Welcome back, Shy. We're glad to have you back.

Quote Originally Posted by alexi14 View Post
What I'm wondering is this. Are these people who have max level, are they going to be skipping all this new content, and jumping straight into the high level content? Will the world be recognizable? Do you think we will need to essentially re-learn everything we know about FFXIV.
I think you raise a valid concern. When they change the core battle functions -- things like the effects of certain actions, the spells available to mage classes, and enmity generation -- we're going to end up with a lot of rank 50s that have to relearn their classes. Everyone -- including the r50s -- will be trying out their abilities all over again.

And I do think that there are holes in the lower level content that need to be filled. That's kind of the Catch 22 for SE. We've had nothing to do except level, so we've leveled pretty hard. Now they're trying to give us more stuff to do other than just level grind. But because we've spent the last 10 months leveling, many players won't be able to enjoy the new lower level content.

So it's a difficult situation. They have to add new lower level content to improve the experience for new players, but that potentially upsets the existing players. And if they only create content for the existing (high level) players, the game won't appeal to new players. It's a difficult balancing act for SE.
It seems to me that we're going to be playing a completely different game, and the only thing that won't be changing is our class ranks! I mean, is it me, or is this really fascinating to think about? Are there things we should be doing now before we lose the chance later? Example: I heard grade 10 fishing spots are leaving. Fish it up now?! Other things like that.
The two big things that I can think of are grade 10 fishing nodes, and leve linking.

Grade 10 fishing nodes are going away. But on the other hand, they're going to be increasing the SP you get from gathering. So maybe it will even out.

However, leve linking is apparently getting seriously nerfed. Leves are going to be primarily solo content. After the next update, it seems pretty likely that you won't be able to get 80,000 SP per reset just by linking the same leves with your party. So leve link while you can.

This is just speculation, but it also seems pretty likely that some abilities -- like Thaumaturge's Emulate -- will be nerfed. There hasn't been any confirmation of this. But I suspect that Thms should enjoy the current version of Emulate while they can.
Um, is there any idea when the level cap will be raised?
I don't remember seeing anything about this, except one of the devs saying in an interview that they want to raise the level cap every 1-2 years.

I've always suspected that they were going to raise the level cap -- and give us an expansion of areas, like Ishgard -- when they do the PS3 release. But I don't think there's ever been confirmation of that.

And at this point, I don't think anyone knows when the PS3 release is coming. Personally, I think it's probably about a year away. I'd be really, really surprised if it happened in the next 6 months.

The problem with not raising the level cap is that the main storyline quest (LIGHT SPOILERS AHEAD) doesn't resolve everything. (Trying to be vague to avoid spoilers.) It's clearly intended to continue after rank 46, which is the currently the last storyline quest.

As of right now, it seems pretty likely that it's going to be at least a year between the when I did the last storyline quest, and the next one I see. The next portion of the storyline is probably going to have to start with some "Previously on FFXIV" scenes to remind us what happened.
Gosh, the more I think about it, the more I think.. FFXIV just might be okay. It really seems like it's turning around. Could some of you tell me what you see realisticly happening? Based off of the information we know, any speculations on what the future FFXIV is going to be like, AND does ANYONE know when the level cap will raise?
Personally, I think FFXIV will be ok. But the horizon for this game has been extended way out.

For most games, you start with a big influx of players, and then it's just a matter of how many of those players stick around for the long haul. But with FFXIV, I think it's going to be quite different. It's got to concentrate on getting better, so it can slowly grow its customer base back.
i'm so excited!
I'm excited that you're excited. Glad to have you back.