Letter from the Producer LIVE Part IV & Q&A Summary

[Antanias]

I wish someone would have asked them if all quest progress will be reset in ARR. For example, if I'm on the last part of "A Relic Reborn" (Ifrit Extreme) will I have to start all over when the game relaunches?

Non-Relic quests could be rolled back, we were told before A Relic Reborn would not be subject to that rollback.

[Skies]

I wish someone would have asked them if all quest progress will be reset in ARR. For example, if I'm on the last part of "A Relic Reborn" (Ifrit Extreme) will I have to start all over when the game relaunches?

At work so I cannot hunt the exact quote, however:
All current quests will have all their flags wiped, which means that if you were midway through a quest, it's been cancelled and you have to restart it. If you finished it, it stays finished.

Exception to this is the Relic Reborn quest, in which your progress in it will be saved in some way. Arguably they will be doing this manually, I do not envy the person in charge of that.

[leomike35]

I wish someone would have asked them if all quest progress will be reset in ARR. For example, if I'm on the last part of "A Relic Reborn" (Ifrit Extreme) will I have to start all over when the game relaunches?

They answered that on in a previous interview. The answer is you will be fine.

[jeterbot]

phew, thanks for the response guys

[Tsubarta]

The one bit that gets me is talking about Active Time Battle events out in the field. It more or less sounds like HNMing, but with a more "Random" edge to it in order to stop any one linkshell from monopolizing it. The problem is, unless it's truly random (Aspi can pop in West Ronfaure just as well as he could Valley of Sorrows or even Ro'Maeve), there will be a set pattern people will learn. They will then know when to show up to the zone, and have camper mules waiting out for them. In effect, nothing will change. Some stuff you just have to instance unless you want drama.

I kinda hope they make it dangerously random like that first example, because the thought of lowbies dying to an HNM out near bent branch en masse as the heroic high levels rush out to meet him in a frenzy of loot-hunger and bravado is too amusing to describe, and would certainly make a great impression of adventure/interest for the new players. Especially if the higher players raise them and are cool. A lot of stuff like that happened in XI early on, the ferry rides being invaded by pirates strikes me in particular. Major opportunity here, keeping my fingers crossed for something creative.

They have completely missed the point of the WoW style loot distribution system. Limiting the amount of "needs" you can have a week is pointless and will only serve to hurt a player's gear progression. Doing AV or CC as tank and darklight chest drops? Oh, too bad, you'd already needed on a lot of the new gear this week! Guess who can still need though? Timmy the Dragoon, and boy does he like the look of that armor for his level 25 Paladin. This will make people "cap out" on content early in the week and refuse to do it once their need has literally ran out. Not smart at all, no idea how it got past all that MMO research and trending they did.

Housing is super-interesting and going to stimulate the economy quite a bit, and likely add some life to older content in the form of trophies and other curiosities. I'll probably be using all of my fresh ARR character's gil to purchase a house with friends.

Free Companies are actually pretty ambitious when you get down to what they intend for them to be, but require a LOT of people and efforts to bear their fruit. I worry that they're being too optimistic with their player numbers.

I'm so happy that you can switch voice language in-game. I'll never have to hear those terrible attempts at cockney again, and Limsa Lominsa will never be a sight for anyone's sore eyes.

Extremely excited about Crystal Tower and Bahamut, probably the biggest thing to look forward to with how much effort they seem to be putting forward in it.

Man, that localized translation of the Viera question is leaps and bounds different. They're "Definitely considering it" instead of "maybe as NPCs in an expansion down the road". I like how they try to put the blame on North America; I guarantee you Japan is frothing out the mouth for bunny girls too.

It's very good that they already are working on additional storage that won't be directly tied to the player's active inventory, but I'm pretty amused that we're already dealing with PS2 limitations.

If I dyed myself all in yellow, I wouldn't look very cool

Yet you all made NPC's with awesome black and red chainmail armor. It's pretty obnoxious that the artist's personal taste is the limiter for an entire base of player's choice. That being said, dyeing AF is an exciting prospect.

