New interview from JP 4gamer site

Big thx to Reinheart for the translations :)

A well known character will be introduced to the game? Must be Cloud :3

and thank you, you sexy translators you! I'd hug you if you were on Wutai.

If you're not on wutai then here is a /huggle for you now!

Maybe they will manage to make me stay in the time limit I set them after all.

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Originally Posted by Zenaku

at least someone see that the people higher up is the reason for the game and i also blame crystal tools it seem like they having issue working with it,.

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It was pretty obvious Tanaka was used as a scapegoat.
There is no way it was his decision to push out the game earlier, one could have seen it just by looking at his expression in the later vids (or like me, at gamescom), it wasn't one of a man who was pleased with the situation.

Though at least him stepping down had the effect that the dev team became more open to the community, which is a good thing. Else they'd continue to wrap themselves in silence and we would never know how much the engine is limiting them.

Thanks for the effort OP. Nice work.

of course no mention of Auction house, mog house, mailbox, chocobo's, or airships

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Originally Posted by VydarrTyr

Thanks so much to Reinhart and Rentahamster for the translations. You guys rock.

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this is the exact same thing i was going to say. a big thank you to you both. great job and it was very much appreciated.

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Originally Posted by Draco

of course no mention of Auction house, mog house, mailbox, chocobo's, or airships

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Except for "airships in 1.19", nope, no mention of airships nor anything else irrelevant.

And thank god for that.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

Except for "airships in 1.19", nope, no mention of airships nor anything else irrelevant.

And thank god for that.

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What? Explain yourself.

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Originally Posted by giftforce

What? Explain yourself.

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The servers, the engine, the combat system, the area design, the economy, the class system, and the UI all need a major rework.

Nobody should be doing anything else before these issues are addressed completely. Building another floor to the building when the foundation is rotten would be insane, regardless of if all the other buildings in the neighbourhood all have 3 floors each and a nice backyard.

Especially when the only people who care about another floor are few homeless people who aren't even paying for the rent, much less paying the expenses to build the second floor.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

The servers, the engine, the combat system, the area design, the economy, the class system, and the UI all need a major rework.

Nobody should be doing anything else before these issues are addressed completely. Building another floor to the building when the foundation is rotten would be insane, regardless of if all the other buildings in the neighbourhood all have 3 floors each and a nice backyard.

Especially when the only people who care about another floor are few homeless people who aren't even paying for the rent, much less paying the expenses to build the second floor.

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Your a bit wrong there. It's more like we are residents who paid down payment for a new luxury apartment but only to realize after having paid and moved in, as you put it the building " foundation is rotten" and the owner can't repay that initial payment. To make up for this mistake, the owner is letting everyone live there for free until the foundation is fixed and it becomes a luxury apartment again.

The reason i use the word luxury is most ppl had to pay a lot of money to upgrade their systems to be able to play this broken game, on top of having paid for the game itself. I also wouldn't consider any of us homeless who can't pay, since everyone who bought the game, bought it under the assumption it would be p2p, only to realize how broken the game was. Who in their right minds would pay for an apartment that is broken and has a "rotten foundation" when the monthly fee for a brand new one is the same?. ppl who paid the down payment is left with 2 choice, accept your loss and leave or believe the owners words, that he would repair and wait patiently.

Also you normally don't pay the plumber to do the roofing or build the 3rd floor, you call separate specialist for each repair. In a similar fashion there is a team working on the battle aspect, one for the UI, one for the story and so on; they can easily work on more then one thing. Unless they plan to let the plumber do the roofing and the 3rd floor. if that's the case, he can only do one thing at a time and i doubt this building will ever get finished in time, and even if it does, doubt it'll be proper.

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Except for "airships in 1.19", nope, no mention of airships nor anything else irrelevant.

And thank god for that.

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Well, everybody's entitled to her opinion.
Even if she's in the minority.

No, I think he's wrong because a building's foundation is constructed in order to support the levels above. So consideration, if not, prefabrication of the subsequent levels need to be made in conjunction with or perhaps even before the foundation is laid.

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Your a bit wrong there. It's more like we are residents who paid down payment for a new luxury apartment but only to realize after having paid and moved in, as you put it the building " foundation is rotten" and the owner can't repay that initial payment.

