In this special FFXI feature, ZAM takes you along for the ride as Square Enix demonstrates a few of the highlights from A Shantotto Ascension, it's latest add-on scenario.

Back at the Hunt Registry, we turned in our hunt mission and received an Evolith as a reward (ours turned out to be Magic Attack Bonus +3). "Depending on the notorious monster that you fight, each gives you a different status bonus," our guide said. "The power of the boost varies randomly, so a lot of players will run it over and over again until they get the highest number possible, and then use that to actually put into their gear."

We approached one of several "Synergy Furnaces" back in the city; these public furnaces are required to perform Synergy crafting (although later on, you'll be able to pick up a quest which rewards you with a "portable" furnace that you can use anywhere). Before we tried it out for ourselves, our guide helped explain the new system in more detail.

"Synergy is a more interactive version of crafting," he said. "Prior to the whole Synergy system, we had a regular crafting system with things like Woodworking, Alchemy, Leather, Goldsmith—all those basic crafting [skills], and those are pretty much automatic. You use the crystal to start this synthesis, and all you needed to do was to put your materials into it and it would automatically either be successful or fail, depending on your skill. But the Synergy system is more interactive, because you have to control the Synergy Furnace itself, and operate it to get a successful synergy."

Our tour guide further explained that, similar to regular crafting, Synergy requires recipes to craft the end product. However, these recipes usually require different crafting skills, like Woodworking and Alchemy. If you don't have one of those skills yourself, you can invite players with the required crafting skill to join your party, allowing you to complete the process (which is why it's called "Synergy").

First we had to make an "aperture" in one of our equipment pieces. We needed an item called a "Synergy Crucible," which contains fuel—or more accurately, elemental particles. The goal is to create an elemental balance inside the furnace. There are two aspects to operating the Synergy Furnace; feeding it fuel, then controlling a variety of options like "Pressure Switch", "Emergency switch" and even "Slapping" it to make it work.

While you're feeding it fuel, pressure can build up; it can explode, or elemental particles can leak out. It takes some practice to get the hang of it—it's more of a mini-game than the traditional crafting process. "Synergy is really nice because no matter how many times you fail at it, your items will always remain intact—they will never break," our guide said. "You'll never lose them, so you can try it over and over again with no real repercussions."

After playing around with the Synergy Furnace for a few minutes, our tour guide whisked us off to the snow-covered mountains of San d'Oria. He wanted to show us an example of how the Wings of the Goddess storyline is still evolving via new "Past Nations Quests," which take place in the past, divided by starting cities.

We tried out the Songbirds of a Snowstorm quest, which pitted us against an Orcish Bloodletter. The intro cutscene explained that the San d'Oria army had moved northward to this cold, snowy area, and we had to fight alongside the army to hold off the incoming Orcs. After we defeated the Orcish Bloodletter and completed the quest, we were treated to another epic-looking cutscene that reminded us of how well Square Enix utilizes cinematics in the Final Fantasy series.

At the end of the tour, our guide and his team wanted to show us a new in-game mechanic that should make it a lot easier for role-players to plan and organize live events. He explained how a large group of players could host a big event, such as a wedding. "We've always had this option [for players] to get married," he said, "but in the past, it was difficult to allow all players who wanted to have them set up on time, because they require a lot of manpower on our side to coordinate and set up. So we actually gave players the power to set them up themselves, using NPCs. These NPCs give you Wedding Certificates, which you can put in your Mog House and hang up on the wall. And from the treasure chests on either side of the NPCs, players can buy all their wedding accessories like Wedding Rings, Tuxedoes and Dresses, all that stuff.

"The really neat thing that players can do now is create a custom wedding by placing items that they've chosen from a list anywhere in the world," he continued. "It's called Player Event Support. Players can create their own quests for their own little event parties, or whatever they'd like to do with their imagination. It really gives players customization for how they want to execute their events and set them up."

The team also let us try out the Nexus Cape; a special item that players receive after purchasing all three of the add-on scenarios. The Nexus Cape gives players the ability teleport directly to their party leader's location, which also helps during live weddings or parties, when everyone is trying to get to an event at a certain time. We also took a look at some of the "prop" items available with the new Player Event Support system; players can place certain objects throughout the location, which will display custom messages to anyone who reads them (like wedding announcements or other live event info, for example).

If anything, Square Enix's latest round of in-game press touring illustrated the developers' continued commitment to FFXI, even with the sequel MMO just beyond the horizon. We were especially impressed with the ongoing use of horizontal expansion to flesh out existing content and storylines within the established work. It's great to see the world of FFXI is still expanding for its community, even into 2010.