video games at retail. Considering how many "content updates" have been rehashed old content over the last few years, I think people are wondering where the value in that cost is right now. This sort of thing just offer a point to highlight that frustration.
To provide a better idea of why people think the "beer money" of $13 should be getting us better updates/progress, lets actually look at it from a player base perspective as a whole.
Servers: 16
Players per Server: 1,000 (low number imo but gives you an idea)
Monthly Fee: $12.95 (let's pretend no one has extra characters)

Now for the math, I'll keep it extra simple!

$12.95 * 1,000 = $12,950 * 16 = $207,200 a month

If anyone honestly thinks FFXI costs that much to maintain/update you're, um... uninformed, that's the nicest way I can say it.

[Cowardlybabooon]

To provide a better idea of why people think the "beer money" of $13 should be getting us better updates/progress, lets actually look at it from a player base perspective as a whole.
Servers: 16
Players per Server: 1,000 (low number imo but gives you an idea)
Monthly Fee: $12.95 (let's pretend no one has extra characters)

Now for the math, I'll keep it extra simple!

$12.95 * 1,000 = $12,950 * 16 = $207,200 a month

If anyone honestly thinks FFXI costs that much to maintain/update you're, um... uninformed, that's the nicest way I can say it.

I don't want to continue flame warring over this because people's minds aren't going to change, but how could you call people uninformed about that. $207,200/month in revenue is not going to buy you too many $100k/year computer programmers after all benefits and costs are considered. In your defense, there are way more than 16,000 active accounts. According to the 2012 census which doesn't say how many total accounts there are, there are actually over 16k people who have Relic weapons. 10,000 of which were obtained in the last year.

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/guide/development/census/11/4.html

You may be right though, they may have just forgot about Cait Sith and recently been randomly reminded when some dude in a board room was like "Hey guys what about Cait Sith and Atomos" and the Dev team was like "Oh shit! We did forget about that! Eddie get on that, next subject."

Edit: Correction, yes that's 16,000 relics, not 16,000 people with relics, but still implies a large number of players given that my best estimate would be a generous 50% of people have relics these days.

[Secondplanet]

i'd say from personal experience the reason i'm pissed is they can pump out new bst pets like no ones business but when it comes to summoner we've been frozen in place since lvl 75, this was going to be our first break since then. Even our avatars are stuck in the past with no new attacks and with lack luster buffs compaired to whm/sch we don't really stand out anymore.

[Demon6324236]

Well, for the most part avatars are unique beings, that are made just for the SMN who summons them, where as BSTs bring out pets of which are already in the game as mobs, just reused for BSTs to use. This however, is not the case with Cait/Atomos, where they were in the game, and are now being summons, which is why this excuse does not hold up nearly as well. But as for BSTs getting alot of pets & SMNs getting few avatars, this is probably the reason.

[Zagen]

I don't want to continue flame warring over this because people's minds aren't going to change, but how could you call people uninformed about that. $207,200/month in revenue is not going to buy you too many $100k/year computer programmers after all benefits and costs are considered. In your defense, there are way more than 16,000 active accounts. According to the 2012 census which doesn't say how many total accounts there are, there are actually over 16k people who have Relic weapons. 10,000 of which were obtained in the last year.

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/guide/development/census/11/4.html

You may be right though, they may have just forgot about Cait Sith and recently been randomly reminded when some dude in a board room was like "Hey guys what about Cait Sith and Atomos" and the Dev team was like "Oh shit! We did forget about that! Eddie get on that, next subject."

Edit: Correction, yes that's 16,000 relics, not 16,000 people with relics, but still implies a large number of players given that my best estimate would be a generous 50% of people have relics these days.
The work being done on FFXI is at best being handled by 2 full time programmer (assuming they're good) so 1 month covering 2 programmers yearly income, again assuming they even get paid 100k/yr. If you think all or even most programmers make 100k+/yr I hope you aren't going into game programming because you'll be in for a big surprise.

The problem with looking at relic numbers is if you bother to check character ranking on FFXIAH.com you'll see a lot of players have multiple relics. Quick /sea all showed 1,232 on Bismarck so unless that's actually the everyone online at the moment then my numbers are indeed on the low end.


i'd say from personal experience the reason i'm pissed is they can pump out new bst pets like no ones business but when it comes to summoner we've been frozen in place since lvl 75, this was going to be our first break since then. Even our avatars are stuck in the past with no new attacks and with lack luster buffs compaired to whm/sch we don't really stand out anymore.

