[ZenithXI] A Level 75 Progression Server

Hello everyone,

Please keep this discussion respectful and on topic. Avoid turning this thread into unproductive arguments or using it solely to post negative remarks.

ZenithXI is a progression server currently in development, built on the Land Sand Boat emulator. Starting with the original level 50 cap and no expansion access. Over time the level and crafting caps will increase to 75 and 100, respectively, alongside expansion releases. We plan to thoughtfully explore content beyond the 75 Era, reworking and scaling it back while emphasizing horizontal progression. Our vision is to reimagine the game while staying grounded in the foundation of modern retail XI, carefully tailoring customizations and avoiding excessive custom content. The goal is to recapture that sense of wonder and nostalgia while staying true to the spirit of the 75 Era. Era serves as our guide but it does not dictate every choice we make.

The server will be single box, with retail movement speed (50), Era XP, no mounts, retail merits (some adjusted), a maximum of two rebalanced trusts (second unlocked and summoned at level 50), home point warps disabled, Explorer Moogle enabled (After nation rank 3), Survival Guide warps disabled, FoV/GoV rewards once per game day with no Prowesses, no Login Points or Records of Eminence, Claim Shield active on all NMs, and force spawn kings from KSNMs. Many out of era traits and abilities will be included but scaled down. NMs such as Chonchon or Highlander Lizard will be available from launch and not removed. Food and equipment are undergoing a global evaluation and rebalancing while maintaining respect for the traditional hierarchy and progression.

Certain mechanics will be adjusted from their current retail boosts to better reflect 75 Era standards. System customizations are planned, including some inspired from WingsXI. Namely improved auto target or spell queueing. Which reduces the latency penalty between spells being rejected with "you must wait longer". Additionally, a slight compounding PH spawn rate that increases until the NM spawns, then resets. A single lottery NM should not take most of your day. We are striving to balance modest QoL changes with modern convenience.

Roadmaps will be shared at regular intervals. Giving players clear timelines to look forward to as we roll out planned developments.

As an active fork of LSB, we will be developing and submitting retail accurate content upstream. While modularizing over certain aspects to better meet Era standards. The project will be mixed-source with select modules that are neither retail or 75 Era compliant, kept proprietary. ZenithXI does not seek to be a closed-source server. The XI community should strive to advance the emulator together, sharing knowledge and submissions collaboratively.

Interested players are welcome to join the ZenithXI subreddit and our Discord.

Recruitment

We're looking for developers of all skill levels to help bring this project to life. There are also other roles available for those who may not have development skills but still want to contribute.

Please let us know if you are interested in representing the server as a Community Representative. Designated Community Representatives will play a crucial role as our primary point of public contact. In line with the Code of Conduct, all other staff members should only interact with players through tickets, bug reports, official announcements, or within Mordion Gaol.

Those interested in becoming a future GM are encouraged to submit a formal request. Please note that all use of GM commands will be monitored and forwarded to the rest of the staff. To safeguard against potential corruption, GMs will not have access to development channels or discussions.

If you are interested in joining the team, please submit a ticket through our Discord.

I am incredibly excited for the future of this project and can’t wait to see what we will achieve together.

Sincerely,
Lance, director of ZenithXI

Does your private server have any plans for mitigating service interruptions or outages? Like, you know:

1. Power outages when your mom is doing laundry, or other chores overlap with NA prime time?
   

2. Single server overheating due to contaminants like cigarette smoke, cat hair and cheeto dust?
   

3. Hardware replacement, like when the only box fan keeping the single server cool fails?

Also, is the security of player data an important pillar of operating Zenith XI? Is my data protected, or can I expect:

1. My login information to be stored in plaintext?
   

2. Zero player data retention or regular backups and restore procedures?
   

3. No quality of service guarantees because of non-stop torrenting on a flat home network and cheapo ISP router/firewall?
   

Now, I know each private server has different practices and guidelines for creating a welcoming environment for players. How will ZenithXI compare with other private servers in these crucial areas for maintaining player engagement?:

1. Are there any minimal level or advanced job requirements to receiving *** pics from GMs and other staff?
   

2. Can we expect this policy to be enforced equally across all players or will there be favoritism? (asking for both *** pics and exclusive items, like REMA, Kraken Clubs, etc etc).
   

3. I assume the application process for becoming GMs/Staff is fair and transparent, but will the selection criteria be weighted fairly against all forms of sexual gratification?
   

