announcement showcase!

[Yencat]

Maybe even show new Viera and Hrothgar hair (to go on the Mogstation, mwahahah!)

Go wash your mouth out with soap.

[Cidel]

Go wash your mouth out with soap.

Mmmm. It burns of lemony freshness.

[Destati]

I imagine that since this is supposed to be the FanFest replacement they'll be announcing expansion related things, either everything they would have announced across the three FanFests, or they'll be staggering out over several announcement streams.

I'm just trying to temper my hopes/expectations for anything related to male Viera/female Hrothgar and general updates on those races... admittedly it is stupidly difficult for me to do so.

[Fredco191]

* Cinematic trailer for the next expansion? (Since they can't have the fan fest due to current events they'll probably show it there. Who knows? Maybe it'll just be a name drop.)

* A hint towards one of the new classes?

Hmm..

[Khalithar]

It's going to be the next expansion announcement, the question is how will they spread it out? Since the fanfest was cancelled they can't spread it across three presentations at fanfest or maybe they will this time.

[Anhra]

I'm excited to see how they'll dumb down healers even more! Maybe they'll get rid of their dots and their 1 attack this time!

And that one attack spell that remains becomes a toggle spell that autocasts instantly oGCD every few 10 seconds or so.

[Theodric]

I'm hoping we get a decent amount of information to digest and work with. I think we're at the point in the game's development cycle where if it's serious about being relevant in the long term...it needs to start shaking things up a bit more and being bolder about what it sets out to do.

[Jin-]

I'm hoping for some technical improvements and graphics updates including more character customization

[Shougun]

I'm hoping we get a decent amount of information to digest and work with. I think we're at the point in the game's development cycle where if it's serious about being relevant in the long term...it needs to start shaking things up a bit more and being bolder about what it sets out to do.

I'm hoping for some technical improvements and graphics updates including more character customization

I don't mean this as literal, although it could be, but more metaphorically if FFXIV is going to be their long term "no intention to make another mmo" mmo then I do hope they begin to incorporate some cataclysm like thought processes. Which is again to hit upon more that metaphorical representation as WoW has clearly shown their willingness to rebuild systems both technical and gameplay based while also updating their graphics (both future and past, and to point out technically WoW has done this then and continues to do this - it's just more of a pinnacle example and spiritual archon of the imagery). It might be fair to paint certain gameplay changes positively or negatively based on your bias, that part is more in the air and personal interpretation of what's fun, but say for example the team looked at glamour system and said "wow that is going to be extremely difficult" and so they dedicated an entire team to solving just that problem (and WoW's glamour log is substantially better than FFXIV's, and pretty good in general, although you might point out other mmos that do have better ones).

It could be a cheeky joke but Yoshida has made hints at future systems before that came to fruition very similarly to as said in the past, and so when he jokes about a cataclysm like event, at least I personally believe, that it also might be a cheeky hint rather than just a joke - as he has on /multiple/ occasions talked about dropping another dalamud.

If the game is going to begin it's cycle out like FFXI, which happens to be approaching the age that FFXIV took FFXI's place (~10 years), then eh whatever cataclysm I guess isn't really that important, but if they're like "FFXIV, FFXIV 6 more years, FFXIV 10 more years, FFXIV forever" then I do hope they start showing signs of igniting the core forges more often rather than just the peripheral forges that build on top of whatever is existing. Which again doesn't mean a literal cataclysm "just like WoW, just like FFXIV 1.0" has to happen, but those hyper engines charging rather than the regular thrusters. Assuming they're going to keep FFXIV as their flagship mmo for a significantly longer period of time at least, maybe in / around the end of 6.0 after delivering some stellar sort of conclusion to the MSQ of FFXIV they introduce the next mmo (and then after FFXIV would likely continue to get expansions but each one would also likely be self contained experiences, just like FFXI wasn't immediately abandoned after FFXIV 1.0 or even FFXIV 2.0).

[Lauront]

I don't mean this as literal, although it could be, but more metaphorically if FFXIV is going to be their long term "no intention to make another mmo" mmo then I do hope they begin to incorporate some cataclysm like thought processes. Which is again to hit upon more that metaphorical representation as WoW has clearly shown their willingness to rebuild systems both technical and gameplay based while also updating their graphics (both future and past, and to point out technically WoW has done this then and continues to do this - it's just more of a pinnacle example and spiritual archon of the imagery). It might be fair to paint certain gameplay changes positively or negatively based on your bias, that part is more in the air and personal interpretation of what's fun, but say for example the team looked at glamour system and said "wow that is going to be extremely difficult" and so they dedicated an entire team to solving just that problem (and WoW's glamour log is substantially better than FFXIV's, and pretty good in general, although you might point out other mmos that do have better ones).

It could be a cheeky joke but Yoshida has made hints at future systems before that came to fruition very similarly to as said in the past, and so when he jokes about a cataclysm like event, at least I personally believe, that it also might be a cheeky hint rather than just a joke - as he has on /multiple/ occasions talked about dropping another dalamud.

If the game is going to begin it's cycle out like FFXI, which happens to be approaching the age that FFXIV took FFXI's place (~10 years), then eh whatever cataclysm I guess isn't really that important, but if they're like "FFXIV, FFXIV 6 more years, FFXIV 10 more years, FFXIV forever" then I do hope they start showing signs of igniting the core forges more often rather than just the peripheral forges that build on top of whatever is existing. Which again doesn't mean a literal cataclysm "just like WoW, just like FFXIV 1.0" has to happen, but those hyper engines charging rather than the regular thrusters. Assuming they're going to keep FFXIV as their flagship mmo for a significantly longer period of time at least, maybe in / around the end of 6.0 after delivering some stellar sort of conclusion to the MSQ of FFXIV they introduce the next mmo (and then after FFXIV would likely continue to get expansions but each one would also likely be self contained experiences, just like FFXI wasn't immediately abandoned after FFXIV 1.0 or even FFXIV 2.0).

In terms of my hopes? I'd agree, and I also agree with your comments on how this all pivots on whether they intend for XIV to be there for the long haul, or take a backseat to a newer MMO. But I'm going in with very muted expectations... even as to the trailer.

What I'd like to see is for them to expand and improve upon character customisation, primarily.

Bonus points would be Zenos dying off rather quickly in the expansion; a darkness-based caster, be it Time Mage, Necromancer, whatever; good new abilities and playstyle twists for existing jobs (esp BLM/SMN, which I main); more variety in harder content (e.g. dungeon challenge modes); and finally seeing derplander in some caster job in the trailer. But most of those relate to things I don't expect them to touch on until the later fanfests.