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FINAL FANTASY XI 2012 Roadmap Follow

#102 Apr 30 2012 at 11:36 PM Rating: Excellent
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You are aware though that Tanaka's position and role with XI has never changed at all. His position and role with XI now is the exact same as it was when Abyssea was out. The reason attention was diverted over to XIV was because it was in a terrible state, and just letting it die entirely would have been devastating financially, not to mention it would have also really reflected badly on the company itself.

Even though XIV is a lot better than before, it's still generally considered to be incomplete and in the works, and probably won't be up to standards till 2.0, so they'd be foolish to pull people from it just as it's starting to get off the ground.


I've mentioned part of the v2.0 exercise may be face/honor. SE made it (hopefully knowing) that the odds favor it tanking or getting some support but nowhere near enough to pay for the cost of FFXIV 1.0 + 2.0 + all that time it was free to show its investors and the banks that give it loans that they can still make games. The ranking of outcomes with FFXIV 2.0 they favor are:
- Huge success, critical darling, millions of players (have to be quite delusional to believe this)
- Modest success, can pay off its dev costs, but may take time.
- Not a bust but not enough to be profitable. Not critically panned. SE can at least show "See, we tried".
- Complete flop, unable to shake off its v1.0 legacy. SE can still show they tried.
- Complete flop, critically scathed. SE is unable to restore/boost confidence in their ability to make good games again.

I wonder if they are adding to the huge money pit that is FFXIV 1.0 by developing 2.0 not just as a gamble because they are still delusional and think it can succeed (doubling down) but to simply make a game that by itself can be considered a fairly good to great game even if nobody plays it to prevent their investors and banks that give them loans for funding projects from losing confidence in their abilities. In other words, that SE sees it as the cost of keeping themselves from getting knocked down to a smaller company, a has-been, that FFXVI+ can be as well-funded as FFVII thru FFXIV.

#103 May 01 2012 at 1:50 AM Rating: Default
Erecia wrote:
Seriha wrote:
Telling people to quit helps nobody, let alone for 18 freakin' months where it's possible they'll just up and forget about the game and find something better. MMO players really need to get over that line because if everyone took that advice the moment they found something they're unhappy with, hello empty servers, hello less money to develop.


Wow, Stockholm Syndrome much? You've totally justified paying for something you don't like under the idea that it helps the people that do like it instead. I hope I am never that much of a sucker with my money.

Thumbs up ;)

So far it seems a small amount of people are really unhappy to the point they dont want to play no more?

If Seriha is telling people to get "over that line" funny, you could say that the other way with "Im not happy with this update". Not everyone is going to be satisfied and thats a fact. People are still signing on in large numbers to play, XI is a very old game and keeping a MMO running this long with so much competition is close to a miracle. Yet the fact people still sign on to ALLA to voice their opinions of a "apparently" dieing game that no one is happy to play just shows that XI interest is still high. The game is like marmite love it or hate it, if you really hate it that bad why are you sticking around? SE is not going to change their approach.
#104 May 01 2012 at 2:03 AM Rating: Excellent
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If people hate what they are doing to FFXI they should take a long break till they change it, should go nowhere near FFXIV (because this is what they want and think you will do and is rewarding their disgusting behaviour to it's XI playerbase) and play something else for a while.

I'm currently playing Tera and for the first time in a long time I don't miss FFXI, Tera to me plays like FFXI Abyssea and I'm having a blast with it.

I loved FFXI and was playing it non-stop for 7 years, not until they took us for granted and put all their eggs in the XIV basket did I finally have enough and stop all my subscriptions (that I never stopped since I started). If you hate what they are doing then you should stop your sub to show you are serious about it, not until XIV was a flop did they change anything and not until the subs take a serious nose-dive will they take the XI playerbase serious either. They have shown they don't care or listen to us, XI is directly subsidising XIV so they will care if they lose mass amounts of money due to the people running it being incompetent.

Edited, May 1st 2012 4:05am by Runespider
#105 May 01 2012 at 4:59 AM Rating: Good
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Lady Jinte wrote:
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That's the UI. Graphical updates include improved textures, higher poly counts, better lighting and water effects. I'm talking about the actual game graphics. Improved menus is not improved graphics to me.


This pretty much. Updating the UI to something every modern MMO already has isn't new, its the dev's finally taking off the ****** hat for once.

I how many people realize this game is still using DirectX 8 for it's graphics rendering. Most modern cards don't even properly support it anymore and it's being emulated in DX9 instead. They need to update the graphics code to DX9 at a minimum, maybe even 10/11 if they can swing it. This doesn't require texture / resources updates, those can stay the same, going to DX9 alone would vastly improve the game's appearance. Lighting / shadows and special effects would look so much better in DX9.


