Wow. Just… wow. I managed to stay up long enough last night to watch just about the entire meat of the event, and I think I am rested enough to churn out my thoughts and feelings over the anticipated VanaFest of 2010.

Level Cap to 99
Wow. Just… wow. For years S-E insisted that 75 was as high as we were going to go, and many of us quietly resigned to this. After all, some people had perfected the way to a fast and painless trip to 75 and if they couldn’t then there was always a FAQ out there available for people or a healthy group of people (parties, linkshells, forums, wikis, etc) who could point them in the right direction.

Of course, with the level cap being raised there is anxious questions about what is most important to get one to cap: What about the camps!? Simple: more camps and upgrades to old areas that would include even more mobs than currently available. What am I hoping for? I don’t know. Maybe they will slip the other mobs a little something-something to just alienate the way burns work. Yes, I am actually excited about that prospect because I never liked them despite the fact it was what helped my BRD level.

What does have me worried and hesitant to make a steady return to FFXI:time and money. Ok, so the level caps are raised and more camps will be introduced to help the climb to 99 but what am I going to do to fund myself to that? A note: When it comes to making money, unless I can do it without too much hassle, then I don’t really want to bother. Farming? Gawd, the last time I was in the game I wanted to bang my head on the desk. Um, other forms of making gil? Kind of hard in my situation, so I don’t typically even bother. Unless FFXI makes some attempt to help the casual gamers of FFXI, my view of this particular update may just continue to solidify it as “hardcore” to particular MMO players. Which, hey, is perfectly fine. I know where I am in regards to current online gaming and I am quite content with that. I think that 99 can be easily achieved with the same kind of group that likes to merit or who just want to continue pushing themselves to the next level. If they don’t want to, hey. No one is making you. Well, except for maybe your end game LS…but even a lot of people are emo-wanking over the idea that these might now be solo-able. Which, if it is… it works well for casuals who like the idea of low mans. If not, then you guys were whining over nothing. But with how Zilart was way back when (Shadow Lord fight) and is now for the 75 cap, maybe they do have some grounds for the worry if they are really hardcore about the party thing.

Job Adjustments
Ok, so the translation team for twitter fell asleep during certain pockets of the Job Adjustment talk, but I am going to take a “sit and watch” approach to it. Even though my friend is very certain that his favored job (MNK) is going to the lowest of the cesspool of DDs, I think S-E may just surprise us with updates that they may have held back on mentioning during VanaFest 2010.

One thing is for certain: S-E, if you make meteor look like bird poop falling to the ground? I will kill you.

New HNMs!
Ok, so we saw GIANT mobs that were really cool. Giant blob, giant crab, but WAIT! NO GIANT MANDRAGORA. So as cool as this is, its still epic fail to me because there is lack of GIANT MANDRAGORA. S-E, NO ONE WANTS THE DAMN HUGE CRAB. Giant Mandragora, on the other hand, would be so epically awesome. :D

Trial of the Magians
Wow. WoW! Haha. I like how they have made it sort of like WoW but not… since you can choose stats instead of equipment or other misc. items. Nice! I couldn’t help but laugh as the person was assaulted with sparkling lights and then finally a huge effin’ star that came out of no where. Reminded me so much of Mario RPG that I might just try to find my copy today and play it.

New Summons!
Seriously, I wet myself seeing Odin come out. Sure you can only use them during Astral Flow, but with something as cool as Odin and Alexander that is a good way to balance it out. I just wish I had more time in my life to level this job just for these two awesome avatars.

Abyssea & AF3
AF3 looks like it can be obtained here (which, by the way, is totally :Q) and will most likely require the purchase of all three mini expansions regarding Abyssea in order to obtain the complete set. It is really high level end game content that it seems they have already in the works for the future LV 99 cap increase. This is really nice since many are worrying that all the end game content they know and love will be imbalanced due to the level increases. Though I am sort of hoping that just like they are talking about boosting up monsters in other areas, that they might just give a boost to all the other end game content things as well. The fact that it is do-able with a party of six is also very cool and probably helps with the continually dwindling numbers of players.

Enhancements
Wow. Just… wow. The fact that you can choose your enhancements and that even relics and mythics can be enhanced is really cool. I had always stayed away from this because of how random the stats could be, but now it seems like they are hooking people back into what they created just to get people to make the armor that THEY want. Nice!

FFXIV Beta News!
Ok, in all honesty I thought there would be more FFXIV news thanks to all the speculations going on because of the number of allowed attendees. Yes, I know its about Vana’diel but a girl can still dream… RIGHT? What we do know is the set date for when the beta site will come up: March 11. Beta e-mails will also come out very soon, with those attending VanaFest getting first dibs on XIV via Alpha testing and being able to join the first wave of Beta testers. I’m not too enthralled about the later due to the fact it is mostly JP players who will get to have access to this, but I am hoping that NA and EU will soon get their chance at testing and not have to wait too long after the JP get to have their hands in it.

Server Mergers
About time, really. A lot of people had been complaining about lack of population on particular servers, and it seemed strange that S-E wasn’t acting faster to actually help these lesser populated servers out. My only gripe about this is that it should have come sooner and that Quetz or Midgard is kinda lame since Midgardsormr is easier to spell than the mess that is Quetz, er, yeah.

Overall, I am pretty impressed that they are doing something to change the game. I honestly haven’t been as excited about any update concerning FFXI as I have since watching the VanaFest feed, and I think it is great for people who are welcoming to the change and who have people thinking about coming out of retirement (like myself). For those who aren’t, I say wait a few months. Sometimes the changes aren’t always as bad as it seems when it is finally implemented and then people end up raving enthusiastically about it later. Who knows? But to have such overwhelmingly huge updates lets us know for certain that S-E isn’t done with FFXI just yet!