Questions Regarding the Vana’diel Project

[Mooserocka]

Will the game go free to play after November since there will be no more updates? Honestly our money will be going torwards nothing I think it's only right or atleast lower the cost.

[Zeldar]

Well if this really is the end, I'd like to know what your plans are to keep us as customers here in the United States. If off-line play or mobile play is your idea, you need to rethink. Those of us that have become addicted to MMORPGs of this scale will look for another. Will it be WoW, which is older than FFXI but continues to press on? Will it be some new MMORPG? Will it be FF14, which many of us were turned off of with its initial catastrophe? If you expect us to move to FF14, I suggest you offer us some incentive. I wouldn't want an already leveled character, that would ruin the game experience for those of us who like the style of play the franchise offers. Perhaps you could offer us some personalized momentos from our time on FFXI, an easy transition from XI to XIV, some nice armor that corresponds with our level of commitment to the franchise, an exclusive mount, and/or a free copy of the current version on FFIV. You'll still get our monthly fees, so the initial cost would be easy for you to soak up, even for the number of players we have. Don't get me wrong, I do thank you for 14 years, I'm just not sure I am willing to commit the next decade to another Final Fantasy if what it has to offer is on equal playing field with all the other franchises. I have experienced 14 years of joy here, which will make the end cause even more heartache.
Sorry for the huge block of letters, it must hurt the readers' eyes! Heres a final idea: tell us that we are reading into it way to much and that you don't have plans to shut it down, just to slow down its progression!

[Ilisidi]

Will it be WoW, which is older than FFXI but continues to press on?

WoW is younger than FFXI about two years.
I personally won't be going to another MMORPG. Or any other game requiring online access or sporting DLCs.

[Blah]

All right I'll ask , why specifically are you ending the game on the Xbox 360? Is it really holding the game back as much as the PS2?

[Taruitis]

Can we get crafting caps removed?? If we losing suscribers and I stick around I should be able to do all crafts to 100.

[Manux]

Please let us have full access to our mog house for all storage where ever we are in the game.

[edsports1]

Thank you to SE on sticking with development of the game all of these years. Please consider a sunset/mobile launch party/festival hosted in Oklahoma City. I think you would be shocked at the support we can give to that kind of an event in a centrally located portion of the U.S. A Friends of Final Fantasy Concert would go well here, too. We have a fully capable symphony orchestra in the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, and it would pay tribute to Maestro Levine's legacy in securing the everlasting future of classical music in our city. Plus, my girlfriend plays in the Phil. Lastly, to all SummonedHeroes, Assemble! We have new work to do!

[Pearlzuo]

Are the mobile platforms all phones and tablets only? Or is the 3DS and Vita a possibility? Also, what graphical improvements can we look forward to now that the older console support is being dropped? (100+ fps please? ^_^)

[evanwimbish]

I have been playing ffxi since I moved into my first apt back when I was twenty one years old, I am now thirty, I have had three accounts that I pay for each month and I always pay my subscription fees on time.

13.99 x3 = 41.97 + a few mules = $50+ per month. 50x 12 = 600 per year x 9 = $5,400 on just subscription fee's. I realize that may not be a lot to a large corporation however I feel like paying for this game any longer knowing that they are going to shut it down on xbox 360 (and I primarily play ffxi on x2 xbox360 x1 laptop) is going to be a waste of money. I really don't want to have to buy x2 more laptops to play and I don't believe in third party programming. I went to sleep last night hoping that this press conference was going to talk about ffxi on mobile gaming or ps vita but i really wasn't expecting to end gameplay on xbox 360...

I mean how hard is it really to just create a ffxi-2 like you did with all the other final fantasy's?, release it on the next generation consoles, (steam / ps4 / mobile support / wii-u / xbox one) and then offer current ffxi players some incentive like (automatically become level 50 if you port your char and keep relic / mythic weapons) ect and start the ffxi experience over again on next generation systems for another 10+ years....

I really feel like i just wasted 5 thousand dollars and I could have bought something much more valuable with my money, and now i feel like a FOOL for wasting time and money on all these Xboxes (ive been thru like 6 box 360s playing ffxi and multiple game cd's) and paying for subscription fees from both xbox and playonline.

(you know the old saying, a fool and his money are soon parted)

How could you do this to me? Stop posting adds in magazines saying that SE is ballin out of control and they don't currently see an end to either of its mmorpgs (dragon quest, XIV XI) and then 4 months later tell me that its ending.

edit; why not just put the game out on the xbox one marketplace / psn network so that way the newer systems can play ffxi, then more ppl will have access to the game, after watching southparks episode of "console wars"((My University had History of South park as an elective) it can be assumed that a lot of people ran out and bought a next gen console since their release 2 years ago, and there are still little to none MMORPGS on their market places.
I feel that converting the product solely to Windows / tablets is a good idea in some ways, but imagine how long its going to take to download the game onto the tablet initially.... and even more so with games such as "game of war" always lagging and freezing up, its going to be soo annoying having to relog into playonline---->ffxi if its a bad connection day, which implies that these new apps might not have as much online capabilities, Though I have recently played a few MMMrpgs on the app store and I'm surprised at how much can actually run on a mobile phone, I have recentlyish learned (through being a google glass adventure beta tester and paying the 1500 for glass 2 years ago and being extremely dissatisfied with the product) that not everything is as good as it may appear and I can honestly forecast that ending the xbox360 / ps2 gameplay support and trying to replace it with mobile gaming is not going to satisfy xbox/ps2 users.

[Lisotte]

You know, surprised no one has mentioned this, but why not see if there's any interest among any group of programmers that could form an indie team to work on this? Or perhaps make it possible for legal, official, private servers so the community can really keep the game going? In that situation I would imagine a whole bunch of weirdos would make broken versions but there could end up being a server or two that works and people can play that.

Or possibly try and make that FFXI single player version. Now if SE was to completely retool everything for single player, well that's not going to happen, there's too many changes they'd have to make to make some fights doable with one person. But if they release a single-player version, and say "okay mod community make this game work!" then that could work.

Pretty sure some other MMO that also went into maintenance mode a year or two ago handed off development tools to the community so they could keep it going.