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The Mog Log: Not the happy fanboy

Eliot Lefebvre — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Culture, Events, real-world, Events, in-game, Game mechanics, Opinion, Final Fantasy XIV, The Mog Log

Imagine, if you will, that a nice man comes up to you and tells you about a fantastic room. He leads you to this room, and at the far end of the room from the door is a cake. That cake is clearly delicious, and you're told as much. Unfortunately, in order to reach said cake, you have to walk barefoot across an entire room full of rusty nails, broken glass, and scorpions with a serious hate-on for human beings.

But then another nice man runs up to you. He says that he has excellent news for you about this cake, that it will make you very happy.

"So I don't have to walk through all this broken glass and stuff?" you ask.

"Oh, no, you still have to," replies the man. "But we've made the cake at the end taste even better. Isn't that awesome!"

And at this point, anyone in the world would turn around and walk away. I don't care how much you like cake, that cake just isn't worth the trouble.

That, in a nutshell, is how I felt while looking at the announcements for VanaFest 2010. Because they're going to make that endgame cake taste ever better, and that's great. But that's all the way over there.

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The Mog Log: Not the happy fanboy originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Square-Enix announces VanaFest 2010

Eliot Lefebvre — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Events, real-world, News items, Final Fantasy XIV

With Final Fantasy XI entering its eighth year of operation and Final Fantasy XIV just around the corner, fans of Square-Enix have plenty to be excited about. But there's even more good news -- the company has just announced VanaFest 2010, the official fan gathering for the game, on February 28th in Tokyo.

The official announcement, mirrored on Pet Food Alpha, makes a strong point that there will be a great deal of information about upcoming job changes and game updates coming for Final Fantasy XI. It seems that even with its big brother on the horizon, Square is still committed to its older game, a welcome sight for many fans. There's also an undisclosed "special announcement" rumored to be coming at the convention.

Pet Food Alpha also has a few additional pieces of information. The tickets for the event will be free of charge, but will only be available to players with an active Japanese POL ID since December 2008. Attendees will be lucky enough to receive the pictured chocobo cap, while those unable to attend will have to be content with the new information coming out of the convention. With any luck, a similar event will be held for American and European players, but even just knowing that new facts are incoming for the game should be enough to get fans worked up.

Square-Enix announces VanaFest 2010 originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 16 Jan 2010 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The sad fate of the PlayOnline Viewer

Eliot Lefebvre — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Culture, MMO industry, Opinion

Those of you who are currently playing Final Fantasy XI or who have played it in the past will remember the PlayOnline Viewer. Those of you who haven't will have no idea what it is, which might be for the best. Square-Enix originally included the program with the launch of Final Fantasy XI with the expectation that it would serve as a hub for a variety of different online games, so it would serve as a chat program, a launcher, a social network hub, and a support site.

Of course, when you think of all those things, what you probably think of is Steam, which does all of those things quite well. The PlayOnline Viewer, on the other hand, has proved excellent at doing... well, it mostly means more clicks before you get into FFXI. And as Pet Food Alpha has recently noted, it also seems to be hosting wholly unmoderated explicit chat rooms.

Square-Enix has stated that Final Fantasy XIV will not use the viewer, which means they seem to have abandoned it as a poor idea. Steam works, in part, because it sells a variety of both online and offline games, most of which don't come from its parent company. With a clunky interface and strange functional restrictions on it, it's hardly a surprise that the service never took off... but in light of recent events, the company's policy to ignore it completely might not be the best plan.

The sad fate of the PlayOnline Viewer originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 13 Jan 2010 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Final Fantasy XI's community team goes on a podcast tour

Seraphina Brennan — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Culture, Events, real-world, Game mechanics, Interviews, News items, Consoles

The Final Fantasy XI community team members are going on a virtual tour, stopping by each of the major podcasts to answer some questions and get in-depth with what they do on the long running fantasy MMO.

Pet Food Alpha, Limit Break Radio, and He Says She Says will each be playing host to various members of the community team, with Pet Food Alpha leading the way on the first show. PFA will be covering topics on global support, as well as the premier and community websites with special guest Robert Peeler. He Says She Says will be all about the many in-game seasonal events with special guest Matt Hilton, and Limit Break Radio will be covering the topic of live events with both Matt Hilton and Robert Peeler.

Pet Food Alpha has already posted the first show, with the He Says She Says show coming only two days away from now on May 6th. Lastly, Limit Break Radio will be posting their podcast on May 13th, next Wednesday.

Final Fantasy XI's community team goes on a podcast tour originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 04 May 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It's Pandemonium in Final Fantasy XI

James Egan — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Forums, Game mechanics, Guilds, Endgame, News items, PvE

News has spread of a grueling new enemy encounter in Final Fantasy XI. The Notorious Monster (NM) Pandemonium Warden is one of the strongest opponents players can face in the game. But it seems Square-Enix may have raised the bar too high, given the extremes to which players must go to defeat Pandemonium Warden.

A linkshell (guild) called Beyond the Limitation recently faced off against Pandemonium Warden over an 18 hour period, but the NM was still going strong. The NM shapeshifts into multiple forms, making it even more of a challenge to defeat; Beyond the Limitations fought Pandemonium Warden through twenty of his possible forms, some of which took hours to kill. Pet Food Alpha, a Final Fantasy XI community site, quotes a member of Beyond the Limitation stating: "People were passing out and getting physically ill. We decided to end it before we risked turning into a horrible new story about how video games ruin people's lives."

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It's Pandemonium in Final Fantasy XI originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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