News

Final Fantasy XIV is coming. The closed beta is now winding down, and European and North American gamers will all be able to jump into the open beta sometime overnight between August 31 and September 1. That is, in fact, only five days and counting, so if you were bitter about folks that got into the closed beta but couldn't do much due to the limited hours and crashing, you need no longer be jealous. Also new is this brand new trailer, which is of course made of unfiltered pretty, but as befitting its upcoming open beta shows more gameplay than previous trailers (and breaks out lots of epic tunes to boot).

For those who have not been following, it appears that Final Fantasy XIV won't let you grind as if you're getting paid to do so rather than paying for the privilege. While, just like in Final Fantasy XI, you can change jobs fairly easily, you are going to be allotted only eight hours per week of full experience earning in each job, and only another seven hours per week of steadily-decreasing EXP. After fifteen hours in a job in a week, you will get no experience at all in that job. Naturally, this has caused an uproar among the hardcore MMO players, as their desire to play their game with every free waking minute might not be met by the new Final Fantasy. For me, though? It actually kind of makes me want to try the beta, and I've never said that about any MMO. The fewer hardcore players there are, the more I think I'd like it.

The launch date for PC is still tagged for the end of September worldwide, and for PlayStation 3 in March of 2011. No break yet on the impasse of bringing it to 360.

The Tokyo Game Show is now on the horizon since Gamescom is over, and it's time to start looking at what might crop up there for Square Enix. Mindjack will almost certainly be part of it, but it's hard to tell where the game is at, because some retailers are moving the North American release date out to January 2011. There could be a soccer title in the works, as Square Enix Europe has filed new trademarks for titles including "Manager," including "Championship Manager Legends." Dedicated soccer fans know that Championship Manager was once the premier soccer sim in the world, and that Eidos still holds that brand even though the original developers left to create the Football Manager games instead. Might only show at TGS if you can manage a J-League team, though. SaGa might appear, as Squenix have launched yet another of their famous teaser sites, this time with "SaGa" in the URL. I bet The 3rd Birthday will show up, too, as it's nearing release and getting lots of play over in Japan. And for Parasite Eve fans out there, andriasang reports that the success of The 3rd Birthday will dictate the future of the Parasite Eve franchise.

What probably won't be at TGS, though? Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Despite having seen more of it recently, Square Enix won't commit to launching the game anywhere in 2011. There might be some level of visibility at the show, but it probably won't be anything much more than we've seen previously. What could be taking so long, one must wonder - it's a single-platform game, after all. Perhaps Squenix are just spreading their employees too thin.

Final note for the day, and it's not Square but CoN. Over the years, I've prattled plenty about Alexa rankings, and how they mean nothing but are still fun when they show CoN climbing the ranks. Now, the folks at Nmap have created a side project around Alexa and site favicons (those little icons that show up next to the URL in your browser, or next to the bookmark you no doubt created for CoN long ago). The software they wrote grabbed the first 288,945 favicons starting at site number one, and then scaled them in size based on the site's popularity and inserted into a giant mosaic. Of course you have figured out by now that CoN is in that mosaic - search for it and you'll see! I will warn you, though, since naked ladies are a big part of how the internet works, you might find some icons in searching around that aren't safe for work. Search at your own risk!

A lot of architects refuse to put a thirteenth floor in their buildings. Thirteen's an unlucky number, remember? Forget that. CoN's had bad luck already in its days, and the fact that we are now celebrating our thirteenth birthday doesn't scare us one bit. Of course, we wouldn't mind doing what those architects do and skipping straight to fourteen, either, but we're full of integrity and can't pull that kind of shenanigan. So, here's a message to commemorate thirteen years, without a black cat or broken mirror to be found.

Normally I write these new-year messages a long way out and edit them for weeks. This year, on the event of CoN's thirteenth birthday, I didn't really have much time, due to the rest of my life making conspiracies against me. Isn't that the way it goes, though? I can see it in all of us, everyone that comes to the site. Things aren't quite the same as they used to be, as more of us have less time to spend around CoN. It makes our fixes slower, it makes our new work slower, and heck, it even makes the forums slower.

You know what's neat, though? We're still here, and we're still having a go of it. The site still brings in a lot of traffic. That means that even if the forums and chat seem a bit slower than they used to, it's not because people have given up on our version of the Final Fantasy universe - it's just that the game has changed and we all have to change with it.

Change is hard, man. I'm a guy who has lived in four different states in the last seven years, and worked in five. That said, we're all here reading this on a site that has looked the same for even longer, and even though we added a new game to our coverage just last year, along with the return of quizzes, you'd be forgiven for thinking that maybe CoN is afraid of change because it's too hard. The wild thing is that we don't. We lust for change, because we've got some ideas that we really love. Life's just a conspiracy, right? Our lives conspire against us bringing these ideas to fruition.

