Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

[Raydeus]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

I hope so.

As long as it doesn't affect the quality of expansions (or quantity of content in them) I don't really care if people starts buying gear from SE (CS included) for 10 bucks a pop.

[Feba]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

This is one of the reasons I like what EVE online does-- all of the expansions are included in version updates. You never pay for the software, just the access (monthly fee). Whereas SE could probably turn a profit by just having people buy the game and an expansion or two, CCP needs to provide people with a reason to keep playing in order to make any money.

It's not just ACP-- if TAU or COP or WTG cost you $30 to buy when they came out, that's half the price of a full retail game (more than half last gen, but that's not the point). Do you really think they spent half the budget of an average retail game on that? The foundation of the game was mostly unchanged. The storyline is probably thought out well in advance. There's no voice acting to worry about. They had to create new areas, music, and models; there's definitely a lot of work going into it, but how much of the sale of the expansion is pure profit on relatively low production costs?

ACP is just worse because it doesn't provide anything much more substantial than a new quest line in a version update. No new areas, jobs, etc. for pretty much any price tag would've left people annoyed.

If SE gave everyone all expansions through version updates, they would need to be focused on making quality expansions instead of ones produced as cheaply as possible. They would need to create content that would enthrall players and give them a reason to keep coming back, instead of making more and more attractive areas for EXP, making it hard to get a party without the expansion. They could still make things like ACP, but they would have to create them in the mindset of keeping people playing instead of getting $10 from people. The only problem with this is SE's crappy update system, which would be completely wrecked by people trying to download expansions worth of content. That's a completely separate topic, though, and one which they could've and should've easily fixed years ago.

[Elwynn]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

And those updates which once cost $30 each were all incuded in VC08 for the same price total. I bought one just for easier re-install.

I predict VC10 will include all three of them along with all the expansions for $30.

In the meantime, I did not get ACP and will not get the others, because after about a year or so of playing, I still haven't even touched much of the mainline mission content yet. From my viewpoint, all ACP has done is litter the landscape with a bunch of stupid quest points. I can get the idea that it's full of running around just on that basis alone.

Also, everybody gushes about the gear you can get from them, but all I hear about is melee gear, and nothing about mage gear. Since I don't play melee classes (other than /THF for farming and /NIN), that would be useless to me. I'm sure not going to pay $10 for ACP just to get gear I can't use.

[Firewind]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

To be completely honest the augments on the gear completely sucks for WHMs. All of your standard WHM gear will be far superior:

Nobles Tunic: Curing, Refresh, idling, awesome looking town wear
Blessed Briault: Barspells, -Emnity, MP
Errant Houpplande: MND, hMP
Healer's Briault: Enfeebs
Cleric's Briault: Regen, Refresh, MP

With the Redingote the only remotely useful augments a WHM can use are the -5 Emnity (already given by a Blessed Briault) and Fast Cast.

That is the main reason any I turned mine into a WHM Hauby (+10 Acc, +10 Attack). not only does it make it far superior for TP and WS than a Reverand Mail you also don't lose a ton of MP purely by equipping it.

That and I don't have to waste my time trying to organise another Shen run that will inevitably fail because the super ultra leet pwnzors endgame linkshell players that come along can''t understand the instruction: "Don't hit it while it's in it's shell" when start saying "Oh well we can win next time" when I have to spend yet another 50k on a Shrimp Lantern.

[Truece]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

To be completely honest the augments on the gear completely sucks for WHMs. All of your standard WHM gear will be far superior:

Nobles Tunic: Curing, Refresh, idling, awesome looking town wear
Blessed Briault: Barspells, -Emnity, MP
Errant Houpplande: MND, hMP
Healer's Briault: Enfeebs
Cleric's Briault: Regen, Refresh, MP

With the Redingote the only remotely useful augments a WHM can use are the -5 Emnity (already given by a Blessed Briault) and Fast Cast.

It could make a good piece for repose with M.Acc and fast cast. Also a good piece if you wanted to build a Holy/Banish nuking piece with M.Acc and MAB. So it's not totally useless.

Otherwise, I agree. I turned mine into a melee piece for WHM and RDM.

To participate in the poll, I plan on purchasing the next mini-expansion. I enjoyed running through these missions, and regularly run around killing mobs for seedspalls and running through Fei'Yin for augmented gear. I think of the Azure Key as a free BCNM once per day. I spend 30 minutes killing Yags, Quads, and Orcs and have a chance at a couple of nice AH-able rewards (Utsusemi: Ni eludes me, but I did get a dark spirit pact last weekend). Sometimes, I even get a piece of augmented gear which I can even put to use.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

I'll hang fire on the remaining two until I hear the views of LS members first. I was really disappointed with ACP, 90% of the add-on was spent running around zones I grew sick of five years ago and having to perform the crawl up Delk's only reminded me of the sheer tedium of the early rank mission in there. I actually wiped on the fight the first time and I have zero interest in repeating that climb anytime soon to try it again. Maybe when I get Cor to 75 I might consider it but that was in no way a measure of skill, just a pathetically blatant timesink to try and convince the gullible folk the 10 bucks they forked over was for content and an RMT item rather than just the latter alone.

[Firewind]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

It could make a good piece for repose with M.Acc and fast cast. Also a good piece if you wanted to build a Holy/Banish nuking piece with M.Acc and MAB. So it's not totally useless.

