FF14 Tokyo Game Show Tidbits

So this is a little bit late but I just read this on Eorzeapedia and found some rather very interesting news for this game and like before I'll just quickly enumerate them and guys don't like trip all over yourself while reading this you PvE lovers you! ('cause I did!)


Gameplay

- Group skillchains are being worked on, they will differ from the ones in FFXI and there may be a possibility of solo skillchains.
- Grouping dynamics won't be as rigid; you won't need a full 6 man party all the time, they want to make it work so that if you have 2 people that's ok and if you have 3 people or more that's ok too.
- FF14 is more about the difference in levels between you and what you are fighting and not between you and other players. What does this mean? Mentoring?
- Certain enemies will pull as a full group... Better make sure what you pull comes alone or you have a party with you.

You and the world

- At this point the team is trying to make Ff14 an open world, yes someone is trying to make, I'll say it again, an OPEN world. Yay?! This means you can just walk in and out of towns seamlessly, they may also allow people to fight in towns and bring in mobs.... I personally don't see this working out.
- Classes are being rounded out, they've stated they want crafts people to be just as legitimate players as anyone else. For example equipment degrades over time, so you'll need to buy more or employ someone to repair them. Return to the old school, I think I'm loving it. :)
- Additional classes will be added to the game through free updates and NOT as part of paid expansions, there will be paid expansions though.
- Switching your abilities will make classes more flexible; if you want to be an attacking warrior you can, if your party needs you to be a tank you can change those abilities around so that you can do that too.
- Furnishings were mentioned as an example for what you can craft in passing... I bother to mention this because if there's furniture, there's housing!!!!!!!!!!!

Specs and Graphics

- Right now the game will probably launch with Direct X 9 and not 10.
- The game will be developed for Windows first with support for multi cores and ported to the consoles, not the other way around.
- Beta may be shorter then expected, they will start with a smaller number of volunteers world wide and work their way up from about 10 thousand testers to 80 until they hit open beta, which is said to be a FREE open beta.
- There's a guesstimation of a release of summer 2010 but SE is careful to say that will depend on tester feedback.
- RMT (the gold farming kind) will be dealt with from the beginning so they don't have to play catch up as with FFXI; you'll be able to use security tokens and one time passwords as well.

And that's pretty much it for this interview, to me this sounds more and more like my perfect game hopefully they can add everything they want to and I'm heartened that Square is willing to go against the grain a little and bring back features from UO and such. It goes without saying I'm looking forwards to hear more this winter!