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Except we were taken for a free tour beforehand, where we could see with our own eyes the rotten foundation. The presenter did not try to hide it, but mentioned that the walls are going to get painted before the apartment is sold.

In addition many major news sites came to review the house and gave it horrible scores, which the homeless people chose to ignore- the walls were going to get painted after all!

So, in the end people got what they foolishly paid for, but that wasn't enough to make up for the cost of building the house and it's upkeep- so now the owner is working on fixing the flaws to make the house attractive to new residents again. They may as well let the fools live in the apartment during that time, since they are working on the new elements elsewhere which will then be inserted to the apartment stage-by-stage.

Analogues are such fun.

Either way the point still stands. You don't build new floors before the foundation supporting it is fixed and stable. Trying to do both at the same time is retarded in more ways than one, too.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

Except we were taken for a free tour beforehand, where we could see with our own eyes the rotten foundation. The presenter did not try to hide it, but mentioned that the walls are going to get painted before the apartment is sold.

In addition many major news sites came to review the house and gave it horrible scores, which the homeless people chose to ignore- the walls were going to get painted after all!

So, in the end people got what they foolishly paid for, but that wasn't enough to make up for the cost of building the house and it's upkeep- so now the owner is working on fixing the flaws to make the house attractive to new residents again. They may as well let the fools live in the apartment during that time, since they are working on the new elements elsewhere which will then be inserted to the apartment stage-by-stage.

Analogues are such fun.

Either way the point still stands. You don't build new floors before the foundation supporting it is fixed and stable. Trying to do both at the same time is retarded in more ways than one, too.

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You can't just blindly build a foundation for a game without knowing what you intend to implement.

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Originally Posted by giftforce

You can't just blindly build a foundation for a game without knowing what you intend to implement.

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So they don't know whether they are going to implement a delivery box and chocobos after the foundation is dealt with?

OK, lol.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

So they don't know whether they are going to implement a delivery box and chocobos after the foundation is dealt with?

OK, lol.

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The manner in which SE intend to deal with Airships suggests that it will be more complex than simply moving to an instanced location with a moving background (see FFXI) and will likely require forethought rather than tacked-on afterthough. (Airships were one of the things you originally listed as irrelevant).

Anyway, most games develop things in unison because it is more efficient than developing things one after the other.

SE admitted communication was a big issue for them, so maybe they prefer the one-tracked mind method of development because coordinating multiple tasks is too much of a logistical nightmare for them.

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Originally Posted by giftforce

Anyway, most games develop things in unison because it is more efficient than developing things one after the other.

SE admitted communication was a big issue for them, so maybe they prefer the one-tracked mind method of development because communicating multiple tasks is too much of a logistical nightmare for them.

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The combat, the class system, the UI, the servers, the engine, the economy, the areas.

Everything mentioned above is developed in unison, and yes, it is efficient.

And everything above is part of the rotten foundation, which needs to be addressed first.

That doesn't mean they aren't considering features that come after the foundation is fixed. But they aren't a priority for development and should not be.

Either way, the "rotten foundation" consists of more than one feature and SE has made clear that they are working on multiple (read: not ALL) tasks at once. The ones mentioned above.

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

The combat, the class system, the UI, the servers, the engine, the economy, the areas.

Everything mentioned above is developed in unison, and yes, it is efficient.

And everything above is part of the rotten foundation, which needs to be addressed first.

That doesn't mean they aren't considering features that come after the foundation is fixed. But they aren't a priority for development and should not be.

Either way, the "rotten foundation" consists of more than one feature and SE has made clear that they are working on multiple (read: not ALL) tasks at once. The ones mentioned above.

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exactly and one of those multiple tasks they are working on is airship, and that's words from the big guy himself, so ppl should stop complaining. one of the things you listed above is "the areas" and SE seems to clearly understand the areas need to be fixed and create a purpose for ppl to travel to LL or Grid. The sudden mention of airships, and the fact it was brought up in a post regarding areas and the economy of the other 2 cities suggest that the ships themselves might have something to do with how SE plans to fix the area and the economy in LL and Grid so we should just wait till we hear more information then reject airships so quickly

Thanks for taking the time to translate OP ^^

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

The servers, the engine, the combat system, the area design, the economy, the class system, and the UI all need a major rework.

