FFXI on the decline?Follow

Some of you old timers lack your FFXI knowledge. The level cap went from 50 to 70, later to 75.

I specific remember doing Divine might many times. Sometimes at lvl 70 cap and later at 75.

I have said it once, will say it again, they hired the original designer of the forests of gridania to make the adoulin zones. The only one that is not flat out terrible is Morimar Basalt Fields.

On the general topic - I haven't logged on to XIV in more than a week. XI, well, I am currently unsubbed. FFXIV is not *bad* but it hasn't captured my heart. Part of the problem is I am not allowed to leave Limsa Limosa cause I haven't progressed far enough into the story - but I have no real interest in progressing the storyline missions (I have a legacy character with lots of levels) - I don't understand why they are punishing players who like to explore (we are one of the main type of MMO players) - all I want to do is roam around the world, checking things out and fishing and avoiding dangerous enemies.

It bores me to hell and back to have to do all these stupid little fetch quests - and I am not into doing a dungeon at all. So, basically, I am mad at myself for being dumb enough to start in Limsa (not realizing they would punish me for it) and I am mad at SE for ******** over explorers with their stupid gating and forced questing.

Also I hate the way the chatbox is off to the side and there is a separate one for NPC text. It's a waste of space. I also feel less engaged with what is going on over there than I did with XI's chat box in the centre of the screen.

XI, well, my friends are gone and there is no group-based stuff for me to do. Either people are not playing - or in statics (like catwho and co) doing the smaller team content. I don't have 3 hour chunks of time to spend waiting for a shout to fill up at the current time.

Edited, Sep 16th 2013 4:05pm by Olorinus

You don't even have to do the dungeon, just get the quest. The UI is fairly customizable, if you don't like the chart box on the left, move the thing.

So I dismantled your tunnel zones wording, and now you're onto shoebox. Brilliant!

Look, you don't need to worry about FFXI. I didn't realize the server population had declined so much recently, but there are still lots of servers to be merged to leave people feeling right at home. Server merges are nothing I feel anxious about with a game of ffxi's age. Regardless of how good the Adoulin expansion is, the fact is that SE made it, so they are obviously invested in the game's future still.

So while we XIVers play with our new shoeboxes full of goodies, your mazey, warehouse zones aren't going anywhere. It's win-win!

March 2002 release to breaking even December 2003. For someone who pretends to notice patterns you're certainly prone to omitting and exaggerating details.

What point are you trying to make, that I was 3 months off "years" being 100% accurate a word to use? It took them nearly 2 years to break even on a game that cost 12million to create and had 300-500k subscribers (which are very successful p2p mmo numbers). How much would you think XIV has cost at this point? 9 years in development and one huge remake with large very well paid development teams all working on it. If I say 70-80 million I'm probably way way under the real amount. Most AAA MMOs cost 50 million and this game has gone though a big "remake". They've been throwing money at the project, holding others back in order to put every available person to work on 14. This is not a cheap project like XI was and the subscription fee has been frozen for 11 years, they can't even charge more.

It's not hard to work out that xiv needs massive numbers of subscribers to break even in a timely manner, and that decisions about the future of the game is going to be based on exactly what kind of numbers it gets. Not even counting the fact that the cost to run XI in terms of server costs, 2 data centers when xi only had one in Japan, customer service staff, development team size etc were all far less for xi than they will be on xiv (which means less of the money coming in will go to pay off the dev costs). Heck xiv didn't even have forums or a staff of admins to look over it till 8+ years into its life.

It doesn't matter what Yoshi promises or says because at the end of the day he isn't the boss of square enix. That's why subscriber numbers matter, that's why XIV needs vastly more players than XI had at peak and that's why the massive decline that is going to happen to XIV is vastly more worrysome than what is happening to XI.

I was just pointing out to Thayos that he should be more anxious about the game he plays and less about one that is pretty much stable.



Of course you aren't, you were just trolling.



Well that's the problem because the FF fans are in 3 camps, those that will never play an online game, those that prefer ffxi and those that prefer the money pit that is xiv. Is that 1/3 a big enough number to better what XI managed and enough to sustain the game, we will see. Given that Star wars has a much bigger fan base that broke all kinds of records in terms of users and still lost almost all of them i'd think not, maybe star wars fans just aren't dedicated enough?

