Monthly dev team Q&A?

[Runespider]

Just curious if anyone else and indeed Square reps here think this would be a good idea.

In the past we used to get questions answered by the dev team in interviews etc, is there any chance the staff of the forum could formulate a monthly list(or every 3 months) of what they see as the important questions players are asking for on the forums on a monthly basis?

I know we get some feedback here but it's usually just on the stuff they are currently working on and even then it rarely goes beyond just saying what it is etc.

Stuff I would like answered for instance would be what pop system they plan to use for new HNM, if they see Abyssea entry level of 30 damaging the amount of people LFG outside of abyssea and whether a full expansion is ever something that could happen again for FFXI.

I like the new interaction of these forums and how updates seem to be more of what players actually want but the old Q&A lists were good in that we got some questions answered that were actually what a lot of people wanted to know.
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Questions:

1.Will there ever be new full Expansion packs for FFXI and if not are there plans to implement a lot of Abyssea style content from now on, maybe a trio every 12 months?. New content keeps games living and if they don't plan to add more they will see big drops in the population in the not too distant future, mainly cause they destroyed all "keep em playing" content. Indeed did Abyssea 1,2 & 3 sell well and were they a financial success?

2.Since most af2 from Dynamis and relics have been made pointless now, what is the point changing Dynamis? Especially since there will be no new gear there, surely making such major changes warranted new gear or a way to improve AF2, maybe a +1, +2 system for relic?

3.Merits, since Abyssea totally destroyed merits as a goal isn't it time to add new merits and indeed this time take into account how easy XP is and increase the difficulty of obtaining them? FFXI has destroyed so many of it's players long term goals it's not even funny.

4.Is there any chance of a new kind of relic/emp/mythic system at 99 that will be somewhere in between getting a relic and getting an EMP. Emps are way too easy to get and the other 2 are junk.

5.Will there be proper Maat style difficulty fights for level caps after 90? FFXI really needs something like this. Getting a handful of crests is so pointless they might as well remove the cap quest completely if no thought is going to go into them.

6.Will there be increases in crafting caps and new good gear being craftable, crafting is currently dead and pointless. Why have such an intricate crafting system and destroy it?

7.HNM, will the upcoming HNM be spawned like Fafnir, Tiamat, Sandworm, Dark Ixion etc or be a force pop or some new system?

8.Whats the plan for future FFXI? More Abyssea type content or trying to take the game back to how it was before?

9.Will there ever be a time when FFXI creates content JUST for PS3,PC and Xbox and although keeps supporting PS2 stops making new content that is chained to that format? Players will update to new consoles if there is a good clear reason to.

10.Are there any plans to help the party system outside of Abyssea <70, Abyssea leeching has destroyed the number of people that used to create parties. The impression the party system gives to anyone returning or new to the game is attrocious. One of the best things about FFXI leveling was the party system, something that has been destroyed. Now it's either FOV solo or leech in abyssea.

[kingfury]

I think this would be huge on these boards, and would be even more huge if they made a special forum spot for just this sort of thing.
Of course I would be so inclined to request behind the scenes videos of certain processes like character/monster creation, story development and art, animation etc., interviews with individual Dev members and more lol. This would be awesome though. I can just see the In-Game /server messages now prompting players a week in advance in regards to the upcoming Dev Q&A date ^^ I'm sure there would just have to be interpreters doing their thing in real time to get quick responses to every language and such, but that wouldn't be too tough. FFXI online Q&A Panels on the forum space = Yes Please!

[Runespider]

Added some questions to the OP.

[Crocker]

The Q&A from the twitter most were made up questions that were never asked and never a question that was needed to be answered like the mass wrongful bannings that happened in 2009. (not the Salvage bans) I'm still trying to get my account back.

If they would take real questions I am all for something like this but for made up questions then no don't waste our time.

Q: As a regular visitor to the official site, I think it'd be more logical to switch the order of the Topics and Information sections and have urgent news appear at the very top.

A: In light of the official forum's imminent launch and its intended function, layout changes are being considered for the official site. We expect to be able to reveal detailed information regarding this in the very near future, and ask for your patience in the meantime.

Q: "???" targets currently serve the dual function of triggering events as well as popping NMs. As a way to help adventurers distinguish between these two uses, would it be possible to change all monster pop locations to "!!!" or some such?

A: While we believe that introducing the "!!!" target as suggested would greatly improve ease of adventuring, obstacles have been identified that render its implementation unfeasible. Not only is there a staggering amount of applicable "???" targets that would require adjustment, the existence of numerous situational "???" locations makes straightforward conversion nigh impossible. We sincerely apologize for being unable to fulfill this request.

There's 2 examples of questions that were never asked and didn't really need to be answered.

[kingfury]

Perhaps they could open a Q&A Thread for a limited time before the monthly Q&A Panel would occur, that allowed us the opportunity to submit questions which would then be translated. I think this would be a more practical solution vs having live translators do it in real time for all the questions that would pour in. This would also give them time to further sort together all the questions, and combine similar topics throughout the many questions, as there is sure to be multiple questions that ask the same thing.

Still, it would be very cool to have the Dev Team virtually "Live" on the message boards if only for a day or two out of the month to answer those hard questions. So perhaps it could be a bit of both "submitted" and "Live" questions.

[Malamasala]

I'd spam a Q&A thread to oblivion. Having had the same questions for 10 years and nobody ever asking them on SE's event Q&A sessions. There has to be some way to get SE to explain why spirits have been useless for 10 years straight. I've even stopped caring about using them, I just want to know WHY it ended up this way.

[kingfury]

I'd spam a Q&A thread to oblivion. Having had the same questions for 10 years and nobody ever asking them on SE's event Q&A sessions. There has to be some way to get SE to explain why spirits have been useless for 10 years straight. I've even stopped caring about using them, I just want to know WHY it ended up this way.

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The good thing would be once you get your answers/explanations from the Devs, there's a high chance of getting some form of closure to those burning questions. I truly believe it would make the lives of the Community Reps a lot easier since month after month, the FFXI community would get straight answers to all the concerns expressed on the boards daily. Eventually there would be an "Answers Thread" to reference finally that would compile all the many answered questions on the dozens of FFXI related topics. I could only imagine the view count on such a thread lol

[Crocker]

They could post a monthly thread for questions and the questions with the highest "Like" number could be addressed, As long as they avoid stupid questions that could get "Like" button way up by noobs, like why isn't there any Cheesecake...
Kind of how the Cheese Sandwich came into the game. lol