Single Player Future

[madmartin]

Search" ffxi 2015" ,a few well published, have mentioned in 2016 single player mode will be released with the mobile version,

From what I've gathered; the jpn vanadiel digest was discussed a few days ago as well;

I imagine at the "PRESS release". The press (@the event) asked questions after the interview we all watched , so their comments should trickle through their magazines thru the next few months , which is how IGN's statements are validated

There are a few sites saying it's a free to play in 2016 but will have to pay for items, which should bring back all the players banned from RMT , can't complain though if it draws in more players however I haven't logged in for 2 weeks now ;( but I do still read the forums from my iphone which still reassures me of the optismism of ffxi mobile !

I'm kinda excited to see the mobile app in 2016 but sad because I won't need to trio box which was fun

ill reserve judgement until the "freshly picked" summary is up but all this really is putting me off spending any more time in this game, single player mode/ paying for items - no thanks!

[dasva]

I don't think Alhanelem made any mention of the playerbase's love of the game. He was talking about the business and legal implications.

Why would you even want a single player offline version of an MMORPG? Isn't that what every other category of game is for?

Because this particular one has had one of the best stories of an RPG out there. To get all those little things you never had time before to do. Like there is so much in all those random sidequests

[machini]

I don't think Alhanelem made any mention of the playerbase's love of the game. He was talking about the business and legal implications.

Why would you even want a single player offline version of an MMORPG? Isn't that what every other category of game is for?

I had a very quick reply that got eaten 'cause I said the wrong thing.

The tl;dr version is that it is actually not illegal to reverse engineer server functionality for ANYTHING. The courts have been VERY explicit on this. If you can do it without any actual appropriation of the source material, solely as a work of deduction based on client-server communication, then it's perfectly legal. There has been an EverQuest emulator project for ever 10 years, and it's still going strong, and they have not been shut down. There was an attempt, once, long ago, as I remember, and they fought it and won. Just like there is a WoW emulator project with has been going for years now, and is still going -- it's perfectly legal.

It would not be difficult for SE to package, and sell a trimmed down version of the POL server that can only handle up to 18 players, along with a POL client designed to connect to a specific IP address, along with a version of the FFXI client capable of receiving said address from the POL Client, and server binary/executable and server database information. That would seriously be a week's work, or less, for one competent programmer to do. The only possible issue is that the server software is designed for a *nix platform, in which case you'd need to be running a *nix VM or have a machine dedicated to running it. The fact that I can run, off my desktop, a WoW server that is capable of handling hundreds of simultaneous players shows that it does not take a powerful PC to do this sort of thing (this is while running the client, too, which is far more intensive than FFXI's client).

In addition, I would be willing to pay an awful lot of money for this. I'd throw down a hundred dollars if they sold such a thing when the game ended. I know other friends who would do it to. Hell, I'd buy MULTIPLE COPIES of it so other people could try it. If you're going to end a game anyway, and it would be rather minimal effort to do so, why not? How many of the maybe 250k subscribers to this game do you think would be willing to slap down 100 dollars to have a copy they could play a decade from now for nostalgia's sake? 10%? 5%? Even if only 1% of the playerbase did so, they'd be looking at pulling in a quarter of a million dollars for maybe a week's worth for one or two guys who probably don't make more than 40 or 50 thousand dollars a year. That's a big profit off of such little work. And if it's higher, as I think it would be, 10% of that playerbase forking over 100 dollars would get them 2.5 million dollars off of maybe a 80 hours of work.

I really don't think you understand exactly how much it would be in SE's monetary interest to do that. Firstly, they would make a good deal of money for next to no work -- remember, they're already getting ready to switch to PC-only development, which would greatly simply an awful lot of things that have needed fixing for a while due to PS2 limitations. Secondly, it would please a lot of hardcore, diehard fans who absolutely love this game. Thirdly, it would let them be able to say "None of our Final Fantasy games have ever died. They all live on, for their fans to be able to play them." It would show a staggering level of commitment to their fan base, a large portion of which -- not just XI players -- is starting to become very disenchanted with the franchise.

[machini]

There is another game, named Haven and Hearth, that I really love, except for the fact that it has PvP, and like EVE Online, you are hopelessly behind people who started before you (since gaining stats and abilities is partly time-spent based), and it involves permadeath. These problems are exacerbated the fact the client is opensource java, and people have fiddled with it to let them do a lot of things they couldn't normally, because the client is trusted with more information than it should be.

The creators of it are currently working on a "Haven and Hearth 2.0", which I think they are calling Hafen. It is basically a better version of their game, that seems to be fixing pretty much every problem that the first one had. Except it's still going to have PvP where some jerk who has been playing two months longer than you can murder you and no one cares you just lost 500 hours of work, 'cause lol that's part of the game.

I would seriously be willing to fork over money, when their new game comes out, for a version of the old game I could play with a couple of friends. I'd seriously be willing to pay 50 bucks a copy, and they've been told this by myself and others before. As far as I can tell they don't actually make any money off their game, as they have no advertising or anything anywhere. It's just something they do because they like it.

There are a lot of games out there that I would absolutely love if it weren't for the mandatory PvP and people whose entire goal in life is to ruin the fun of others.

This got a little off topic.

Point is, they'd make a lot of money off a little work.