The problem with XIV is simply that as I've stated, it has incredibly fast leveling and tedious endgame that revolves around a gear treadmill grinding dungeons over and over and over again until a new patch comes out that offers better gear to do it again. There is very little open world content and it's been stated that there is no plans to change that. This is not ffxi where there was a wealth of different content, this is ffxiv where you better damn well like dungeon grinding.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/90894-AF-1-Costs-WAY-Too-Much

It's a system that has proven to be boring to most players and that's why all the games that did it lost most of their players (aside from the original)



Eventually is a lovely word isn't it?

Edited, Sep 17th 2013 1:13pm by preludes

Preludes...

You do realize that, years ago, you could log into FFXI at just about any time and have more than 4,000 people on the server with you?

Now, there are just 600 to 1,500 per server, and that's after a round of merges. So, even if your tidy breakdown of the FF community were correct (it's not), then do you honestly believe that all the FFXIers who've left Vana'diel over the past eight to 10 years are just sitting on the sidelines, passing on Eorzea?

You're not even considering that FFXI is so old, that 20-year-old gamers today wouldn't have even been aware of MMORPGs during the golden years of Vana'diel.

Right now, FFXIV could lose half of its playerbase and still have 4k people online per server... and digital sales just resumed!

Face it... XIV's future is bright, and, (relax), FFXI will still be around, too.

Edited, Sep 17th 2013 11:29am by Thayos

Edited, Sep 17th 2013 11:29am by Thayos

Oh, this is the one statement about FFXI and FFXIV that pisses me off.

Linkshells are the exact same thing in both games: they're chat channels! NOTHING MORE. Both have the ability to be created, promote people for moderation, set a Message-of-the-Day, restriction on the number of people that could join, and you could have multiple ones. You use them to chat, coordinate events, or create a social setting with friends that aren't quite up to par with the performance of the core group.

There isn't a damned thing different between the two. The fact that the FFXI playerbase used them to try to emulate a guild has absolutely no bearing on the fact that people are throwing out a complete falsehood because the functionality of a linkshell between FFXI and FFXIV has never changed.

So, outside of some nostalgia factor (which is not even a relevant point) how exactly is FFXIV's linkshells inferior to FFXI's?



And you've done nothing this thread but talk completely out of your *** especially with that statement.

It's been mentioned, countless times here and elsewhere for years, that the majority of the game wasn't in on release. BCNM weren't in, the Northrenlands weren't in, Delkfutt's wasn't in, etc. Go to any documentation, like JP button for example, and it'll point blank *TELL* you what wasn't in the game.

The fact that your memory is apparently so short as to try to state that areas aren't unlocked in patches leads me to believe you've never even played FFXI because sure as hell Sky wasn't added on RoZ release, Sea wasn't on CoP release, Salvage wasn't in on release. Shall we go on, or would you like to look even more foolish than you already do?


Edited, Sep 17th 2013 4:17pm by Viertel

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/92571-yikes-did-billing-start-today



Dat decline.





Show me a link to anyone saying anything about XI ever going f2p like I just did above about xiv. He just basically said what I've been saying. When XIV loses most of it's players and it's not making enough money it's time to catch the f2p train according to Yoshi.



Edited, Sep 17th 2013 5:04pm by preludes

Edited, Sep 17th 2013 5:08pm by preludes

Preludes, again, I will give you some context. You won't find a quote like that about ffxi because, back when the game was relevant, SE didn't communicate.

And thanks for providing a quote from Yoshi-P that a P2P model will always continue in ffxiv, even if bits of the game are ever opened up F2P. Couldn't have posted a better quote myself!

He actually had a more recent interview in which he more definitively stated the game's P2P future, but I know you're probably already aware of all that anyway. :)

Also, the reason why fewer people are in the starter cities now is progression. Go to any of the camps out in the open world, and you will see what I mean.

How about we all just agree that whatever happens happens, and until then, we can't definitively say what will happen with XIV, or XI for that matter. They might both go Free to Play, or maybe neither will. Truly only time will tell.

They have for the last 3-4 years, show me something that indicates any possibility of F2p.



No problem, as shown it states that if they have to they would have to veer away from p2p and that IS what is going to happen for the reasons I've already stated (by the way many games have tried p2p and f2p servers and it simply does not work other than as a transition stage to get the p2p players to accept it, they end up going free to play fully). I'm glad you like it and can see why it will be necessary, I also have little doubt that given the type of person you appear to be when they announce F2p you will hail it the greatest thing the developers ever did and write articles about why it's so amazing.



How could this be? Didn't digital sales just resume and an army of new players invade the servers? ARR is 3 weeks old btw, little to soon (or it should be) to be using that excuse.

Edited, Sep 18th 2013 5:49am by preludes