Developers, SquareEnix: What are the REAL chances of us seeing NEW areas?

[Jykia]

id personalty like to see the Far East and maybe the Mithran home islands

[Kraggy]

I'm surprised at how many people who don't work for SE nevertheless apparently have access to their balance sheets and sales records.

Well, actually, we all do, since they just published their annual report that showed something like a $150m loss instead of the projected massive profit they forecast at the start of the year.

Yes, this is a small percentage of SE's cash reserves and clearly sustainable for a time, but they can't be happy about it.

[Rhianu]

One question I have is this: if the dev team is currently working on raising the level cap to 99, wouldn't there be new leveling zones to go along with that? Or are we just expected to stay in Abyssea areas clear until 99?

[Kogenta]

New areas are definitely in high demand and the development team is well aware of this. For the year ahead of us, the development team’s main focus is on raising the level cap to 99, the adjustments surrounding this, as well as the addition of content to go along with it. Due to this, the development team does not have any immediate plans to implement new areas; however, they would like to try their best to do so going forward.

I always tought that we would never see new areas because of PS2 limitations. Am i wrong?
It is hard to think that we are going to see new areas, since we are recently getting only reskins of old areas to save PS2 HD space. How is it possible to have new areas without leaving PS2 behind?

It's a serious question, not trolling or flamming for PS2 users intended. I'm just curious about how they are going to manage what have been a problem until now

[Arcon]

[..] It is hard to think that we are going to see new areas, since we are recently getting only reskins of old areas to save PS2 HD space. [..]

I hope I'm stating nothing wrong here, if so, feel free to correct me. But my understanding is that it isn't PS2 HDD space, but more the lack of time involved in creating new areas, since all the new zones, even if reskinned, are still stored seperately from the other zones on the hard drives.

[Zarchery]

Well, actually, we all do, since they just published their annual report that showed something like a $150m loss instead of the projected massive profit they forecast at the start of the year.

Yes, this is a small percentage of SE's cash reserves and clearly sustainable for a time, but they can't be happy about it.

Is that an itemized list? Last I checked, Square-Enix had multiple product lines beyond their two MMORPGs.

[CapnSavaHoe]

A lot of people are overlooking the most important part of the whole "no more support for expansions" arguement. It is a business, and businesses will always try to give the customers something to keep them hooked at the lowest cost possible. With that said, once the reskinning and reusing zones no longer has the ga-ga effect on the users, they WILL do what needs to be done in order to keep the cash flow coming in. It is not about "they don't have the resources", f%ck yeah they got the resources. Even if they spend 10M to address an upgrade to the game, they will at least make double that back in revenue; as long as the book does not dip into the red, they WILL keep making content for the game, just not the particular content people expect, just enough to give people that itch that keeps them coming back for more.

[Glamdring]

too bad they aren't on the menu, the new high level mobs in lower-level zones is a pain to anyone working on lower level content, like leveling another job. New areas would keep some of that away. yes, I know S/I... have you ever tried to open a coffer while invisible? other than the fact you can't it works fine! Need to fight the mob for an AF weapon? well let's hope it's in a clear area. check a ??? for a quest? Hope.

[CapnSavaHoe]

too bad they aren't on the menu, the new high level mobs in lower-level zones is a pain to anyone working on lower level content, like leveling another job. New areas would keep some of that away. yes, I know S/I... have you ever tried to open a coffer while invisible? other than the fact you can't it works fine! Need to fight the mob for an AF weapon? well let's hope it's in a clear area. check a ??? for a quest? Hope.

From what I remember, the mobs around the coffers for AF, RSE, and such are way higher than the lv at which you go to get them [if you go early or when you can actually equip them]; so adding higher level mobs is not that big a deal. Everything ties into balance, I guess that is why they lowered the exp you lose when K.O.'ed now.

[sruon]

never going to happen