This HAS to be a new team maintaining FFXIFollow

Where did all these XIV fanboys come from?

... ok, good. If you said you were a happy caster, I'd have to accuse you of being a Flan!




Development... it formally started sometime in 2006 (forget when), but based on the change in tone early in 2007, like the change in direction in story (what about hunting the other Astral Candescences? Story says who cares, we have a magical workaround!), removing 1 of the 11 Mercenary Ranks (every Assault zone now has 1+ unused maps as a result. The rank was Warrant Officer or something, BTW, it was the original 9th I think), which was in the .dats but deleted in the Mar 2007 update. Then content started getting delayed, Zeni NMs & Mythics pushed until summer/fall 2008 (well within WotG's era) and the Colosseum's PvP delayed then eventually cancelled. They also screwed SMN, promising them a new summon in 2006... 06 goes by, 07, ToAU ends, nothing. 08 they promise new summon*s*. 08 goes by, 09 goes by, nothing. A promise kept by 2010 shouldn't have been made in 2006. 2007 also switched to 4 updates/year from the 5 that 2003-2006 had. It's clear they took staff away for FFXIV development. Then over WotG, it became clear there were fewer and fewer people on the other end (like just 3 updates in 2009). 2009's content overall was a joke. SE is a big company, they should have hired enough people to cover fully manning or even 90% manning FFXI while they develop FFXIV.




Actually, talk after the Nov 2009 update was the 1st positive talk since mid 2008. The Synergy/Hunt Registry-Evolith system was an epic flop (biggest flop behind The Spirits Within?), but it added a gigantic amount of content to the game. There was well over 100 NMs added. After several sparse updates with add-on filler, this was finally an update packed with material. ASA was also considered the best add-on (pre-Abyssea). March 2010 continued the trend with the popular Trial of the Magians, and then Abyssea has given players a new place to go since WotG certainly isn't the go-to place (went from ToAU to floundering to Abyssea). The Level Cap being raised gave FFXI new energy, though I still think Abyssea is, albeit good, just one step. They need a real vision beyond these 3 Abyssea add-ons and they need to spread out the >LV75 content, which is now crammed into 6 zones. Abyssea seems to be filler, but substantive filler, giving players some content independent of an expansion because WotG has been drawn out to likely end in a whimper. It should have ended a full year ago. Magians, Voidwalkers, Abyssea are all content that should be structured under a focused vision for FFXI (what expansions are, beyond the mere zones and storyline). It's a step in the right direction, but they need to chart out a path (and show the players they are going somewhere with all this).




I think Tanaka was clearly distracted and him being put in charge of 2 online games was stupid. It's too much for one person. He's not Cerberus. Though it's been recently announced, I think the new director was influencing content while Tanaka was mentally "out to lunch FFXIV" at least since early 2010.

As for FFXI's budget, no one's put up a source, so it's still in the realm of speculation. FFXI might've kept its budget the same in 2009, they just took a chunk of its team/content developers into FFXIV, so some of FFXI's budget may have ended up in FFXIV (a shifty way to hide if a game might be going way overbudget, treat FFXI like some kind of shell corporation in Jamaica).

As for what FFXI's treatment all means: Their statement, "FFXI will no longer be our flagship" simply meant FFXI was flagship for a decade, is getting old, so they want something that will be a flagship to 2020 (it would be ironic if FFXI ends up outlasting FFXIV). It's like a production company wanting to make a new series after their flagship series is 8-10 seasons old. FFXI dying? Them making the game adrift probably made it lose some people. SE got cheap and thought they could neglect FFXI and get FFXI fans to buy $10 filler while they develop FFXIV. FFXI cannot be low-manned. Disgruntlement over WotG being stretched like a piece of putty into infinity is the outcome. Will there even be a new expansion or just a series of add-ons? Who knows? SE is not the same company it was when ToAU was launched. They've crept towards bloated developments that lacked focus (ahem, FFXII & FFXIII) and go on for years and years. It's like Sony. FFXI was like PS1-2 thru most of ToAU, but under WotG, it's been like PS3 in terms of the in-company mentality that produced the PS3.




I wouldn't be so sure. I wouldn't rule it out, but remember, he's heading up the FFXIV project and that's A LOT of pressure. In a previous interview, he noted things get a little crazy for FFXI around update times and he has to be on call 24-7 in case a crisis crops up around then. With all the stress for such a big launch (comparable to the stress of FFXI's launch) combined with evidently some reports of FFXIV being very flawed (more flawed and low on content than FFXI's Beta. FFXI's Beta went up to like LV35 or 40 [the LV cap at release was LV50], included all field areas south of the Jeuno line, had zones filled with enemies, even had 3 or 4 NMs, and had the starting 6 jobs. PLD-RNG were added at launch). It's the inverse of FFXI's launch. There, the content was stable, it was the infrastructure in question, and did it fail (they ended up giving people a free month, it wasn't til June 2002 until people were able to reliably play the game, and that didn't even involve transoceanic internet cables, just J2J, Japan 2 Japan connections). Here, the infrastructure is probably going to be stable, but the game's content/quality/in-game systems are in question. He's under a lot of stress, so I understand why he might get snappy. But yeah, someone from the XI team now on XIV is the problem.