Here's my plan for next year. I've got coverage for two, maybe even three, games that I want to see revamped. We're working slowly on them now, and we want to work faster. We'll do our best. We've got some changes to the CoN backend that we think will give us more flexibility to continue improving the site in a more efficient manner. The current backend is as old as the Persona layout, and with that extra eight years of knowledge, we now know a lot of things we could do differently and better. We'd love to also make some improvements to such features as our fanart and news systems.

It probably sounds like a lot. It definitely sounds like a lot to a guy who not only makes websites all day, but also does freelance work and CoN both. I feel, though, that if I keep putting effort into the site, you folks will continue to visit. That's the pact between us, and it's held up quite well for the last thirteen years; there's no reason to think that it can't keep going a few more. As always, though, we're going to need your help, as CoN is a volunteer job for all of us - not one of us draws their living from working here. There's always little stuff that we can use, be it testing, or proofreading, or writing, or data entry. Additionally, I'd like to bring on some new staff to help spread the workload a bit, a tack that, if the right people are involved, will speed our progress. Here's what I'm looking at:

News Writer

A new News Writer would be beneficial to CoN in order to keep us up to date on RPG-related news that I too often miss in my reading, and to also help out by writing the Friday Square Enix Tidbits that regularly roll up recent small Square Enix news items. This person should be capable of producing with minimal supervision or nagging, and must be an excellent writer. Application would require some writing samples. Additionally, this user should be familiar with the most basic HTML, until such time as I make the submission tool a bit more user-friendly. Note that CoN also has tools to help you find news, meaning you don't necessarily have to read thirty gaming blogs to do well in this role.

Quiz Master

The Quiz Master would assist me in keeping the CoN quizzes stocked up every month. I know that every month, we release only 24 questions, but you'd be surprised with the preparation it takes. This new staff member would help build up our backlog of questions so that we don't ever run out; therefore, someone who is good with research and plays a lot of video games would be helpful here. Additionally, this person would use the tools that I built over a year ago to add new quizzes to the system; because of the toolkit, no database or coding experience is required.

Social Marketing Assistant

Eventually, important information from CoN, such as news, will be automatically posted to our Twitter and Facebook pages. However, to assist this automated process, or even serve in its stead, I'd like someone to help draw people in to CoN via other social media. It will involve posting tweets and statuses, as well as responding to tweets and comments that we get. It will also involve soliciting new traffic by tracking down new fanartists and fanfic authors to add to our libraries. Applicants must be familiar with various sites that can connect with CoN and how to use their basic features; these applicants must also be capable of writing professionally, as most of the output from this job will be read by users who might not already know CoN. It would be beneficial for this person to also participate in chat somewhat regularly to keep up to date with current work and that social aspect of CoN.

All of these jobs are important to the future of CoN, as we work to keep the site relevant as the games we cover become older and older. What's even better is that working for CoN does help your CV or resume - a good number of staff and former staff list their experience on CoN and have even used me as a professional reference down the road. With the job market still terrible right now, worldwide, perhaps you can spare a few hours a week to build up your own credentials with CoN too?

Whether you feel like applying or not (and there are probably a few of you that I will attempt to coerce into applying), there's something you can take away from this. I and my staff still feel a great deal of gratitude to you folks who keep coming to the site and chatting, posting to the forums, submitting creations, or even just using our guides. That gratitude keeps us here, keeps (some of) us working hard, and keeps me paying the bills. We still have no intention of stepping back, standing still, or going any direction but forward, regardless of speed. It might seem like the most boring amusement park attraction in the world right now, but stay on the ride. We guarantee good times if you want them.

As you've no doubt seen me mention for the past couple weeks, it's E3 time next week. The big show starts on Monday, 14 June, with some preliminary exhibitions and stuff, little one-off things and parties, in the days before. Last year, we talked about big chunks of the show by covering Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft at E3 2009 in our General Gaming forum. This year, though, I'd like to do things a bit differently, and that's where audience participation will come in.

We're still going to cover the big hitters, just like always, probably with our news posts at the end of each day. I know of a lot of you can't get the news right away live, though, and hate waiting for the end of the day. Because of that, we want to share cool stuff with you throughout the day. I know I'll be watching most of the events as they unfold, as will some of your fellow members either in chat, on Facebook or on Twitter. So, let's try something different. If you see something cool that you want to talk about right away, post it on one of those media. You can find us on chat, as always, at irc.darkmyst.org, where we'll probably be discussing things in a pretty freeform manner. Additionally, you can share your thoughts with us in real time on Facebook, by putting @Caves of Narshe in your status updates (if you're a fan) or posting on our wall, or you can do the same at Twitter by including @cavesofnarshe in your tweets. And, of course, you can always comment on our news threads as we post them, just like you have forever.