I have Celerity added to my Repose macro so i'm unsure how useful Fast Cast would be in that regards. Though I will admit it would be nice if I'm not /SCH or if I don't have any strats available

I hadn't thought about making a nuking set with it. Usually if I'm nuking on WHM I'm magic bursting Holy or Banish III with a BLM sub and +MAB gear so I can see how it would compliment it nicely. I once had Holy magic burst for 1.2k from a full Afflatus Soalce buffer; it was very nice to see and it scared the crap out of the BLM to boot

[Ziero]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

I do have to say, though, if there really are two dev teams and the same one is responsible for RotZ, ToAU and ACP... it's definitely not their A team. The two best expansions to date (IMO) have both come from the other team.

The guy who did RotZ only did RotZ so far. They brought him back to do the three mini-expansions though. CoP and WotG have been done by the same people iirc and ToAU was done by a different group. As far as I'm concerned though, it's been a clear and steady improvement, across the board, in terms of expansion content. RotZ was just additions to try and make the game complete, CoP started pushing the boundaries of quality for a MMO's storyline. ToAU brought a LOT of user oriented, player friendly changes and content, as well as superior CSs and a much more direct storyline (it would be my favorite hands down if it weren't for the JPmidnights). WotG has brought with it game sweeping changes to the entirety of FFXI while bringing casual exp content to the masses, providing new, smaller group oriented events that are unique and fun and some of the greatest cutscenes ever in an MMO, and it's not even done yet. After watching steady advance after advance in terms of expansion content...to go to ACP...it just doesn't compare.

While I fully agree with the sentiment, this just isn't complete without requesting that the missions also be freely repeatable without needing someone who hasn't done them yet. Though, I'm sure that's been mentioned before.

That is sadly the best thing to come from this add-on.

Non sequitur. Simply because most people will buy the other 2 scenarios does not mean that SE would stop essentially all further development on the game or that those same people would be happy with no more full expansions.

SE stated clearly and plainly that these Add-ons are a test to see if smaller, story based expansion content would be popular enough to do away with disc based expansions. It would save them time, money and effort if all they had to do was give us regular update content and throw out mini add-on expansions instead of going for a full size, game changing expansion. Which is why I'm going to vote with my cash and not buy the next two unless they get phenomenal reviews.

[Raydeus]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

By the way I forgot to add that I completely agree with the theorists saying SE is using XI now as a testing ground for Rapture stuff.

There have been too many unlikely changes lately and a lot of things that just don't make much sense otherwise. /shrug

[Armando]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

By the way I forgot to add that I completely agree with the theorists saying SE is using XI now as a testing ground for Rapture stuff.

There have been too many unlikely changes lately and a lot of things that just don't make much sense otherwise. /shrug

Sure you're just not biased against the devs?

[Raydeus]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

As much as you are biased against my opinions probably.

Either way them testing stuff on XI isn't necessarily bad, but it can go both ways. On one side you can have a preview or a sort of beta of new features to be added on the next MMOG which could be good for XI, but on the other side if they started prioritizing Rapture alpha testing over XI's integrity then it could become a big issue.

So it's more of a wait and see kinda thing.

[Ziero]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

SE has *always* tested things in FFXI in an attempt to make FFXI better. NPC fellows were a test for Pups. Besiege was a test for Campaign. Level caps were a test for level synch (they wanted to add lvl synch during CoP afterall). SE is learning how to better work their game as it goes on, and using us as guinea pigs to try out their crazy ideas. And now that their original 5 Year Plan (original game to ToAU) is done with, they started throwing out even more unique and new concepts at us to try and improve the entirety of the game itself. They constantly said that when they were done with ToAU they would go back and fix the rest of the game and that's exactly what they did. SE isn't testing new things in FFXI for Rapture's sake, they're testing new things in FFXI for FFXI's sake.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

NPC fellows were a test for Pups.

False. False false false false false false.

NPCs that fight alongside you in certain missions were the test for Adventuring Fellows. I remember reading an interview where they clearly cited CoP as the inspiration for "You know, why don't we have NPCs that can fight alongside the player even outside of Mission battles?" Said NPCs were also originally going to be called Mercenaries, but they didn't like what that would imply about the relationship between the player character and the NPC, so they went with "Fellows" instead.

I'll see if I can find that interview right now; I think it may have been on JP Button.

Edit: {Found it!}

- Around the time Chains of Promathia went on sale, two new major elements, Fellowship and Conflict, were introduced. How did these develop?

Komoto: Fellows were born out of the so-called Escort Quests and the final Mission battles where you have help in the BCs. It got us thinking about users having a personal NPC they could use. First, they were to be called “Mercenaries,” and then the idea took some twists and turns and eventually became a completely different concept as Fellows. The reaction has been huge regarding this system.

[Ziero]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

Actually, it's not false. It was a step in the evolution. NPC assistance you had no control over lead to NPCs who you could slightly customize to suit your need lead to a class that featured a fully customizable pet. They used the customization of NPC fellows to lead to the customization of Matons. It's another example of SE adding something which leads to something else which ends up being something new.

I.E. SE testing and learning and adding new content based upon what they learned from previous content.

[Guppy]

Re: Do you plan on buying the next expansion chapter?

On the CoP end, its not really the level caps that make CoP hard, its the fact that players are spoiled on being 75 and don't take them seriously that makes them hard. Everyone seems to think they're a shining star and thier ego takes this massive bruising when they don't get the win right off the bat.

Older players who tried it a long time ago may remember differently. From CoP's introduction in the fall of 2004, no other activity has seen as many difficulty nerfs as the CoP storyline. The difficulty of Promyvion and CoP missions has been nerfed in about 4 separate updates. Not to mention that players are much stronger (sub-portion of general-purpose merits active under cap, new equipment/spells/abilities, availability of detailed guides).

CoP is relatively easy now... but after the post-release initial rush, it was nearly dead content for about two years.