The game really doesn't need a graphics overhaul, though. People who don't like the quality of the game's graphics compared to newer games whine and moan about its sh*tty graphics, but honestly, there are so many other things wrong with the game that need fixed and should take priority over making it look prettier that this is really a non-issue and people need to shut the @#%^ up about it. The older graphics don't make the game unplayable for anyone except for hyper-vain ego gamers who refuse to play any game that isn't the cutting edge of everything. I'm totally happy with FFXI's meh graphics, compared to modern games like, say, TOR, where the absolute lowest possible graphics settings still leave the game almost entirely unplayable on my computer, which though out of date, is not a complete piece of garbage, and plays other games like Rift or EVE just fine Smiley: glare


That wasn't about making the game look "better" just having it perform without glitch's.

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Most modern cards don't even properly support it anymore and it's being emulated in DX9 instead


Stand next to a conflux and look at it, your FPS will dip down and things get sluggish. If you have the task manager up looking resource monitor you'll see the POL process shoot up to max speed on whatever core it's running on. That's part of FFXI being emulated in software because their too damn lazy (or don't know their own code) to write a proper graphics engine. Spin around and look away from that glowing crystal and watch the CPU utilization go down again. FFXI actually runs better on XP + older hardware then it does on newer hardware.

So not really about making new textures or more complex models, just updating the graphics engine to speak the modern language (DX9/10/11). Can keep everything else the same, this wouldn't increase it's requirements on older PC's one bit but would make a dramatic difference on anything made in the past 6 years.
#106 May 01 2012 at 7:23 AM Rating: Excellent
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Erecia wrote:
Seriha wrote:
Telling people to quit helps nobody, let alone for 18 freakin' months where it's possible they'll just up and forget about the game and find something better. MMO players really need to get over that line because if everyone took that advice the moment they found something they're unhappy with, hello empty servers, hello less money to develop.


Wow, Stockholm Syndrome much? You've totally justified paying for something you don't like under the idea that it helps the people that do like it instead. I hope I am never that much of a sucker with my money.


Aside from the whole "I haven't been playing for about half a year now" part I've been personally practicing.

Color me pragmatic, but if I ran a business and had customers telling me, "You know, I like what you offer, but I'd like it more if you added..." I'd actually, you know, look into satisfying that request if it was reasonable and fit the nature of the business. These people would've obviously given me money, in turn helping my future. They may not be actual stock holders, but they're still valuable. And if they're happy, they'll tell other people I could make them happy if they need my product. The cycle would ideally repeat, leading to quality customer service, a growing client base, and me making more money.

In FFXI land? ********** off, you only have a right to say something when you pack your bags and leave indefinitely with no promise of your grievances being addressed. Nevermind the fact you lose access to the forums with an inactive sub, unable to elaborate why you quit. Nor is there any kind of survey when opting to cancel to show even the slightest sign of interest why they're losing your service. You don't matter. You should just be happy the game even exists. Everyone else still playing is happy enough. Doesn't matter they could be happier and losing fewer possible people to play with!"

...sometimes I wonder who has the Stockholm Syndrome here.

That's not entirely a FFXI-specific mentality, hence my jab at the MMO community on the whole, but other games I've played at least had that survey option, even if it just leads to digital equivalent to the paper shredder. It's actually possible to care about a game without being the likeness of a battered wife in denial. Overall, this is my warning to all MMO devs. Don't take your customers for granted. Don't give your customers reasons to tell other well-meaning customers to quit. That hardly fosters community, let alone a fatter bottom line.
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#107 May 01 2012 at 7:26 AM Rating: Excellent
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Vlorsutes, Lord of Stuff wrote:
You are aware though that Tanaka's position and role with XI has never changed at all. His position and role with XI now is the exact same as it was when Abyssea was out.


Titles can stay the same while duties and focus change. I dunno maybe Tanaka is the man behind Abyssea, but if so it's such a vast departure from everything else he's done before and since that I'm sure you can see why people might think he had little if anything to do with it. The same can be said of the state of communication and cooperation between the players and dev team during that time. That too was a complete 180 from what we've gotten before and since. Maybe he, like many of us, just wanted to try something new and then went back to his old ways. I guess it's possible, but my skepticism is high.

#108 May 01 2012 at 7:28 AM Rating: Good
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Seriha wrote:
In FFXI land? "@#%^ off, you only have a right to say something when you pack your bags and leave indefinitely with no promise of your grievances being addressed. Nevermind the fact you lose access to the forums with an inactive sub, unable to elaborate why you quit. Nor is there any kind of survey when opting to cancel to show even the slightest sign of interest why they're losing your service. You don't matter. You should just be happy the game even exists. Everyone else still playing is happy enough. Doesn't matter they could be happier and losing fewer possible people to play with!"