We know that some folks like to post at the forums, some like to chat, some like to tweet, or some combination of the aforementioned, et cetera. So this year, we're going to get our analysis of E3 not just from our own watching, but from yours. We'll include the best comments from all media into our news posts each day, and everyone can debate them at the forums as much as they like. If you're interested in commenting live with us, stop into chat, follow us on Twitter, or +Like the CoN fan page on Facebook now and get ready for the hot gaming news next week.

Short version: Come play at the CoN World Cup App.

Most of you have probably heard me blathering about the World Cup application in the forums, chat, or on Facebook for weeks. It's finally done and finally ready to start taking predictions, so it's time to get started!

I know the majority of readers out there are Americans, and therefore, you probably think that the only correct response is to hate soccer and anyone who calls it "football." This is why the rest of the world hates us. The World Cup is the biggest sporting event in the world, and you're going to see a lot of us going crazy for it in the next month, starting next Friday, June 11 (but especially June 12; be there). That said, it's worth playing our game here at CoN so you can experience soccer, even a little bit, and it's easy.

Here's how it works, in a nutshell: you sign up, choose who you think will win the whole tournament, and then for every game played in the Cup (there are 64 total), you pick the scores of both teams, who wins, and who will score first. You get points based on how many of your picks you get right. "But I don't know these teams, and I definitely don't know the players," you say, in a whiny voice. "That's okay," I reply, "because we're willing to help you!" For this tournament, we're providing a random pick generator, so even if you know nothing but still want to play, you can click a button and the system will make a guess for you. I'm not going to guarantee that it will be a great guess, but you can play without knowing the first thing about soccer if you want.

To play, all you have to do is come to the CoN World Cup App, pick the overall champion, and then start making picks for individual matches. You can pick all of the first 48 right now, if you want, or pick them all individually. The remaining sixteen will become available as the teams are determined. Once you do that, you can sit back and watch each match to see how you did.

There is at least one prize in the offing, to be determined, and the top three players at the end all get forum awards to show off too. There will also be a thread to discuss the matches and brag about correct predictions, so you can remember to get your predictions in on time. And if you're still not convinced, here are a bunch of links to help you make your picks!

The FIFA Homepage
BBC Sport's World Cup Homepage
Wikipedia's World Cup 2010 Page
ESPN's World Cup Homepage
The last FIFA World Rankings before the WC
Oddsmakers' Odds

Today, we have for you, a small but rather delayed update to the Fanfiction section. There are a variety of excuses for the slow pace of the updates, nearly all of them involving zombies of some sort.

First up in Final Fantasy IV's fanfic section, we have the first submission to CoN by wyvern14. "Twin Moons" is a story following Edge and Rydia towards the end of the game, and their relationship. We hope there's more where this came from.

Moving on and moving the I in the roman numeral to the other end to get the Final Fantasy VI section, the latest addition is a second story from MeaPortia, "A Night at the Opera", which as the title implies, chronicles the events at the Opera house in all the chaotic detail.

Finally, in the Final Fantasy Tactics section, we have two more great submissions by L. Cully. "Vigil" follows Delita as he ponders more than the honour he has been given, with some non-explicit allusions to adult themes. "The Prodigal One" meanwhile sees Meliadoul reflect on her past and ponder her future.

That concludes our update for today, so please, read them, and comment here or in their original threads if you wish. Maybe you wish to encourage a faster update in future after reading them, and there's one very simple way to do this: Submit your own fanfiction work at the site submissions section of the forums. Who knows, maybe next time I'll upload them without breaking every fanfic section I add something to?

1up.com published today a feature detailing the storied history of video game fansites, and among the sites discussed is our very own CoN. 1up interviewed Rangers51 for the article, which also includes discussion of and interviews with other major fansites of the past and present, including The GIA and The Mushroom Kingdom. While we're buried a bit at the back of the article, we're proud to be mentioned among these influential sites, and we'll be more than content to outlive them all and then see who is laughing and then the people who are laughing will be us ahahahahah.

Ahem. In any event, please have a look at the article over at 1up, and be sure to share it with your friends via Twitter and Facebook. Additionally, for those who might be interested in the full text of the interview beyond the abridged version, you can find the complete version right here on CoN. Thanks to 1up for talking with us, and thanks to all of you for keeping us large and relevant enough to be a part of this feature!