Ask Your Questions for Letter from the Producer LIVE, Part V!

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?

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)

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?

will the game gonna have hardcore stuff

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

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?

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?

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.

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?

I post on behalf of a friend, who is unable to join us on the forums:

1) 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?

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

Question:

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

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

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.

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

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?

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Originally Posted by HopeOnArope

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?

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I see this question and wonder if the dev team may have considered doing something like blitz ball as a pvp event. Allowing pvp teams to join up with pre determined stats based on positions or units and create a pvp experience that would go beyond simply killing each other.

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

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

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Originally Posted by Dzian

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)

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I know this question can't be answered yet because that would spoil the story, but I'd like to see this, too. I want the writers to find a complex way to make us question not only or purpose, but our very existence. Chains of Promathia and Wings of the Goddess did that very well.

....OH! Right. A Question. Um....

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?

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.

As a Marauder, I have lots of axes. I'd like to show them off.

How many Gigabytes size do you expect for a) Beta client b) Final Release client

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"?

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?

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.

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.

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?

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Originally Posted by Molic

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?

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omg this please.

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?

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?

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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

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