It's just a backhanded way of telling others to shut up and go away.

Edited, May 1st 2012 9:28am by Camiie
#109 May 01 2012 at 7:32 AM Rating: Excellent
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From some people, I'd believe it. Others, I find, have been brainwashed into believing that's really how it should be.

I'm sure there are studies out there outlining the difficulties of reacquiring customers after they've been alienated from a given business. There are most definitely methods to try and win people back, like cutting costs or offering deals, but that's something SE's obviously not offering at the moment.

I don't buy $0.99 TV dinners expecting them to have the same quality and portions as the $4 ones. FFXI is going through the crisis of formerly being a $4 TV dinner, but coming out more like the $0.99 ones. People are noticing this. Some want it back to the meaty $4 days. It's not like the money isn't there. Some would be okay with and tolerate the $0.99 status if they weren't paying $4. Some are indifferent. Maybe money isn't a concern for them? I dunno. All I can say is I didn't feel like FFXI was growing, then or now. The past year has left me thinking it was shrinking, and the "Just quit!" crowd will eventually get those "...maybe I should." realizations from the unhappy. Once they're gone? Good luck getting them back without something drastic like cap increases and Abyssea.

Edited, May 1st 2012 9:44am by Seriha
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#110 May 01 2012 at 8:08 AM Rating: Decent
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Well I have too say I know things are getting bad for this game.. I have been playing this game for a while and the past month I have only gotten on a few times now. I feel there really is no need, I wont miss much. My girlfriend has no desire to get on anymore. Four of my friends have quit. LS is empty except for events. All these updates and so little content. Everyone feels they can step away for months now and not miss anything. I cant believe how many people have all there jobs to 99 which should have never been possible. There just isn't much to do anymore. I am seriously thinking of trying FFXIV and maybe that's the idea.


Seriha wrote:
From some people, I'd believe it. Others, I find, have been brainwashed into believing that's really how it should be.

I'm sure there are studies out there outlining the difficulties of reacquiring customers after they've been alienated from a given business. There are most definitely methods to try and win people back, like cutting costs or offering deals, but that's something SE's obviously not offering at the moment.

I don't buy $0.99 TV dinners expecting them to have the same quality and portions as the $4 ones. FFXI is going through the crisis of formerly being a $4 TV dinner, but coming out more like the $0.99 ones. People are noticing this. Some want it back to the meaty $4 days. It's not like the money isn't there. Some would be okay with and tolerate the $0.99 status if they weren't paying $4. Some are indifferent. Maybe money isn't a concern for them? I dunno. All I can say is I didn't feel like FFXI was growing, then or now. The past year has left me thinking it was shrinking, and the "Just quit!" crowd will eventually get those "...maybe I should." realizations from the unhappy. Once they're gone? Good luck getting them back without something drastic like cap increases and Abyssea.

Edited, May 1st 2012 9:44am by Seriha



That is such a good way to put it. This game is not growing it is loosing players and bringing in no new blood either. They are not even trying too and made it hard too. They put high level mobs in low level areas. Seems they are trying to survive on the diehards but they are the ones really leaving. A few people have came back for a while . Allot of people playing are only doing so because its all they have known for years and developed good friend ships in the game. Friends is why it is hard for me to leave but allot are leaving anyway now. I just wish ffxiv was ready.

I just want a sense of adventure again.





Edited, May 1st 2012 10:24am by Nashred
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#111 May 01 2012 at 10:54 AM Rating: Excellent
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I cant believe how many people have all there jobs to 99 which should have never been possible. There just isn't much to do anymore. I am seriously thinking of trying FFXIV and maybe that's the idea.


This makes me so angry to read, nothing against you because I know it's a widely held feeling among the playerbase. It makes me mad because I think this was basically the idea, if they hadn't of ruined FFXI those who feel like you probably would not of even contemplated going near it. Of course the thing that makes me feel a little better about it is that for players that fall for it will pay for it in the end again, they will probably use this strategy next time too when they bring out FFVI. The reason for FF14 was because 11 stopped attracting new customers, once the new game goes into that stage we will be back to this strategy.

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I just want a sense of adventure again.


Try Tera or Guild wars 2, or something that doesn't have a SE logo on it. Rewarding them for what they did to this game is truely depressing.

Quote:
I'm sure there are studies out there outlining the difficulties of reacquiring customers after they've been alienated from a given business. There are most definitely methods to try and win people back, like cutting costs or offering deals, but that's something SE's obviously not offering at the moment.


