I recently had a wonderful opportunity to meet up with some of members of Square¡¯s North American team for a guided tour of Final Fantasy XI¡¯s newest expansion: Wings of the Goddess. I had played FFXI a few years back but had lost interest partway through the last expansion, so I was eager to see what new things were added and how things had changed. My tour guides took the time to show me some of the new areas in Wings of the Goddess, gave me a sneak peak at some cut-scenes from the new storyline, and let me try out the two new jobs: Scholar and Dancer.



Wings of the Goddess brings players in approximately twenty years into the past, to tell the tale of the Crystal War, part of the back story to the original game. Special portals called Cavernous Maws have appeared across Vana¡¯diel, allowing players who complete certain attunement quests to transport back and forth between past and present. To facilitate transport, time-traveling versions of major teleport spells are also available. But adventurers should be cautious: the Vana¡¯diel of the past is more dangerous than the world with which players are familiar. It¡¯s not just tougher monsters: the Crystal War wages on all around you too!

The major new gameplay element added in the Wings of the Goddess expansion is campaign. Somewhat like ToAU¡¯s besieged, campaign involves large battles that players can participate in without having to sign up or pay an entry fee. The armies of the Crystal War clash, and you can join in. However, unlike the huge besieged battles, where you¡¯re lucky to target a monster before it disappears due to the client¡¯s inability to display more than a few dozen models at a time, campaign battles tend to be smaller and more manageable. They¡¯re also spread out all over the place, so you don¡¯t have to try and pack 700 people into one zone for everyone to participate.



Campaign addresses one of FFXI¡¯s weaker design elements by adding gameplay that is more of a jump-in-and-play nature. You earn XP in campaign by doing anything to help, including healing and buffing NPCs and other players, or hurting enemy invaders. You don¡¯t even have to actually score a kill to benefit. You also don¡¯t have to sit around for hours trying to put a perfectly balanced party together, then find an unclaimed camping spot: you can participate solo or in any sort of group, and you just have to track down the nearest conflict and dive in. Of course, there are added challenges for players who do want to get heavily involved in campaign, including new NMs (Notorious, or Named, Monsters) that act like mini-bosses and campaign-related storyline and missions.

As with every FFXI expansion, players look forward to new jobs (classes) to play. Wings of the Goddess adds Scholar and Dancer, jobs that fill a sort of hybrid position between support jobs and caster/melee respectively. Scholar has access to a large library of spells, both white and black magic, as well as a number of unique spells for supporting party members and damaging foes. They also have special job abilities that allow them to focus on either white or black magic, using their Light Arts or Dark Arts, which improve one set of spells while penalizing the other set. Furthermore, they have access to special stratagems which empower their spells, allowing them to be more effective, cast them faster, or even take a single target spell and cast it on a group. One of the highlights of my tour was being able to cast Regen II on my whole party, something I always wished I could do as a white mage.




Dancer is a hybrid melee and support class that is very unique. The job gets, as you might have guessed, dances, which have a number of unique functions. Dances can debuff monsters, or apply effects to the monster such that every melee hit gives a buff to the party member that attacks the monster. Dancers also have a number of finishing moves which apply extra effects and can invoke special weapon skillchains. They can also heal party members, making dancer a popular sub job. I didn¡¯t quite grasp the mechanics as well as I¡¯d have liked, however, so of the two new jobs I found Scholar more exciting.

The storyline in Wings of the Goddess is still shrouded in mystery. I was shown some advanced cuts-scenes by the tour guides, but I don¡¯t want to spoil any surprises. Suffice it to say that the storyline does look to be a good one, certain to tie in many of the major figures of the Crystal War that veterans of Final Fantasy XI will be familiar with. The back-in-time mechanism is rather well implemented, and players will still be able to travel around to the new zones without too much hassle once they activate the Cavernous Maws.

Wings of the Goddess is a must have for anyone currently playing Final Fantasy XI, and it is probably a good reason for anyone who¡¯s left the game to come back and give it another try. Of course, for anyone who¡¯s never set foot in Vana¡¯diel, you can always pick up the annual compilation which includes the original game and all expansions. Check out the official website at http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml for details on the latest game updates.