Final Fantasy XI Interview

Interview: Final Fantasy XI upon PS2


The tribe in charge of Square's expanding online game gaze ahead to life after FFXI hits soothes

Today, another wave of of recent origin players joins the online world of Final Fantasy XI. The long-awaited PlayStation 2 version, consummate with Sony's 40-gigabyte hard drive, is upon its way to North American retailers, and from there into the hands of PS2 gamers ready to prove out their first massively-multiplayer online RPG

Last night, Square Enix and Sony Computer Entertainment America held a launch circumstance at Sony's Metreon entertainment center in San Francisco to commemorate the game's release. In attendance were sum of two units of the key Square Enix staff responsible for the game: North American agriculturist Yasu Kurosawa and Online Service Manager Keiki Usui, known as "Sage Sundi" in FFXI's online world. The sum of two units were willing to speak briefly about the not away and future of their game as it makes its way to the North American solace market, especially regarding some lock opener future upgrades to its gameplay -- to learn more, read upon

1UP: So, to start with, what have you worked upon before?

Yasu Kurosawa: My first piece of work was monster and creature scripting for Parasite brink and then I was the battle director for Final Fantasy IX, and now I'm the North American online husbandman for Final Fantasy XI.

Keiki Usui: This is my first title for Square Enix -- before that, I was working for a different company. Another large online game.

1UP: by what mode did you wind up in the position of administering an online game that's still published by means of Sony? We were curious about just in what way that arrangement works out as far as the American release.

Yasu Kurosawa: We actually handle comely much everything as far as the online portion. SCEA handles the packaging and promotional side. He [Usui] is in charge of the online operation, for global markets including Japan, the U and wherever other it comes out -- the game masters and other community features. I'm more in charge of the U side.

1UP: in the way that it's mostly Square's show, then...[nervous laughter all around]...It's not to knock Sony's involvement -- we just lay the foundation of it interesting that either you have Square Enix running things, or flat odder is you have sum of two units halves of Sony administering sum of two units different online games, since Sony Online has Everquest Online Adventures. Is it unusual at all for you to be working with a company that's sort of a competitor?

Yasu Kurosawa: Actually, Sony Online Entertainment is a advantageous partner of ours. The handle the U side as far as game masters and the call center with equal reason we work together. They're highly professional upon that end.

Kyoko Yamashita: If I can say individual thing about the SCEA-Square Enix relationship, granting it's largely due to the game being also pre-installed upon the HDD. Without single another, we couldn't launch -- we couldn't proceed out by ourselves without Sony and they couldn't launch the HDD without us because there's no other games available.

Dynamis, the newest addition to the FFXI world.

1UP: Now that the PS2 version is launching, what are you looking forward to as far as upgrading the game in the future? We just had the big push in the PC version that introduced the fresh Dynamis area and other changes, and we're also looking forward to the novel player-versus-player system. What kind of changes can we await in the next few months?

Yasu Kurosawa: The platform launch is chiefly separate from the expansion schedule. We're expanding almost monthly with patches and fresh items and, if not novel areas, then new quests and rebalancing things. We're constantly updating. As far as expansions that we're planning, we can lay major things in there, like additions to the storyline -- each addition is a chapter to the main storyline, where you work for your nation and come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind the storyline through cutscenes. When the novel expansion pack comes out, another station of storylines opens up.

We detain the game fresh by providing small updates [i]or[/i] part of to the other downloadable patches. Larger updates are done from one side expansion packs - the first expansion pack was "Rise of the Zilart," which tend hitherwards included in the retail US version of the game for the one and the other PS2 and PC. We are publicly looking into the possibility of the nearest expansion pack.

1UP: Do you know what you plan to add in the nearest expansion pack? We haven't heard a great deal of about it yet?

Yasu Kurosawa: We are publicly looking into the possibility of the nearest expansion pack.

1UP: Do you know anything more about the PVP a whole that was mentioned at the Tokyo Game present to view or is that still in the design stages?

Keiki Usui: We will start the public testing...not just like a experiment server, but a test fact at one of the Internet cafes in Japan. 20 or in the way that people will try the PVP nearest month, and it should be a patch to the game in the following month April or May.

1UP: We saw in what manner you used a net cafe to experiment the Dynamis area for the first time in Japan -- have you reflection about similar events in the North America market?