I was thinking earlier about what if they brought out a new expansion, honestly I don't think even that would bring me back now..which is really sad because I was a hopeless addict to FFXI for a long time (paying for 6 accounts no less). I'm so mad and angry with what they did to the game to make me decide to quit, the thing that would bring me back would be the old team coming back.
#112 May 01 2012 at 11:37 AM Rating: Excellent
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Keep in mind that a huge part of the way FFXI, and Square Enix in general, works is based on Japanese culture and Japanese Business Sense, which both tend to differ drastically from their western equivalents in many areas. Further, Square Enix is a ******* massive company that does a huge amount in the entirety of the Japanese entertainment industry, they're not remotely limited to games, or even the final fantasy series, though it it is their Flagship. My point here is that, while a lot of the **** we see may not make sense from a "western gaming company (ie: mostly US, but some EU companies, though even those tend to vary a good bit from the standard American gaming company; compare Blizzard(US based) CCP (Iceland based))" perspective, when you consider that over all, their financing may work more like a "General Entertainment company" system, internally. It's not much better, since anyone with half a brain knows that you can't apply the same business logic to games as you would TV shows (read: anime) or comics (read: manga), both of which are also a significant portion of SE's business (ie: Full Metal Alchemist? SE has their paw in that cookie jar, too). SE is also a legacy company that has a huge following of fans of the "OMFG ITS FROM SE I DON'T CARE WHAT IT IS I'LL PAY FOR IT!!" variety, all across the globe, so they absolutely can afford to play the "We're going to provide what we want to provide, who cares what you think? You're going to pay for it either way." game, and they're pretty ******* good at it, too.

It doesn't justify ****, but it does make a lot more sense.
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#113 May 01 2012 at 4:13 PM Rating: Excellent
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Vlorsutes, Lord of Stuff wrote:
You are aware though that Tanaka's position and role with XI has never changed at all. His position and role with XI now is the exact same as it was when Abyssea was out. The reason attention was diverted over to XIV was because it was in a terrible state, and just letting it die entirely would have been devastating financially, not to mention it would have also really reflected badly on the company itself.

Even though XIV is a lot better than before, it's still generally considered to be incomplete and in the works, and probably won't be up to standards till 2.0, so they'd be foolish to pull people from it just as it's starting to get off the ground.


Not even close to filling the same role as what he had prior to Yoshida, and now again, after Yoshida has been moved to FFXIV.

Nobuaki Komoto and Tanaka walked hand in hand; they shared the same goals and ran FFXI a specific way for several years. When Naoki Yoshida (Yoshi P) came along and filled in during Komoto & Tanaka's absence during their work on XIV, he did more than sit idle and watch the game continue to follow the boring, dying path that Komoto & Tanaka had laid out.

He introduced an expansion that revolutionized the way we played FFXI, and solved almost every single major complaint of the game's mechanics in an extremely robust and well maintained way. They revived a good 6 jobs that no one could realistically play in any form of endgame and made them fun to play at all times. I think the only class that really got "hurt" was Bard, and as much as it sucks to be a relic bard who isn't as essential (still super useful though) in Abyssea as they are outside Abyssea, every single bard I knew was happy to be freed of the burden of bard for every single event. Every. Single. One.

Furthermore, he Yoshi P kickstarted the long-dead idea of "communicating with the public" that Komoto & Tanaka had completely abandoned many years ago because the wanted to do their own game, their own way, with the mindset of "the player is wrong and doesn't know what the player actually wants, so we are going to do it our own way with no flex, PERIOD".

Granted, I can't vouch for inside titles, but there was an obvious announcement of Yoshi P taking the reigns when Abyssea came to fruition. We all sat and wondered why suddenly we, as players, were getting the attention we deserved, and so much awesome stuff constantly delivered in an incredibly timely fashion. Even the miniscule stuff like "additional spawn ???" for bosses are the kind of thing that Tanaka never bothered to invest time in, he and Komoto as a team are outright a-holes and deserve to be demoted x 10. When we were all begging for an answer, Yoshi P was announced as the new FFXI lead. This was no coincidence, it was the result of his hard work and progress the game saw with his baby; Abyssea and everything that came along with it.

Read your very own ZAM article on the front page of XIV to see the Yoshi P announcement again hitting the playerbase, much like we had in the past for FFXI, we now see a similar announcement for XIV. The bottom line is that Yoshi P has a chance to create something from scratch... no holds barred, no one to interfere. There's a reason he abandoned everything Tanaka did, and that's, very simply, because he doesn't want him crawling back into the scene as Komoto's buddy to take over his hard work, claiming credit and destroying what he's created.