[Bluestar2kx]

There are a few sites saying it's a free to play in 2016 but will have to pay for items,

Sites have been saying FFXI should/will go F2P as sub numbers have dropped since F2P became a thing.
Personally, I hope it never turns into a cash shop, I'd rather pay a higher subscription rate then deal with that stuff, if it turns into farmville pay/play model, I'm gone. Hell with that crap.
Sure it brings in people, because anyone can play, but it brings in the worst people and it's the worst for the people (you'd pay far more then if SE upped the sub price to 16$ base with 1 character +2$ per mule), and I don't think it would do any favors for FFXI's community. Plus if you think the nerfs they do now are bad, wait until those people start up a ruckus....

I do think there's a chance FFXI mobile might bring in a fair sum of new players. And it could be SE is banking on that to revive FFXI without putting a ton of money into it without knowing if they'll get it back. We'll have to wait and see, I'm here to stay otherwise^^

There is no way in the world they'd ever release the server software, because that would allow other people to profit off their work.

I imagine they'd release a software kit you could purchase, containing everything needed to run a FFXI server with as easy setup/installation for as many people as you can afford to fit. Sure, likely would be pirates, there's pirates for everything though, it's hard to avoid that, and players already have been making their own kits the last, like 7 years. I'm not saying I'm approving of the latter, but people are doing it. Imo, it would make sense for SE to profit off that at sunset (whenever that is) and sell their own. I'd buy that if FFXI officially shut down.

But no matter what the outcome is, long as I can enjoy FFXI as it is now (or like it), I'm happy.

[Zarchery]

Sites have been saying FFXI should/will go F2P as sub numbers have dropped since F2P became a thing.
Personally, I hope it never turns into a cash shop, I'd rather pay a higher subscription rate then deal with that stuff, if it turns into farmville pay/play model, I'm gone. Hell with that crap.
Sure it brings in people, because anyone can play, but it brings in the worst people and it's the worst for the people (you'd pay far more then if SE upped the sub price to 16$ base with 1 character +2$ per mule), and I don't think it would do any favors for FFXI's community. Plus if you think the nerfs they do now are bad, wait until those people start up a ruckus....

Ugh. I know. I hate Freemium. I play Simpsons Tapped Out on my mobile and it was awful. I thought to myself "this is kind of a fun game, sort of Simpsons flavored Simcity. I would pay a decent price, say $30-$50, to have a version of this where I could build everything". But it's nearly impossible to do that with just the free version. You need to buy donuts to get a lot of things. I did eventually find a hacked copy that let me cook up about 80,000 donuts and millions of in game currency, so I enjoy it as is.

[Alhanelem]

Point is, they'd make a lot of money off a little work.

It's a lot more work than you think it is; FFXI just doesn't have a big enough playerbase that would likely buy into this sort of thing for them to even consider it. I mean really guys, stop kidding yourselves, this will never happen.

As for the legal stuff- reverse engineering is specifically allowed for personal purposes or for interoperability, but you're still in violation of copyright law if you distribute or make money off it.

I really don't think you understand exactly how much it would be in SE's monetary interest to do that

It really wouldn't be in their monetary interest at all, it would be a considerable expense for them to rework the game to be offline (and disconnect pol from it) for a very small number of people that would be playing it.

Ugh. I know. I hate Freemium

That's not freemium. Freemium is like when an MMO goes free to play but keeps the subscription as an option with extra perks, while the free player has to either buy, or grind to earn, most of the content.

[Elemmire]

I don't think Alhanelem made any mention of the playerbase's love of the game. He was talking about the business and legal implications.

Why would you even want a single player offline version of an MMORPG? Isn't that what every other category of game is for?

Well FFXII was basically offline FFXI with shittier everything (story, characters, music, etc). People apparently love that game soooo I imagine an offline FFXI would work fine.

[bungiefanNA]

The thing with an offline version of the game is how much they would have to transfer into the client, and take so many things off the real-world clock. You have Conquest, Beseiged, Campaign, Colonization, weather, the calendar, and so much more tied to the server. All monsters are controlled by the server, eeven when not observed by the players, their spawn timers and movement are still managed by the server, across every zone. As it stands, taking control of a region or fighting off the beastmen army in any of those systems isn't balanced toward one player being able to do so, and they'd have to be recoded to work solo (and how would you manage all of the systems at once in single-player The AH would have to be redone, as well as the crafting system, because of how long it takes to build skill to make other items, and how many people with various skills you need to do things like Synergy The game was not designed for one person to be able to get by alone in the economy. It is a gigantic amount of work to do, for a risk of a small payout if they sold an offline version, not even factoring in how few of SE's staff can understand the whole batch of programming code that has been built up over the past 13 years. Releasing the server software is the most likely (though even the chances of that are really low) solution for SE if they decide to shut the game down while still making it playable in some form, the most likely thing being it just dying completely.

[Elemmire]

As someone already said (and you mentioned), they don't even have to do anything to the client too much really, but they could provide the server code and a means to run it on your computer and invite friends into your world or whatnot. Let it be tied to the system clock. If people want to cheat then, whatever, their world at that point. As I said, I'm really only hoping they'll consider/do this when they ultimately do take the servers down.

I think that's the best means as well. And if their programmers can't ultimately create a means for people to run their own servers and transfer their character data over to it, well, SE might want to find new programmers. It's work, no doubt, but it is their job.