Nobody should be doing anything else before these issues are addressed completely. Building another floor to the building when the foundation is rotten would be insane, regardless of if all the other buildings in the neighbourhood all have 3 floors each and a nice backyard.

Especially when the only people who care about another floor are few homeless people who aren't even paying for the rent, much less paying the expenses to build the second floor.

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the only one of those things that is foundation in an rpg is the area design, the foundation of the game is the engine, and online is the servers. The truth is battle class system etc, are not the foundations of an rpg. Just because you do something a alot doesnt make it a foundation.

the foundation of any rpg is progression, story and adventure. you can swap any and many battle systems in. Alter it, change it, add to it whatever, its not required.

the foundation of something, is something every building has, and cannot do without, without not being a building.

The fact is battle class systems and econmoy are all features, and they are things they can change on the fly as long as they have the other things. You could litterally swap out the entire battle system from one ff title to any other, battle is just a feature of an MMO, and it is a feature they decided to do first because they wanted to. In fact neither the class system nor the battle needed a complete rework for this game to succeed. It does however need content.

At this point all they are building is leveling game, and a battle game. I have played rpgs where you tell people to attack, and you see a flash, and a pixel image shakes. that is not the foundation of the game.

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Originally Posted by Physic

the only one of those things that is foundation in an rpg is the area design, the foundation of the game is the engine, and online is the servers. The truth is battle class system etc, are not the foundations of an rpg. Just because you do something a alot doesnt make it a foundation.

the foundation of any rpg is progression, story and adventure. you can swap any and many battle systems in. Alter it, change it, add to it whatever, its not required.

the foundation of something, is something every building has, and cannot do without, without not being a building.

The fact is battle class systems and econmoy are all features, and they are things they can change on the fly as long as they have the other things. You could litterally swap out the entire battle system from one ff title to any other, battle is just a feature of an MMO, and it is a feature they decided to do first because they wanted to. In fact neither the class system nor the battle needed a complete rework for this game to succeed. It does however need content.

At this point all they are building is leveling game, and a battle game. I have played rpgs where you tell people to attack, and you see a flash, and a pixel image shakes. that is not the foundation of the game.

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Battle system is one of many foundations of RPG's. How the mobs are created, how to beat them, how they react, how you react to their attacks, spells, abilities, how to traverse through dungeons and clear stages, etc. Is based on the battle capabilities of your character. So if you were to suddenly swap a battle system for another, you would need to redo the design of a dungeon, how monters deal attacks, cast spells, activate abilities, you would need to redesign how your character clears dungeons. One of the main content-related features an MMO has, revolves around battles. Seeing all these ramifications (me listing just two, shows how fundamental a battle system is.) is quite obvious Yoshida and his team decided to do the right thing. I am no game developer, I just play the games, I dont understand how, based only on common knowledge, can you say what part of a game is fundamental or not. If you are indeed a professional game developer, my apologies.

Edit: What makes me, a person who is not a Game developer, be so sure that is a fundamental part. Well, the FFXIV Director/Producer said so. So why not?

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Originally Posted by Physic

the only one of those things that is foundation in an rpg is the area design, the foundation of the game is the engine, and online is the servers. The truth is battle class system etc, are not the foundations of an rpg. Just because you do something a alot doesnt make it a foundation.

the foundation of any rpg is progression, story and adventure. you can swap any and many battle systems in. Alter it, change it, add to it whatever, its not required.

the foundation of something, is something every building has, and cannot do without, without not being a building.

The fact is battle class systems and econmoy are all features, and they are things they can change on the fly as long as they have the other things. You could litterally swap out the entire battle system from one ff title to any other, battle is just a feature of an MMO, and it is a feature they decided to do first because they wanted to. In fact neither the class system nor the battle needed a complete rework for this game to succeed. It does however need content.

At this point all they are building is leveling game, and a battle game. I have played rpgs where you tell people to attack, and you see a flash, and a pixel image shakes. that is not the foundation of the game.

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"Gameplay mechanics are not the foundation of a game."

Cool story, bro.