I'm betting money on XIV 2.0 being completely amazing simply because of who's at the helm. I can't even imagine the game not being amazing once Yoshi is finished with it, but right now, even in the XIV 1.0 stages (that I have no interest in playing again) Yoshi is adding / fixing stuff every day, even though he knows it's going to be abandoned, for the simple reason that he actually cares about the players and wants them to have a good time.

See your own ZAM article here: http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=29618
#114 May 01 2012 at 4:44 PM Rating: Excellent
It doesn't change the fact though that Tanaka's position didn't actually change. I'm not arguing that there wasn't a change of the feel of the game when Yoshi P was the director, but blaming Tanaka solely for how it is now isn't entirely accurate either, since he was still there and just as active with XI back when Abyssea was introduced.
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#115 May 01 2012 at 4:49 PM Rating: Default
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FUJILIVES wrote:
He introduced an expansion that revolutionized the way we played FFXI, and solved almost every single major complaint of the game's mechanics in an extremely robust and well maintained way. They revived a good 6 jobs that no one could realistically play in any form of endgame and made them fun to play at all times. I think the only class that really got "hurt" was Bard, and as much as it sucks to be a relic bard who isn't as essential (still super useful though) in Abyssea as they are outside Abyssea, every single bard I knew was happy to be freed of the burden of bard for every single event. Every. Single. One.


Abyssea is just as exclusive as every other event in the game. If you aren't a War, Nin, Whm, Blm, Blu, Thf, or Mnk for anything other than xp have fun leveling one of those jobs to get into party. Abyssea was fun for some time, but it got old really fast. After 3 atmas everything was way to easy. Not to mention how quick it was to blow through and obtain gear. The only thing imo that abyssea did really well was allow faster levels and allow progress towards obtaining gear.
#116 May 01 2012 at 6:30 PM Rating: Excellent
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Dantedmc wrote:
Abyssea is just as exclusive as every other event in the game. If you aren't a War, Nin, Whm, Blm, Blu, Thf, or Mnk for anything other than xp have fun leveling one of those jobs to get into party. Abyssea was fun for some time, but it got old really fast. After 3 atmas everything was way to easy. Not to mention how quick it was to blow through and obtain gear. The only thing imo that abyssea did really well was allow faster levels and allow progress towards obtaining gear.


See but it was the playerbase's choice to operate in that selfish and efficiency-above-everything way. There was nothing hurtful about bringing a Bard along to Abyssea unless you consider having to help someone besides yourself gear up a bad thing. In an event that was supposedly way too easy and so quick to blow through and obtain gear from, that shouldn't have been a problem at all. But, no people chose to only go with their cliques and abandon all others to... wait for it... get through it faster!

All SE did was make it so you didn't need specific jobs to succeed. It was the old school, hardcore endgame people (from my experience) who decided that not needing meant not bringing at all. See, I was cool with extra people coming along, and often I was that extra person. You know what? They still could contribute. There's not a thing wrong with having folks farm for pop items, lights and chests or provide extra buffs. Well, unless, as I said you don't want to take time out of your busy Abyssean schedule to help them get stuff too even though seals and gear just fall from the sky like rain as you claim they do.
#117 May 01 2012 at 8:16 PM Rating: Excellent
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Dantedmc wrote:
Abyssea is just as exclusive as every other event in the game. If you aren't a War, Nin, Whm, Blm, Blu, Thf, or Mnk for anything other than xp have fun leveling one of those jobs to get into party. Abyssea was fun for some time, but it got old really fast. After 3 atmas everything was way to easy. Not to mention how quick it was to blow through and obtain gear. The only thing imo that abyssea did really well was allow faster levels and allow progress towards obtaining gear.

It amazes me how you can say it was both just as exclusive as old content, and yet it was too easy to blow through and obtain gear.

Want content that's not easy for just anyone to low man without excluding certain jobs? You got Void Watch. But that has it's own issues. I'll take Abyssea over Void Watch any day.
#118 May 01 2012 at 10:42 PM Rating: Excellent
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Dantedmc wrote:
Abyssea is just as exclusive as every other event in the game. If you aren't a War, Nin, Whm, Blm, Blu, Thf, or Mnk for anything other than xp have fun leveling one of those jobs to get into party. Abyssea was fun for some time, but it got old really fast. After 3 atmas everything was way to easy. Not to mention how quick it was to blow through and obtain gear. The only thing imo that abyssea did really well was allow faster levels and allow progress towards obtaining gear.
Abyssea did one very important thing as far as I'm concerned. It added the 'fun' element back into FFXI. Complain about being overpowered all you like, the entire game used to revolve around constantly being attacked by same-level mobs who were equivalent to more than three adventurers in terms of statistics. It's only through the blessing of their rather limited intelligence that we can win fights against many of them. Abyssea offered players the chance to surpass their enemies in strength, a turnaround previously unheard of, and as such it gained the praise and recognition it deserved, bringing many returning players (including myself) and a host of new blood to the game.

