The History of Final Fantasy XI/2010

==2010==
In 2010 Final Fantasy XI saw an unprecedented evolution. Alongside the first level cap increase in six and a half years and the first world mergers in seven years came players with mixed emotions. Included were happy, content, angry, and opinions. Abyssea saw its debut in the middle of the year, and Wings of the Goddess's storyline concluded at the end of the year.
Tetra Master and POL Character Emails shut down at the end of 2010, and Final Fantasy XIV was released in September 2010. Both of these events added further speculation of the direction of Final Fantasy XI's future.
Jan. 1st, 2010 	    Happy New Year 2010 	    Happy New Year 2010
Jan. 1st, 2010 	In 2010, tigers were the choice animal to grace Vana'diel for the New Year. Byakko's model was used as the lead tiger, followed by the regular black tiger models.
No new items were obtainable this year.	
Jan. 23rd, 2010	    FFXI Tarutaru Trading Arts mini figurines released	    FFXI Tarutaru Trading Arts mini figurines released
Jan. 23rd, 2010	A set of Tarutaru mini figurines were released as promotional item. These were available online on the Square-Enix shop store, as well as in Hatsudai, Tokyo at the Square Enix Character Good Shop Show Case. It was thought that these were created because of a Square Enix “Customer Support Questionnaire” that players had taken part in. Tarutaru were the top answer in the “Goods to create” section of the survey.
These figurines also came to North America in February. They were purchasable on the Square Enix shop website. The price was $24.99 USD for the set.
Packaging for each region was slightly altered. In Japan, the figurines were in blind boxes and it was lottery which one you would get. In North America, they were sold as a set of five. In both regions the figurines themselves were identical, though.
Four Tarutaru were featured as being available. Ajido-Marujido, Star Sibyl, Shantotto, and Robel-Akbel. A fifth, secret character was hinted at, which was Ark Angel TT.	
Above: North American box set
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Above: Japanese "blind box" set
Feb. 4th, 2010 	    Valentione's Day 2010 	    Valentione's Day 2010
Feb. 4th, 2010 	The Valentione's Day event was held from February 4th until February 15th.
No changes were made to this event from 2009's version.	
Feb. 19th, 2010	    The Doll Festival 2010 	    The Doll Festival 2010
Feb. 19th, 2010	The Doll Festival event was held from February 19th until March 3rd.
No changes were made to this event from 2009's version.	
Feb. 28th, 2010	    Vana ★ Fest 2010 	    Vana ★ Fest 2010
Feb. 28th, 2010	The next real-life event was Vana ★ Fest 2010. The event venue was the Japan Youth Center, and the address was 7-1 Kasumigaokamachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0013, Japan. The venue has since been demolished for a reconstruction project to build the new National Olympic Stadium to house the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.
1,114 attendees were chosen in a lottery fashion to attend the event, and there was no entry fee charged to the participants. In order to enter the lottery drawing, attendees must have met the following requirements:
*Must have their PlayOnline Account linked to a Square Enix Account.
*Content ID must have been active for a certain period.
Attendees each received a Final Fantasy XI 8th Anniversary themed Moogle Tenugui pictured below (Equivalent of a hand towel in English) and a Campaign Code for a Chocobo Beret. Because there were 1114 attendees, 1114 Tenuguis + code combinations were given out. The “14” number was probably a reference to FF XIV.
Many staff and developers were also wearing these Tenuguis throughout the event.
Highlights to the event included:
*Two special Developer talk sessions.
**The level cap increase was announced here.
**Abyssea expansions also announced.
*A special version of the Mog Bonanza known as the Nomad Mog Bonanza.
**All players were able to take part in this Bonanza, but they were only able to pick one number combination. The winning numbers were drawn during the Festival.
** It is worth noting that there were no prizes offered for Rank 3 that could be equipped by Dancer. It was pretty disheartening for players who only had that job levelled.
***Additionally, this was the first time that Relic Weapons and Mythic Weapons were available from the Bonanzas. Giving away these weapons in a lottery fashion was a huge shock to the playerbase. Furthermore, the coveted Defending Ring was lowered to Rank 2 instead of Rank 1. Regardless of the amazing Rank 1 and Rank 2 prizes, Rank 5 and especially Rank 4 were rather underwhelming and a disappointment.
*Live Concerts.
**Naoshi Mizuta (bass), Kumi Tanioka (piano) and Aya Yoda (violin) performed as a group called “The Small Onions”
***Songs performed were: “Prelude”, “Ronfaure”, “Faded Memories (Promyvion)”, “Rolanberry Fields”, and “Ru'Lude Gardens”.
*”Secret Bonus Stage” – A musical event led by Nobuo Uematsu and the band The Black Mages. They performed scores from the upcoming Final Fantasy XIV.
**It was announced during this performance that all visitors would be invited to take part in an Alpha test of Final Fantasy XIV.
**The title, direction, and concept of this stage was a parody of the old Japanese television show “8 o'clock! All members set”. The venue where the festival was held was often used in this old program, many of which were live broadcasts. Instead of The Black Mages, TBM was joked to mean “Tokyo Business Men”. Producer Tanaka and Nobuo Uematsu did a little jig to kick off the FFXIV portion of the event.
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Leading up to the festival was a contest for English and European players to win their own Chocobo Beret codes. The contest took place on Twitter with the twitter handle @VanaFest2010_EN. This Twitter contest took place from February 23, 2010 to February 27, 2010 with a total of 4 questions each day at 9:00 PST, 11:00 PST, 13:00 PST, and 15:00 PST. Each question was open for one hour. After the one hour window closed, the first five players who answered correctly and included their character name, World name, and VanaFest 2010 Trivia hash tag (#VanaFest2010Trivia) were contacted by the email address and PlayOnline mail address registered with the associated PlayOnline account notifying them that they won.
Major announcements during Vana Festival 2010 included the following:
*Wings of the Goddess's storyline would conclude in two more version updates.
*The three Abyssea battle scenario addons were announced. All three were planned to be released in 2010.
*Increase of the level cap up to level 99, which would take part in phases over multiple version updates.
**It was announced that some job abilities would not be usable when subbed, like Afflatus Solace, Afflatus Misery, Yonin, and Innin.
**Due to client interface issues, the 3-digit length of level 100 could not display properly in-game. Therefore 99 was chosen.
*Outlines and plans were discussed in how the team wants every job to adapt to the level increases. Also, Summoners long awaited new avatars Alexander and Odin were announced!
*Empyrean Armor (or AF3) JSE was announced but statistics and details were not shown.
*Trial of the Magians questline was announced.
*Seasonal events would start to receive updates, including additional rewards and challenges to each.
*Addition of Job Emotes.
*The Synergy system.	
The venue and line are pictured above.
 