VANITY SLOTS OH GOD YES. This is probably the game that needed vanity slots. I sincerely hope it's expanded significantly as time goes on to include almost every regular piece of gear, but AF to Darklight is an okay starting point.

Well, I'm glad I read the official translations. Lots of good stuff, couple of worrying things, but we'll see.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

To me, they have a lot of good features/additions with the new game. I'm really looking forward to all of it. I just want to build a small house for my character, but I don't want to spend all of my in-game money for it >_> I want it based on one of the beach houses I stay at on vacation.

[Warlock]

SMN's relic book looks awesome

[Preypacer]

They have completely missed the point of the WoW style loot distribution system. Limiting the amount of "needs" you can have a week is pointless and will only serve to hurt a player's gear progression. Doing AV or CC as tank and darklight chest drops? Oh, too bad, you'd already needed on a lot of the new gear this week! Guess who can still need though? Timmy the Dragoon, and boy does he like the look of that armor for his level 25 Paladin. This will make people "cap out" on content early in the week and refuse to do it once their need has literally ran out. Not smart at all, no idea how it got past all that MMO research and trending they did.

I thought the same thing when I read that. Yoshi-P is putting an awful lot of stock in the idea that "people will help others even if they can't get the reward they want for it". It seems bordering on naive optimism. There are people who will be selfless and do the dungeons to help others out regardless - but then those people would be doing that anyway, and they are by far a minority.

I think the idea of getting those other items that can be used to "purchase" armor is supposed to be the motivator. But if people are only interested in the best gear a Dungeon can offer - and an awful lot of people will argue that anything less than "the best" is a waste of time and effort - I don't think those tokens/what-not are going to inspire them.

Many... maybe even most(?)... MMO gamers these days play only for the reward. And that's it.

[Skies]

I thought the same thing when I read that. Yoshi-P is putting an awful lot of stock in the idea that "people will help others even if they can't get the reward they want for it". It seems bordering on naive optimism. There are people who will be selfless and do the dungeons to help others out regardless - but then those people would be doing that anyway, and they are by far a minority.

I think the idea of getting those other items that can be used to "purchase" armor is supposed to be the motivator. But if people are only interested in the best gear a Dungeon can offer - and an awful lot of people will argue that anything less than "the best" is a waste of time and effort - I don't think those tokens/what-not are going to inspire them.

Many... maybe even most(?)... MMO gamers these days play only for the reward. And that's it.

Given the information avaiable, what it seems that he is going to do is actually move he dungeon lockout timers from "entering the dungeon" to "getting drops from the dungeon".
For example, let's take current content and simply switch to this new system. Let's say CC that if memory serves me has a 30m lockout timer. Instead of having to wait 30m to be able to get inside the dungeon again, you'd have to wait 30m to be able to lot on the dungeon drops again. Except instead of "30 minutes lockout" it's "X times a week lockout".

Oh, and Tsubarta. I believe that Yoshida is probably going to work the FATE Events, at least the NM ones, how GW2 works with them. And here is the important thing here: There is no claim. Everyone can toss in their little bit of damage and help, and there will be rewards for everyone.
How, exactly, will those rewards work and how to avoid the guy that throws a rock and AFKs... Well, not sure how they'll handle that, but I think that the only thing we can do right now is wait.

[Seirra_Lanzce]

I can see a lot of people basing it on FFXI terms of F.A.T.E system, to me is look more better if the rewards is individual instead. Solving one of the biggest problem of Active Event, claiming statues and rewards. see GW2 Claw of Jormag, Tequatl the Sunless and the Shatterer, they are public events that many people can join in to defeat, and everyone can claim and get their own rewards = the most fairest of all, ofcourse with the GW2 scaling system, the more people, the more harder it is..

Just that one thing SE should do for this public events is the change of patterns, same patterns of play will be very bored. No matter how good it is.