I hate to throw around the word 'mainstream' because it implies repetitive content matching the quality of many free-to-play MMOs. That said, there is a reason many of these 'mainstream' games prove more popular than more niche markets like FFXI. Firstly, they put the power in the hands of the players rather than the enemies and secondly, they focus on gear you can progress towards rather than endless grinding for ultra rare drops. Abyssea offered both of these things, so naturally it resulted in a huge popularity boost overall.

For my part, my gameplay is still heavily focused in Abyssea because events like Voidwatch have offered little or no reward. When the jar runs out of cookies, I can only hope that an update will arrive which gives me another focus or those 'mainstream' MMO's will likely call me back.
#119 May 02 2012 at 1:31 AM Rating: Excellent
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Dantedmc wrote:
Abyssea is just as exclusive as every other event in the game. If you aren't a War, Nin, Whm, Blm, Blu, Thf, or Mnk for anything other than xp have fun leveling one of those jobs to get into party. Abyssea was fun for some time, but it got old really fast. After 3 atmas everything was way to easy. Not to mention how quick it was to blow through and obtain gear. The only thing imo that abyssea did really well was allow faster levels and allow progress towards obtaining gear.
Abyssea did one very important thing as far as I'm concerned. It added the 'fun' element back into FFXI. Complain about being overpowered all you like, the entire game used to revolve around constantly being attacked by same-level mobs who were equivalent to more than three adventurers in terms of statistics. It's only through the blessing of their rather limited intelligence that we can win fights against many of them. Abyssea offered players the chance to surpass their enemies in strength, a turnaround previously unheard of, and as such it gained the praise and recognition it deserved, bringing many returning players (including myself) and a host of new blood to the game.

I hate to throw around the word 'mainstream' because it implies repetitive content matching the quality of many free-to-play MMOs. That said, there is a reason many of these 'mainstream' games prove more popular than more niche markets like FFXI. Firstly, they put the power in the hands of the players rather than the enemies and secondly, they focus on gear you can progress towards rather than endless grinding for ultra rare drops. Abyssea offered both of these things, so naturally it resulted in a huge popularity boost overall.

For my part, my gameplay is still heavily focused in Abyssea because events like Voidwatch have offered little or no reward. When the jar runs out of cookies, I can only hope that an update will arrive which gives me another focus or those 'mainstream' MMO's will likely call me back.


And this is why Abyssea worked, brought back players and had other players like me stick around.
#120 May 02 2012 at 2:12 AM Rating: Excellent
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It doesn't change the fact though that Tanaka's position didn't actually change. I'm not arguing that there wasn't a change of the feel of the game when Yoshi P was the director, but blaming Tanaka solely for how it is now isn't entirely accurate either, since he was still there and just as active with XI back when Abyssea was introduced.


How do you know this exactly? I really hope you aren't going by official job listings are you? This would be like saying if the mods of the XIV forums were all ill and you went to help while they were in bed they were still actually in charge of moderating, cause it would be impossible for you to work on those forums without the job titles being changed first.

What mileage would be in SE telling the XI playerbase that they took most of the staff off the dev team to work on XIV? Yoshi was totally responsible for XI Abyssea and that is proven by him being given XIV and having the role of director and producer?, they would not of given him such an important title if anything else was the case.
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And this is why Abyssea worked, brought back players and had other players like me stick around.


Aby was successful in another way too, it gave a large number of players a good reason to buy and subscribe with extra accounts, no content before or after Abyssea did that. They took a game with a pretty much static playerbase and increased subs by making many players willingly and happily pay for 2-3 accounts.

Edited, May 2nd 2012 4:13am by Runespider
#121 May 02 2012 at 4:16 AM Rating: Decent
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Littlechaos wrote:
Play as a monster..?


Not to be a wet blanket but Monster Missions was the beginning of Everquest's death spiral.


Edited, May 2nd 2012 7:16am by Lobivopis
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Final Fantasy XI 12-14-11 Update wrote:
Adjust the resolution of menus.
The main screen resolution for "FINAL FANTASY XI" is dependent on the "Overlay Graphics Resolution" setting.
If the Overlay Graphics Resolution is set higher than the Menu Resolution, menus will be automatically resized.