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Originally Posted by Holland

Battle system is one of many foundations of RPG's. How the mobs are created, how to beat them, how they react, how you react to their attacks, spells, abilities, how to traverse through dungeons and clear stages, etc. Is based on the battle capabilities of your character. So if you were to suddenly swap a battle system for another, you would need to redo the design of a dungeon, how monters deal attacks, cast spells, activate abilities, you would need to redesign how your character clears dungeons. One of the main content-related features an MMO has, revolves around battles. Seeing all these ramifications (me listing just two, shows how fundamental a battle system is.) is quite obvious Yoshida and his team decided to do the right thing. I am no game developer, I just play the games, I dont understand how, based only on common knowledge, can you say what part of a game is fundamental or not. If you are indeed a professional game developer, my apologies.

Edit: What makes me, a person who is not a Game developer, be so sure that is a fundamental part. Well, the FFXIV Director/Producer said so. So why not?

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He knows they're the foundation, he's just one of the people who firmly believes just because it's FFXIV, an RPG and Yoshida, Battle System is no longer a major part of an MMORPG and yoshida is wasting his time "doing nothing" instead of catering to his needs. I mean, if my RPG was titled "Battle Arena" and I spent 99% of my time battling, I'm pretty damn sure the foundation of that game would be the battle system. If my game is called Street Fighter and I spent most if not all of my time fighting, I'm pretty sure the fighting system is the game's foundation.

If my game is called Dance Dance Revolution, pretty damn sure the rhythm mechanic is the foundation of the game. If I'm playing an MMORPG where you have to progress through killing and leveling...I'm damn sure the battle system is a big part of the foundation and no one plays MMOs just to read/hear dialog, they play to fight and get loot, even the most jaded cynical soandso can't argue this.

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Originally Posted by Draco

of course no mention of Auction house, mog house, mailbox, chocobo's, or airships

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Auction house un-needed. Mog House they already mentioned they have something in the works soon, mailbox is honestly unneeded, most MMOs that have one people barely utilize and it's largely used by RMT anyway. Unless you mean a delivery box, i.e retainers sell something and you get the money or item, yeah they already mentioned that would be happening. They also mentioned by 1.19 they hope to get Airships functioning.

Do you even read? Or just skim then complain?

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Originally Posted by Cyan

However..I dont see Cid really coming in. I dont see any place where a "Cid" figure would be appropriate at the moment. Maybe in Ishgard.

Edit: Cant read at 1am in the morning too well. So Cid IS coming in??
Very interesting..

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From what I've seen, read, and played... Cid (the engineer/pilot/mechanic/ so on, so on, so on...) seems like he'd be an engineer for the Garlond Ironworks or something. Doesn't necessarily imply he's a bad guy, even though he's been one in a past FF title, since other innocent Garlond Ironworkers have fled from Garlemald in the popular sidequests in each main city. However, it is possible, he flees from there too and comes to one of the major cities in an update or what not?

I don't think he'd be in Ishgard, since all the Ishgardians are Elezeen, as far as I know. But who knows for sure?

Yoshida posted again. Letter next week, seems to talk about guildleves in further detail.

Nice to hear that. Hope someone has spare time to translate it also. Looking forward to the letter from the producer ^^

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Originally Posted by Elexia

Mog House they already mentioned they have something in the works soon, mailbox is honestly unneeded, most MMOs that have one people barely utilize and it's largely used by RMT anyway. Unless you mean a delivery box, i.e retainers sell something and you get the money or item, yeah they already mentioned that would be happening.

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That brings up thoughts of contract boards, where people put up contracts for items they want, and what prices they are willing to pay for it. Crafters come along, look through the list and make what they want, turning in the finished item gets them the payment. I know that you can seek items in the bazaars, but as I haven't used the market wards search feature all that much, I don't know if you can search for what people are seeking, or even for people looking for repairs. Can you?

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Originally Posted by Gunghir

Reinheart, you rock man! Thanks for taking the time to share this with us!

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Originally Posted by Betelgeuzah

Yoshida posted again. Letter next week, seems to talk about guildleves in further detail.

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we should get a long producer letter from him this week. also for airship dont expect too much on individual map, right now they are working on it as quicker method of transportation with changes to it in the future.