Well BST pets are just toned down versions of actual monsters. Cait Sith would take longer since it isn't a straight "port" over, it's not like cait sith is already in the game and has tp moves already programmed, oh wait...

[Babekeke]

To provide a better idea of why people think the "beer money" of $13 should be getting us better updates/progress, lets actually look at it from a player base perspective as a whole.
Servers: 16
Players per Server: 1,000 (low number imo but gives you an idea)
Monthly Fee: $12.95 (let's pretend no one has extra characters)

Now for the math, I'll keep it extra simple!

$12.95 * 1,000 = $12,950 * 16 = $207,200 a month

If anyone honestly thinks FFXI costs that much to maintain/update you're, um... uninformed, that's the nicest way I can say it.

Not to mention peoples mules. Even at 2 mules per main, that's an extra $2 per person. Pushing it straight up to $240k, and numbers are likely at least twice that per server if they were all on at the same time, so closer to $500k.

[Kristal]

You have no clue what you're talking about. If you did you'd understand why people are outraged at the video because it is something that could have been done in 5 minutes time. When supposedly cait sith and atmos have been in development for 2+ years, even if they were on the back burner you'd think there'd be more than 5 minutes worth of work shown in the video. I'm being generous with the use of 5 minutes by the way.

You were expecting a fully functional avatar? Animation-wise Cait Sith has a lot of work done, but they still need to add backstory, quests, balancing, etc. Most of which is done behind the scenes. And they got a LOT of food on their plate right now. It has some abilities, but how many of those can be used directly? At what level? Is it overpowered or underpowered? Which NMs would be critically weak against it? What about the remaining pacts that need to be added for a 'regular' avatar? What needs to be done to prevent another Perfect Defense debacle?

Face it, if the avatar is too strong, people cry nerf. If it's too weak, people cry garbage. If it's just right, people cry pointless. It doesn't matter what they do, some people are never satisfied.

[Zagen]

You were expecting a fully functional avatar? Animation-wise Cait Sith has a lot of work done, but they still need to add backstory, quests, balancing, etc. Most of which is done behind the scenes. And they got a LOT of food on their plate right now. It has some abilities, but how many of those can be used directly? At what level? Is it overpowered or underpowered? Which NMs would be critically weak against it? What about the remaining pacts that need to be added for a 'regular' avatar? What needs to be done to prevent another Perfect Defense debacle?

Face it, if the avatar is too strong, people cry nerf. If it's too weak, people cry garbage. If it's just right, people cry pointless. It doesn't matter what they do, some people are never satisfied.

Why not expect functional? Walk, attack, and TP move animations are all in the game, the only animations missing are how it would appear and disappear when summoned which even then it has animations that would work. Seeing the TP moves being performed has nothing to do with how much damage they will do, what buffs they will get, or how Cait Sith's quest line will get incorporated. Had they done that, it would have shown they were willing to put forth more than a few minutes worth of work into showing progress on something that has been talked about for 2+ years. Check other forums and you can see just how hacked together that video really is.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

I see you discovered the video before I could even tell you about it... :(

This is indeed the new Cait Sith video that we mentioned was in progress. Please keep in mind that this is still quite early in development and is rough footage, but we wanted to give you guys a first look! Enjoy. :)Now all we have to do is wait for the next expansion to get it. Even though it has nothing to do withthat expansion.

[Logandor]

So um.... >.> would this avatar be one we would have to go to WoE and do some silly quest to obtain? At least that is what I am thinking. If so then why do we have to wait for the next expansion to receive the new "toy" as for say if it is dealing with the past and not the new expansion. Unless they are making that new expansion have like a secret dealing with Cait Sith and WoE that we do not have any intel on. >.> hmmm....

Okipuit please give us some intel on why he is pushed so far back other then early stage of development. Is there like a programming error or just been shoved to the side for other things to get done for other jobs?