I thought of it first:

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10&mid=130073657654872218#20
#122 May 02 2012 at 4:48 AM Rating: Default
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312 posts
Camiie wrote:
See but it was the playerbase's choice to operate in that selfish and efficiency-above-everything way. There was nothing hurtful about bringing a Bard along to Abyssea unless you consider having to help someone besides yourself gear up a bad thing. In an event that was supposedly way too easy and so quick to blow through and obtain gear from, that shouldn't have been a problem at all. But, no people chose to only go with their cliques and abandon all others to... wait for it... get through it faster!

All SE did was make it so you didn't need specific jobs to succeed. It was the old school, hardcore endgame people (from my experience) who decided that not needing meant not bringing at all. See, I was cool with extra people coming along, and often I was that extra person. You know what? They still could contribute. There's not a thing wrong with having folks farm for pop items, lights and chests or provide extra buffs. Well, unless, as I said you don't want to take time out of your busy Abyssean schedule to help them get stuff too even though seals and gear just fall from the sky like rain as you claim they do.


It was exclusive because of procs and SE did it on purpose. Its too convenient that it only takes 2 jobs to cover blue and red each, and yellow took 3 one of which happened to be the only healer. Don't blame the playerbase for trying to do things efficiently and intelligently. Not everyone likes to come along as dead weight. Not that many people like to invite dead weight either.

svylons wrote:
It amazes me how you can say it was both just as exclusive as old content, and yet it was too easy to blow through and obtain gear.

It definitely was exclusive. The fact that whm was the only healer (pre-cure update) should be proof enough. Even now sch and rdm lack whm procs. It also was easy considering you used the correct jobs which most peopled did. I didn't see any shouts asking for pup or drg.

svylons wrote:
Want content that's not easy for just anyone to low man without excluding certain jobs? You got Void Watch. But that has it's own issues. I'll take Abyssea over Void Watch any day.


I actually do like voidwatch because the gear I obtained in abyssea actually matters there. I could run around on whm or blm naked and do just fine in abyssea. I also like that it allows for job diversity. Loot pool aside I do enjoy voidwatch.
#123 May 02 2012 at 6:17 AM Rating: Excellent
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701 posts
Dantedmc wrote:
It was exclusive because of procs and SE did it on purpose. Its too convenient that it only takes 2 jobs to cover blue and red each, and yellow took 3 one of which happened to be the only healer. Don't blame the playerbase for trying to do things efficiently and intelligently. Not everyone likes to come along as dead weight. Not that many people like to invite dead weight either.


You're making my argument for me. It's your call who you bring or don't bring. You're the one making others out to be "dead weight" when SE even created a way for any melee or mage to contribute even if they aren't fighting the NM! Get a couple extra people and they can feed you time and pop items so you can pop ad infinitium. They can earn you extra curor (aka gil) and XP WHILE you're fighting NMs. Maybe those things have no value to you, but compared to past events that's downright revolutionary. They never let you kill 2 birds with one stone before. Maybe killing trash mobs isn't glorious enough for you, but don't say it's not helpful in Abyssea.

What SE did was open up the game, but many of the supposedly brilliant minds in the supposedly friendly community took it the wrong way. Rather than decide that they can get everyone in the LS geared up to epic proportions in relatively short order by working together, our glorious leaders had the same idea as you. "If I don't NEED you then you're dead weight. Me, my 'girl'friend, and my BFF can kill everything ourselves! The rest of you guys are on your own!" There was no reason to do this other than selfishness, inability to adjust from old event mentalities, or some OCD thing about efficiency. That's not an SE problem, that's a player problem.

If my LS-mates and other friends want to come along for seals or items they're always welcome whether they have one of the chosen jobs or not. If you don't feel the same way then I dare say you're the one who's doing it wrong. Said it before and I'll say it again. Why play an MMO if you want to be exclusionary and anti-social?

Edited, May 2nd 2012 8:23am by Camiie
#124 May 02 2012 at 7:35 AM Rating: Default
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Camiie wrote:
You're making my argument for me. It's your call who you bring or don't bring. You're the one making others out to be "dead weight" when SE even created a way for any melee or mage to contribute even if they aren't fighting the NM! Get a couple extra people and they can feed you time and pop items so you can pop ad infinitium. They can earn you extra curor (aka gil) and XP WHILE you're fighting NMs. Maybe those things have no value to you, but compared to past events that's downright revolutionary. They never let you kill 2 birds with one stone before. Maybe killing trash mobs isn't glorious enough for you, but don't say it's not helpful in Abyssea.

What SE did was open up the game, but many of the supposedly brilliant minds in the supposedly friendly community took it the wrong way. Rather than decide that they can get everyone in the LS geared up to epic proportions in relatively short order by working together, our glorious leaders had the same idea as you. "If I don't NEED you then you're dead weight. Me, my 'girl'friend, and my BFF can kill everything ourselves! The rest of you guys are on your own!" There was no reason to do this other than selfishness, inability to adjust from old event mentalities, or some OCD thing about efficiency. That's not an SE problem, that's a player problem.