As with every Square Enix event, a merchandise booth had to be present! The poster above was placed at the venue, signed by the developers. It was a major photo op on the way in.
 
 
Images from the Dev Panels. New Seasonal Event loot, and the Abyssea release timeline were shown.
Before Treasures of Aht Urhgan was released, Square Enix wrote “Wrestler” in a memo on the official site (instead of Warrior). Since then, Sumo Wrestler was a mock job idea. The above picture was shown during the job adjustment part of the event, which joked at the rumored job gaining Rock Salt in the Throwing slot.
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The above video is the first release of the level cap increase, shown at the festival and streamed online.
Without a doubt, the biggest news was the level cap increase. A Red Mage was shown levelling up from 75, the response was insane, yet mixed. Below are some responses from the BG Forums during the event.
*SHUT THE FUCK UP LEVEL 76?!
*DO I SEE LVL 76?!?!? 
*Holy shit..... 76?
*ITS LIKE IM PLAYING DISAGEA
*in b4 they ruined FFXI
*LEVEL CAP INCREASE? BRICKS SHAT
*The RDM75 just… It just leveled up to 76. Tanaka just congratulated the PLD on leveling up! Tanaka just announced that in the June version update, the LEVEL CAP WILL BE RAISED! The crowd is going nuts.
Mixed emotions ran through the community upon this announcement. Some players were excited that FFXI will “become a new game” and others said that it “will never be the same”. It sounded like they were getting FFXI ready for FFXIV, so that even if the population shot way down the people that stay could still get things done without needing a large group anymore. 
After the hype, players began to think twice about the consequences of a level cap increases and world merges. On one hand, the game was incredibly stagnant in the last year, and these announcements felt like a breath of fresh air was blown into the game. On the other, an increase to the level cap would ruin every aspect of the game regarding balance. Players were also afraid of overcrowding on the merged worlds. This fear was warranted, though, as Campaign became a bum rush of 50 players annihilating all the monsters in a battle. Popular events such as Campaign did not seem thought out fully when they decided on merging worlds.
Additionally, would happen to Merit Points? The merit system was the developer's answer to players who “wanted to be stronger” at level 75. They were a superficial character improvement by obtaining incredibly minor character improvements like 1 STR, 2 Axe skill, -1 enmity… without ruining game balance.
After the festival was over, only time would tell how things will pan out after June. Fear and speculation of the unknown future was real.
Jan. 23rd, 2010	    FFXI and Lord of Vermilion Collaboration 	    FFXI and Lord of Vermilion Collaboration
Jan. 23rd, 2010	During Vana Fest 2010, cards were shown on a big screen during the show gathering time. These cards were a crossover for Square Enix's arcade-based fantasy collectible card game Lord of Vermilion. 
Four Final Fantasy XI characters would be featured in this game, including Ark Angel EV, Shadow Lord, Eald'narche, and Kam'lanaut. The Shadow Lord and Eald'narche are “super rare”, when Ark Angel EV and Kam'lanaut are “rare”.	
Mar. 23rd, 2010	    World Mergers 	    World Mergers
Mar. 23rd, 2010	For the first time in seven years, world consolidation took place. The eight least populated worlds were merged into the eight next least populated worlds. Alongside these merges, the character creation restriction on Odin and Bahamut were lifted. Players could now create new characters on those worlds as well as world transfer to those worlds once again. The first merge reduced the current worlds from 32 to 24. Players on all worlds held gatherings bidding farewell to their beloved worlds. Parties consisted of Fireworks and shout wars. With all the hype of FFXIV recently, it was a natural response for players and media to begin speculation that Final Fantasy XI was near end of life, backed up by “evidence” from this world merger. Obviously, that was not the case in the end.
Some players on merged worlds saw a huge number of players online, almost to the point of an overpopulation situation. Many wished that Square Enix would have waited a bit longer to see how much of a resurgence the game would have had before pulling the trigger. If these recent announcements and changes happened in 2009 instead, it would have pretty much guaranteed that the number of subscribers who stuck around would have been much higher.	
Mar. 23rd, 2010	    Trials of the Magians and New Avatars! 	    Trials of the Magians and New Avatars!
Mar. 23rd, 2010	
*BG Wiki's March 2010 New Items List
{| width=100% style="border: 2px dashed red; border-radius: 5px; background-color: #eae9e9"	New Features & Content
*New Wings of the Goddess Missions added.
**The missions added were The Scent of Battle thru Adieu, Lilisette. (#27 thru #38)
*The first of the Trial of the Magians were implemented.
*The Voidwalker Notorious Monster system was added.