Hopefully this will count for the assignment. Even if it doesn't, I've been wanting to put in my two cents on this one anyway.
I've been playing Final Fantasy XI off and on for a long time, usually moving over to World of Warcraft when I get tired of the utter lack of independence in FFXI; you need at least five other people to do the most mundane of tasks, barring tradeskills, unless you're a masochist who has completely leveled up Ninja (biggest money sink in the whole game, in my opinion).
So I was a little skeptical when I picked up the latest expansion -- Final Fantasy: Wings of the Goddess is the third expansion (fourth for Japanese players) for this love-it-or-hate-it MMO. Wings of the Goddess (WotG for future reference) gives the players the opportunity to travel into the past and experience the Crystal War in which the Beastmen hordes banded together under the Shadow Lord to crush the fledgling nations of Windurst and Bastok, as well as the kingdom of San d'Oria.
The way that players return to the past is through strange Cavernous Maws stationed around the world in various locations (only in original zones). People who played Final Fantasy 9 might recognize the resemblance between these maws and a particularly fun summon beast, though that isn't the first time they've used the gaping demon mouth things.
WotG introduced a few new aspects to the game, including a new battle system called Campaign and the accompanying medal system that gives players benefits as they aid the forces of Altana (the armies of Windurst, Bastok, and San d'Oria). Campaign battles take place in the outdoor maps all around the world of the Past, and can occur at any time. It is comprised of waves of monsters attacking the Fortification of the zone, and the army of non-player characters (NPCs) with the aid of players fighting them off. To participate, you talk to a Campaign Arbiter at the fortification, who gives you a special buff that will let you accrue Allied Notes ("currency" for purchasing equipment or items from the armies) as well as experience points, which are given at the end of the campaign battle. This allows a slow, but reliable way to gain experience points that does not require a party of five other people, and anyone can participate at any level assuming you can get to the past. However, the amount of experience and Allied Notes is based on your performance during the battle -- if you're just standing around or not able to contribute a lot, your campaign assessment will suffer.
Aside from and intertwining with the story of the Crystal War, Wings of the Goddess introduces a new storyline to explain the temporal rifts (the aforementioned Cavernous Maws) and brings in a few familiar names from the Final Fantasy series with fairly drastic makeovers. The expansion also introduced two new playable classes, Dancer and Scholar -- both of which, at first, seemed greatly out of place in the clear-cut job distinctions of FFXI (support, tank, mage, healer). Previous experiments in mixing and matching party dynamics are still lacking (Summoner, Puppetmaster), yet it seems they hit the mark with these. Dancer, despite the initial dismay at prancing around on the screen, is probably the most entertaining class I've ever played in the game. It is the only job capable of healing without the use of magic, and is good blend of support and damage -- it can even tank in smaller parties, though lacks the lasting strength and holding power of Paladins or Ninjas. Scholar, on the other hand, feels like a rehash of old magic that we've gotten used to over the years with a twist of being able to augment mana cost, cast times, cast delays, and possessing the capability to heal very effectively while still having only a slightly lower magic damage potential than Black Mages. The fact that both of these jobs make incredible subjobs as well as main jobs (though Scholar is lacking in defensive capability) is a testament to the careful attention the development crew has taken.
To be honest, though, I wish I had not bought the expansion before the first version update for it. It may seem like there's a lot to do at first, but it quickly runs dry as the story halts at the third mission. Campaign and the new jobs are greatly entertaining, but for someone who likes continuing storylines like I do, not being able to progress is frustrating. All in all though, it's shaping up to be a good expansion, with a few much needed additions to the game play. New jobs always offer a fresh start, and it's exciting to experiment with them and explore the expanded world. It just needed more content on launch. On this subject I can't help but compare it to the only World of Warcraft expansion, The Burning Crusade -- there was a VAST amount of new subject matter to explore, levels to gain, skills to experiment with, and it did what an expansion should do: completely revolutionize the game and make it feel fresh. It even continued the warcraft lore, which was already rich from the RTS games. FFXI expansions, however, are encapsulated with their own storylines, which are admittedly interesting, but the lack of connections between them make the whole game seem fractured into segments rather than a continuous journey.
Running out of steam for this post, but I'll provide updates as they come along in my next few posts.
Treble - 75 Bard, 75 Black Mage - Caitsith Server
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