4. Do handjobs with pants on still count towards the application process?
   

Please discuss.

Edit: This post is meant to make you laugh. If you have other opinions, please leave them here. Thank you.

D: Thank you so much for doing this. If you need the module for this let me know, I have it saved locally still. I also have some of the other Wings customizations like Auction House paging and the custom Friend list.

Best of luck with your server. I heard from Mowford that you're taking your time and putting a lot of thought into things. If you ever have any questions feel free to reach out.

No.


That sense of wonder came from the unknown, figuring out events that were new. You re-creating old already solved content won't be any of that.


So forcing things to be slower and more tedious for the sake of being slower and more tedious. No modern MMO restricts travel this badly. You would learn well to look at WHY that is the case.


You... don't even have developers? Is this a joke? This would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad...

Edit: Took a look at your subreddit. You're already having congestion issues? This is DOA.

Lots of people play private servers, let people enjoy what they want to enjoy.

As for "not having developers," that isn't true either. There's about 20-30 people actively working on LandSandBoat. That's more than you can probably say for retail.

Only thing you're director of is moving your hand up and down on your own genitals.

How about you fork yourself a new forum and a new wiki while you're at it so you don't spam your excrement all over this one.

Effing director of ZenithXI my shiny metal butt.

You forgot to call yourself Something-P too. Frigging meatbag.

Ah ***, here we go again

"director of ZenithXI"

This is so cringe, it's a private server piggyback off other's work.

My only problem is the mischaracterization of this 'project' as being created "to recapture that sense of wonder and nostalgia while staying true to the spirit of the 75 Era". That's only some ***you say if you never actually played 75 era, you just rep it because you killed a Fafnir on a private server a few years ago.


The magic and wonder of the 75 era, belong to that era. Trying to recapture or recreate this is essentially the same as trying to convince an adult to believe in Santa Claus again.

Lot of words, decent plan, won't ever get anywhere. You'll get a whole lot of initial growth. The private server crowd always hops to the newest one because they want to be world first at something on the 23rd instance of bootleg FFXI. Then, it'll gradually die off because unpaid volunteers who don't know that FFXI is all edge cases can't implement content at a reasonable rate.

A server that does a soft reset every 6-12 months would probably be the most novel thing in the space. Just give some sort of token reward for progress from the previous season.

Not only that but making massive changes like having trusts means it will be *** all like old FFXI.

I have a couple comments which won't, I don't think, be as negative as some might assume.

Firstly, I'm surprised by how fragmented the PS community is. You'd think that people would want to consolidate their fanbase into one or two servers, maybe 3-4 if you want to have some variation in the content or settings. The fact that absolutely nobody can agree on what "era" FFXI was, or what "The golden age" was is very telling to me. It seems like everyone and their brother has a different idea of what is fun and what isn't and, in my opinion, absolutely none of them are remotely accurate to the actual "era" FFXI experience so, again in my opinion, it's hilarious when they pretend that retail FFXI is a completely different game to "era" FFXI, since they are doing the same thing.

Secondly (and finally, for this post anyway), I think that a large portion of the people playing PSXI have extremely incorrect assumptions about retail FFXI. They say they're looking for a PS experience because they want something community-oriented and grindy and want to avoid a solo experience, etc. They say this not realizing that everything they're looking for is in Retail, in spades. It is absurd how much group content there is in FFXI and how much SE has encouraged people to team up.

I think the hang-up comes from the fact that the leveling experience, the first thing you do when you enter the game, is (pretty much) a solo experience. I get that, and I understand when you're entering an MMO it's not that fun to do a lot of soloing, but in the grand scheme of things if you're going to be playing FFXI for months or years, being (mostly) solo for the first 2 weeks is really not that crazy. Once you reach even the earliest parts of endgame, like barely after 99, you're quickly thrust right into the loving arms of linkshells, parties, shout groups, discord, and community. Even when leveling, you can grab two linkshells (or more) and have people to chat with and help you.

I really think most people believe that retail FFXI (can we just call it FFXI at this point...?) is nothing but 6boxers and people soloing with trusts, which couldn't be further from the truth, in my experience. < 5% of players are 6boxers and the vast majority of worthwhile content is significantly better when done in a party. I've barely summoned trusts in the last 5 years; I'd say probably a few percent of my game time involved having a single trust out. They suck for anything even remotely challenging.

I think you overestimate how large the "market" is for PS.

This "director's" server has 0 online people, according to their own website.

Their subreddit has not had any new posts, including from themselves, in three months.