You earn xp in xp parties(not to mention xp is so easy to get you shouldn't have even included it). You earn cruor in xp parties and cruor parties. Giving time as an example is also laughable considering I'm sitting at 1000 stones and the jobs that are already there can farm time just fine. None of the things you mentioned justify bringing an extra body. Blm, War, Blu, Whm, Thf, and Mnk are already capable of AoE farming extremely well.


Quote:

If my LS-mates and other friends want to come along for seals or items they're always welcome whether they have one of the chosen jobs or not. If you don't feel the same way then I dare say you're the one who's doing it wrong. Said it before and I'll say it again. Why play an MMO if you want to be exclusionary and anti-social?


In seal parties I only ask for a tank (preferably thf) and a whm or blm (because I have both whm and blm). The 4th slot can be whoever. For +2 I only go with friends because they understand that we need the correct jobs. If someone was truly a friend of yours they would be considerate enough to level one of the jobs needed in Abyssea. It has nothing to do with being anti-social.


#125 May 02 2012 at 8:07 AM Rating: Excellent
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Way to miss the point Dantedmc.

Looking at the discourse you are having with other posters from the outside in, have to agree with the sentiment expressed that you are just reinforcing the opposite view Really need to step back a sec and really try and get what they are saying. Or you will just end up going 'round and around in that discussion.
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Quite possibly the DUMBEST thing i've ever read.
#126 May 02 2012 at 8:25 AM Rating: Excellent
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1,004 posts
Dantedmc wrote:
In seal parties I only ask for a tank (preferably thf) and a whm or blm (because I have both whm and blm). The 4th slot can be whoever. For +2 I only go with friends because they understand that we need the correct jobs. If someone was truly a friend of yours they would be considerate enough to level one of the jobs needed in Abyssea. It has nothing to do with being anti-social.

Whoah Whoah Whoah.... back the truck up.

The whole point of abyssea is that if there was a BST, PUP, DRG, / insert previous reject-of-the-year class here / who wanted to do something in Abyssea, they could do it. Period. Previously, being an "outcast" class meant that you weren't participating in endgame events unless you were good enough and determined enough to solo it 99+% of the time.

We had friends going into Abyssea constantly asking "What job should I come?". Previously we were pigeonholed into set slots that had to be filled, but Abyssea gave us the freedom to say "come as whatever job you have the most fun on". Yes, it's true, some classes (warrior & blm) won the proc-lotto and can make things faster. Faster... but not easier. Everyone is welcome in Abyssea and there is a role for everyone to fill cleanly.

What's amazing is how it always felt like "pulling teeth" to get people to come on the job they "wanted" to play on. They would tell us "Well... I'd like to play as X job, but I'll come BLM because it's more useful". Now, That's nice of a friend and all, but Expecting that person to attend as a job he isn't having the most fun personally on, is crap. That kind of expectation can only be made by someone who is an absolutely crappy friend in the first place, so you should really go look at yourself in the mirror and question if people want You as a "friend" or they just want to use you as a "convenient utility". Being the most convenient doesn't automatically make you a good friend.

On the other hand, being there when people simply need company, even if it's not the best fit of in-game-job, and finding a way to make it work is really where MMOs and, in specific FFXI, Shine; and in my opinion, is the role a friend should fill.

Hell, some of my best friends I grew up with are the most difficult to work with people I know, but they are still my best friends and will be until the day I die. Expecting my friends to shape themselves to be the most convenient thing possible for me is a RIDICULOUS expectation. They should just be themselves and I should like them for being who they are. Period.

I pity people who can't take down NMs with a NIN and DRG acting as main healer and support DPS. I have sadness for people people who complain about lack of challenge in Abyssea, while at the same time never branched out to try odd-job combos because someone didn't fit their cookie cutter expectations. I feel complete disgust for those people, and until they learn there are a VAST array of jobs that all work completely awesome to get stuff done, WHILE HAVING FUN, you'll never be as good as you think you are in FFXI because you'll never know how to make things work outside the box. Those are the people who 'have' to use third party tools to scan for VNMs and ruin it for every other player who's being legit, because it's simply a mean's to an end. The funny thing to me, is an application like that is as good a friend to you as the people you bring along to a fight, because it "fits into that perfect little Nitch" and never questions it's role.

No thank you, I'll take the SCH/NIN who want's to try his hand at tanking before I'll take the BLM/BRD who is "just there for proccin'". If I felt that was a better fit, I could have gone that job myself... but I'm here to have fun.


Edited, May 2nd 2012 11:33am by FUJILIVES
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