Ok, Just to confirm the rumors you heard, this is the truth. I actually live near the site of the festival, and I can confirm that as well as a lot of other things.... I will post the results here. Some jobs are going to whine and bicker, but they said they wanted to balance everything out. This is everything that came out of yesterday's development panel:
- Chocobo breeding and the "Chocobo Circuit" - As you can guess, this is as it is said and worded. There WILL be Chocobo Racing, and depending on what you do for your chocobo, it could be a fat one, so be careful on how you feed him.
- Mog Lockers - Similar to Materia Magica, Mog Lockers are an intention to help those with multiple mules. 30-50 will be added in this.
- The "Besieged" addition will prevent people from losing experience points AND set up a system where you can gain points from killing mobs. That is yet to be determined how it will be set up.
- "The Colosseum" - Sadly, this WONT be PVP 1 vs. 1, but could be entered. HOWEVER, rumor has it there could be zones where zones could allow player killing in a later update. The Colosseum itself will let you watch PCs killing various monsters, 1 on 1.
- We may be able to join Aht Urhgan as a country allegiance.
- There will be NO level caps in ToAU... HALLELUJAH!
Now for the different job updates ----
- Black Mage - Sorry guys, but you got PWNED! The SE people want to ***** over manaburns and introduce blms more to soloing.... SO.......
In exchange of doing so, there will be more spells in exchange for the manaburns to be prevented, but they didnt say how.... Speaking of Manaburns....
- Monks --- You guys got off the hook... They recognize Bones parties but are entertained at seeing this... They love it. Plus, Monks will get an aoe healing ability, similar to Chakra's aoe in FF9.
- Paladin - Guys, they see my problem and are giving me salvation... Paladin is getting ungimped now... Shields are gonna be more influenced to add TP to them AND .... get this...... we're getting AUTO-REFRESH!!!! HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!
- White Mage - Ugh.... This is kinda bad, but theres some light at the end of the tunnel... They're giving us the ability to give our hp and/or mp to another person in the party... If we wanted to convert, people, thats what RDMs are for..... And by the way, our 2hr will ALSO remove status effects as well....Thats totally cool for bcnms. AND speaking of......
- Red Mages ---- YOU GOT PWNED!!!!! "We realize that RDM is one of the most powerful jobs in the game." While they gave rdm's another new spell just for rdm's, they gave brd a new spell too..... And with Corsair coming in, there could be trouble.
- Bard --- Guys, they hate the fact that multiple songs arent being used so theyre adding another...... AND we're thinking its Hastega-related. Its a lower level version...
- Ninja --- Consider yourselves lucky. The SE people dont like what they've done to Ninja as it's "Too Powerful", but they can't do anything but make it even more dangerous. Utsusemi: San is still rumored to be on the table.
- Dragoon - Due to the new Spirit Surge 2 hr, they're not going to do anything else at this time, but are hinting at thinking of getting the wyvern some armor in the far off future....
- Dark Knight - Sorry, but this is crappy news... They dont care about you. They were more concerned about the fact you didnt use your absorb spells, so.......... They're going to focus more on that.....
- Samurai, you guys got the best gift in town, and TP burns could be more famous..... Your ability will be to lower TP of the mobs every time you hit them.
- Summoner - Sorry, Bahamut is a "special" kind of Avatar which cant be summoned, but other summons are in rumors..... They also want to increase the usage of avatars for other situations than just a blood pact, then release the avatar... Also, good news here: The effects of the blood pact will be strengthened by the summoning magic skill of the player. Abilities also will be increased.
Thief --- An ability can be distributed among other members will be introduced as is the ability to steal more than just gil or the item.... The 2 hr will also changed.... It will be the 2 hr as it always was, BUT... will include increased damage if used in battle for sata if you so wish to. In other words, you can use it for MORE than just dodging....
Ranger --- SE understood there were huge complaints about the nerf. They want to fix that a tad... "Sharpshot" also will not affect accuracy/range as it did before and theyre going to increase the number of types of arrows used.
Beastmaster - MAJOR complaints to SE here .... The nerf was meant to prevent mpk, but that didnt work... They want to take care fo this but they dont know what to do about it yet.
Blue Mage - Bomb toss is available, HOWEVER.... This job is catered to D + D mage- type fans. You can set your spells ahead of time. You can also use the abilities for SC OR MB.... Cool, huh? You can ONLY obtain abilities through MAIN only and if YOU defeat the monster. The beast chart will also make a difference as this ability will be via normal combat against mormal mobs.... In short - using helldiver on a slime is baaad....
Corsair - This jobs based on gambling, similar to blackjack. For example, if I was war, everyone gets double atk. bonus IF the Corsair doesnt bust. One ability will lower recast time on spells.... more on that later..... This job is hard to explain.
Last but not least --- A new job was introduced tonight, as I KNEW another one would be...... Puppetmaster