[Clou777]

She's so tiny! Daaaaw what a cutey patootie that can kick arse. :D Love the sound effects she makes when attacking. Should totally have her theme as the battle music when she's summoned! :D

they call me cuuutie, cutie patooootie, workin at the pageant and shakin ma booooty

[jake3614]

The fact of the matter is that 99.9% of what Zagen is pointing out is true. What he may be not also explaining is the fact that beta tests are done by players via the test servers now, where as they were done "in-house" previously. Promises of things like new avatars, airship battles, advanced UI, etc. have been put in place since RotZ expansion and never come to fruition. There's more re-skinned material now than before, which means that more stuff should be pumped out faster. Now, I understand the staff for FFXI has been reduced significantly to enhance FFXIV, but there's no reason that an avatar that is in game and functioning, not just a marionette that doesnt move, to take this long.
Even with the updates to the 2hour JA's, the new 1hour JA's, Meeble murbows, updates to dyna/NI/salvage/Legion, and such - why is the dev team wasting time on "let's take pics of mog houses and post them!" - there were more updates about this community event than there has been about content in the game for 6 months. To me, that's ridiculous. Re allocate those services/moneys to get back on the time line SE showed us and readjusted and readjusted and readjusted....
Cowardlybaboon, I'm not sure as to how long you've been playing this game or time invested, but personally after nearly 10 years and clamoring for all info released/I can dig up, I can say that the production value and implementation on FFXI has hit the plateau. Expect an announcement soon that SoA expansion to be delayed to second quarter of 2013, along with MAYBE 5-6 zones only being available total at the start.
As for the statement on Alexander's recent nerfs - Alexander was implemented awhile ago and new content has been implemented, i.e. level 99, therefore yes it does deserve to be nerf'd to compensate for this.

[Draylo]

Those community events aren't done by the developers who create content.

[vienne]

i like it, just for the fact that its nicer to look at then a random shaking galka butt.

[Cowardlybabooon]

It would be interesting if a community rep could tell us what their staff really looks like. People throw out numbers as if that information has been made public, and to my knowledge it hasn't been, nor is it a reasonable estimate in my opinion.

[Zagen]

It would be interesting if a community rep could tell us what their staff really looks like. People throw out numbers as if that information has been made public, and to my knowledge it hasn't been, nor is it a reasonable estimate in my opinion.
If you mean my numbers, they're based on taking a look at what's been done, and comparing it to what I have been expected to accomplish as a game programmer, and what has been expected of senior programmers. So if you don't think my numbers are reasonable then I guess American game companies far exceed the efficiency of SE. I've worked on teams as small as 1 programmer, 1 artist, and 1 designer (not counting the producers/project managers that oversee multiple teams), and if that team churned out stuff at the pace SE's "skeleton crew" has we'd have all been fired.

[Kincard]

This really isn't about how big the crew is, honestly. This video was literally something that would take any person who has dat-modded game files before maybe 5-10 minutes to make. It is a bit disheartening when the first thing they show of an idea that was mentioned nearly two years ago was something that was already in the game files...two years ago. I mean, show SOMETHING new at least. This is literally 0 work progress from when we've first heard about the avatar. :/

[Zagen]

This really isn't about how big the crew is, honestly. This video was literally something that would take any person who has dat-modded game files before maybe 5-10 minutes to make. It is a bit disheartening when the first thing they show of an idea that was mentioned nearly two years ago was something that was already in the game files...two years ago. I mean, show SOMETHING new at least. This is literally 0 work progress from when we've first heard about the avatar. :/

I wonder how long before your post gets nuked like the 3 that I saw actually pointing this out since this thread has been made.

[Infidi]

I know they probably had it already planned to do, but I feel abit guilty for asking to show a video at the very least. XD It's ok, blame me. :( Or that goblin in the video! Yeah, he's the real bad guy here. >.> <.<

[Secondplanet]

but when they released the original photo of this it looks like a player was running through south sandy past with cait sith in tow, for all we know they just dug up that test frame character and pasted in new zone.

[Chocobits]

This really isn't about how big the crew is, honestly. This video was literally something that would take any person who has dat-modded game files before maybe 5-10 minutes to make. It is a bit disheartening when the first thing they show of an idea that was mentioned nearly two years ago was something that was already in the game files...two years ago. I mean, show SOMETHING new at least. This is literally 0 work progress from when we've first heard about the avatar. :/

It's not the size of your crew. It's whether or not the ship stays in port long enough for all passengers to get off.