Equivalent of an empty desert with a preacher standing on a sand hill saying "we" a lot (it's just that one person) shouting about a 75-era oasis and how they're the director.

Bro, you're in a desert - there's no one there to hear you.

Obligatory request to delete the private server section of the forum as it is non-relevant to XI.

I do like this idea. Never tried a PS and probably never will, but I bet seasonal content would retain a lot of people who are attracted by the nostalgia of 75 era but then realize it's breadth of content is very limited.

Thank you for the support.


We are not hard forking from LSB. Which means we will actively pull updates from and contribute back to the same emulator that most new servers are built on. There is a mutually beneficial relationship between multiple servers and LSB, and successful new projects help encourage more development.

A single server will never be the right fit for everyone. There is no one-size-fits-all option that will suit every taste. Many of the modules we work on for Zenith will be open source. We're not here to compete with anyone and our goal is to help strengthen the community while making something special.

Depends on how much goes into that soft reset, as soon as you take away peoples gear/levels/money theyll start jumping ship imo unless you could really entice them with something new, which PS already have enough trouble copying the old stuff as far as im aware, so not sure how well making something new would go

There is no "we" director, it's just you.

Talking about yourself in plural makes you seem even more of a *** that calling yourself "director'. So, accurate.

I'm not really convinced this is true; they jump server to server anyway and that costs them their gear and levels and money. I think there's appeal to being in an early state server before the winners are established and the market is stabilized. It's not like new project #XX is suddenly better than the server someone was on, they just want to be back in the early game with other people in the same state.

Maybe something like allowing you to save 5-10 items in wardrobe8 and then unlocking them halfway through the season.

You are competing, though.

The number of people actually interested in playing "classic" FFXI is quite limited. Most private server players I know just rotate between the existing servers. When a new one launches, it inevitably cannibalizes the player base of the older ones. Right now, that already fragmented playerbase is split across three or more servers.

If your goal is truly to support the community, consider collaborating with existing projects rather than recreating what they're already doing, especially with fewer resources.

Always thought the idea of a progression server would be really cool, but one hell of a thing to pull off. Just getting the formulas right based on what patch it is would be really tough/impossible more than likely. Recreating the pre-2004 content would also be tough with so little information.

It would be very interesting I think to play an era accurate version of pre-TOAU meta for example, no ones really done that and it would probably be fun to go back to the Ridill War+Mnk+Nin meta of 2005 with a 2025 lens.

The real sticking point here is it seems you are going really custom with Trusts and rebalancing, what's the point of making a server that's trying to emulate very specific time periods and then throwing it all out the window with custom? Trusts are the antithesis of era in my opinion.

horizon is the only server contributing back to LSB in any meaningful fashion, and they still aren't great about it

if this server stays committed to not hard forking and actually shares back content, that's exactly what they're doing and they'll easily be the most beneficial server to the overall ecosystem

words are just words though, horizon was 'committed' to contributing back on launch and they've been forked for longer than they've been consistent

It'd be an interesting thing to try out if someone wanted to play around with, as im not aware of any of the PS in other games i played doing something like that, typically it was due to a rollback which understandably upsets people and they leave as that wasnt something they expected to happen and now opens up the (obvious) concern that it could happen again at any point.

I suppose the next hurdle would be how often you could do it without it getting stale.

We aren't trying to perfectly emulate the Era experience. That would be impractical with the number of temporary changes needed only to undo them later.

Instead, we're focusing on specific features to create a meaningful sense of progression. For example, sneak and invis won't be available for a short window after launch. Along with a gradually increasing level cap up to 75, certain synthesis recipes and NPCs will be tagged to their respective expansions and disabled until those expansions are released. The goal is to create a fresh and dynamic progression experience, while also scaling in additions from post 75 content.

You should probably lead with a timeline instead of the idea of a progression

It's an interesting vision, doesn't really appeal to me but I can understand people wanting to do a like "FFXI what if" version.

Aren't horizon (and most other servers) doing exacly that already? Lock certain features cause they're not available in ZM and CoP.

Most private servers are completley different from retail gameplay experience/community wise, that's why they exist. Especially so with the likes of 75-era ones.

This is incredibly stupid. If someone wants a "fresh, still in beta" MMO experience they can pick any of the myriad new MMOs being created all the time.

It sorta baffles me why XI gets this kind of lunacy. XIV somehow escaped it. Absolutely no one wants a 1.0 FFXIV experience.