Yes, the FFXI AH system needs some work, that doesn't mean that it's a bad idea. Dropping it entirely and replacing it with an all bazaar system is a horrible idea. Especially once the game gets up and running and there's a a lot more people trying to sell a lot more items.

Also, it's spelled "fail". You come off as an idiot when you misspell it.

I've (mostly) gotten out of that habit

Speaking of Rog, I almost think it'd be nifty if some kind of "average words per post" survey could go out. A lot of times I can be quite verbose in my replies, but even in being here as long as I have, I haven't even topped 8k yet, not even averaging 3 posts a day.

/random

My average words per post depends largely on which forum i'm in. My posts here are usually no more than 1-2 small-ish paragraphs. In job=2, they're much longer. In /k/ my posts probably average around 10 words or less.

Since the beginning of the year, i've averaged around 60 posts per day.

Also according to the top 250 list you average just under 4 posts per day.

Edited, Sep 13th 2010 2:33am by ThePsychoticOne

Instead of throwing money at an old MMO to try to revive it, do you honestly think it wouldn't be a smarter move to work on a new, shinier, more appealing MMO instead?

No matter what they would do to XI, it would still be an 8 year old game. If you don't think that would affect it's success, you are wrong, because it most definitely would.



There's no point to throwing more money at an MMO than necessary. They have done and will do what is most efficient, and that unfortunately means more resources for XIV (the new, shiny game that has a much greater chance to grow in time) and less resources for XI (which can only keep it's existing userbase p(l)aying, at best).

Their constant strive for efficiency can be seen in the development of XIV too. sh*t isn't ready by a long shot, but extending the development time means many months without subscription profits, and more "free" playtime for the beta testers- and now, using their experience from the release of XI they have calculated that right now is the best time to release the game, as far as effort/profit ratio goes. Even if it's not finished, they think they can pull it off, because they pulled it off with XI.

And I seriously doubt that decision is something the developers can affect. Hell, even Sundi said they wish they had more months to develop the game in the most recent interview- they simply can't do **** about it.



Edited, Sep 13th 2010 6:57am by Hyanmen

Obviously. It's risky, but to them, it's a risk worth taking. Whatever opposition there was probably wasn't enough for them to change their mind.



They do it because they did it with XI and it ended up working.

Actually, I too am very skeptical about their plans. I don't think it'll work, although I also believe there's a chance it will. I see where they're coming from, either way.



Oh you know, I'm sure they could spend nearly limitless amount of money on this game if they wanted. It's simply a matter of effort vs. profit, and SE clearly knows where that line goes, which is too bad for us.

I agree with you. Of course it's cool to have new equipment, new abilities and an easy way to go through the levels(aby alliances), but I don't want this alone.
Isn't this game called Final Fantasy? I bought it years ago for this reason. CoP was great, ToAU was fun as well and I'm really enjoying the past Windy missions. It's ok to have all these new shiny things, but I'm expecting more than that in the future(maybe in vain, but I still hope xD)

FFXIV is on the fast track to being the next Vanguard I'm afraid. You only get one launch and FFXIV has problems that can't be fixed in 10 days.

Once the bad reviews go out and Yahtzee savages it on Zero Punctuation FFXIV is done.

You make no sense, you realize this right? First you claim FFXI's budget went down during the story add-ons, which is the reason for the lower quality. But then you claim Abyssea is better because budget went back up. Now you seem to be indicating that the money is still going to XIV.

While I don't argue XI's budget probably (until they make this information none of us know what the budget is) lower than it was years ago. But that is not the point to this thread. These updates are not better because of budget. It is because the developers don't seem to be as stubborn as they were in the past. They are listening to player concerns and desires, even if the changes are different from how THEY want the game to be.

If anything, XI's budget is lower because the people who are maintaining it aren't the higher paycheck big guys that were in charge in the past. So, in theory, a lower XI budget could be the best thing possible for the future of this game.



What bothers me is most XIV players I have talked to that don't really care for the game, but are still trying to get into it are ex-XI players. If you read the forums over there, a lot of people sound like they really miss XI and wish XIV was more like it. They talk about it like XI no longer exists. I wish I could convince those people that not only is FFXI still going strong, it is actually a much more enjoyable game than when they left.

Of course marketing a different MMO on a specific MMO board, even when one of those games is a sequel to the other, is likely to get karma nuked into oblivion.

Edited, Sep 13th 2010 9:57am by Vawn43