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Originally Posted by Reinheart

we should get a long producer letter from him this week. also for airship dont expect too much on individual map, right now they are working on it as quicker method of transportation with changes to it in the future.

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I assumed that's the route they would take. A placeholder for transportation and then fleshing out the aesthetic part of it later. Makes sense since it seems that with companies we might have to travel to different areas for assignments. Hope the Airship travel is not restricted to cities only and includes the platforms in the field. If this is not the case, I will rage quit! (WHY SE!!? WHY!!?)

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Originally Posted by Reinheart

we should get a long producer letter from him this week. also for airship dont expect too much on individual map, right now they are working on it as quicker method of transportation with changes to it in the future.

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i think the airship way will be :

airship>zoning> airship fly with cloud far away> zoning>exit airship.

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and includes the platforms in the field

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it's platforms for the small airship actually in the game (but not accessible)

Yoshida is still online and Typing away in the Japanese Forums! at 1:38am his time! @.@ that guy needs some sleep...

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Originally Posted by Holland

if he is typing right now, wouldn't that put him close to 2 PM monday? I think hes in the office at the moment

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2pm monday? Lol. learn the time.

It's not 2pm monday ANYWHERE

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Originally Posted by Starlord

Yoshida is still online and Typing away in the Japanese Forums! at 1:38am his time! @.@ that guy needs some sleep...

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Sleep‽ What's that? He's riding high on NoDoz or whatever the equivalent is in Japan.

Hehe, Holland its quite alright mistakes happen. but nearly 2am on the Forums? he's up to something "probably typing the Long Producer Letter XII" for tomorrow perhaps?

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Originally Posted by normalforce

That would put Japan either 2 hours or 26 hours ahead of me, as I'm sitting pretty on the East Coast of the US. I believe Japan is around 13 hours ahead of me.

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Yes, in my mind I had japan as 24 hours + =/

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Originally Posted by normalforce

That would put Japan either 2 hours or 26 hours ahead of me, as I'm sitting pretty on the East Coast of the US. I believe Japan is around 13 hours ahead of me.

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I Is on the East coast too! :D "Listening to FFX Besaid Island theme.. :D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxJE6SSX-aw

It's 5am where I live and im trolling the forums just like yoshi and you dont see me getting a medal for it. Pfft.

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Originally Posted by Elexia
Mog House they already mentioned they have something in the works soon, mailbox is honestly unneeded, most MMOs that have one people barely utilize and it's largely used by RMT anyway. Unless you mean a delivery box, i.e retainers sell something and you get the money or item, yeah they already mentioned that would be happening.

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I can't wait for whatever they have planned for player (or even LS?) housing, sounds great. However, I am not really sure what you are implying with deliver/mail box or really see much of a difference between the two? I understand what you mean about possible exploits, but this has been my problem with some of SE's game design policies. You don't cut off your foot because you have an ingrown toenail (normally). Thats like Amazon permanently disconnecting from the internet as a way to avoid viruses and hackers. In their case its counter-productive because they are an internet business, but in our case its often counter-productive to the enjoyment of the game. Got off on a bit of a tangent, but the point is that you don't inconvinience your playerbase with specific game mechanics to fix security issues, you find stronger security measures that do not hamper gameplay.

As for having a DB/MB system, I definately support them including one at some point. This would not just be used to get things from the AH or retainers or what have you. I used the DB/MB systems quite heavily in other MMOs to pass out currency/consumables/ and sometimes gear to fellow LS/Guild mates.

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Originally Posted by Reinheart

we should get a long producer letter from him this week. also for airship dont expect too much on individual map, right now they are working on it as quicker method of transportation with changes to it in the future.

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So basically it wouldn't be like the XI Airship in other words. And for a very long time we can expect nothing like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzBhu...eature=related

to happen.

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Originally Posted by Elexia

So basically it wouldn't be like the XI Airship in other words. And for a very long time we can expect nothing like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzBhu...eature=related

to happen.

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How do we know it won't be like the ffxi airships?

Also, it's probably easy for SE to make an instanced airship cutscene/fight using recycled assets, more so than making the actual airship and programming it to fly around eorzea.