Square Enix obviously wants to kill FFXI

[Sirmarki]

What is the point of not adding content? Just causes the game to die faster. I hate to break it to you, but mercs have existed since day1 and they are in every MMO. What they do has no effect on you to create groups or join established linkshells that do content. If people want to buy clears or items, they can be allowed to, its no different than going to the AH and buying something.

They have never existed at this sheer volume and this vocal. I never even heard of a merc until I came to Asura.

Oh yes, it is very different. There is a reason SE put rare/ex items into the game....

Mercing as it is done now is also breaking the mechanics of the game. Using multiple accounts, running multiple instances of FFXI and scripting commands on one computer is against the TOS. End of story.
Unless, of course they are sitting around 6 desktops with incredible multitasking skills.

[Typral]

They don't impact your gameplay though, so why do you care who multi-boxes?

[Sirmarki]

They don't impact your gameplay though, so why do you care who multi-boxes?

They kind of do though. Yell used to be full of people creating content. Now it is 99% mercs.
Mercs are mainly the same person controlling a party of characters. These people would not be able to sell this content by playing on their own with one character.

Sure, people multibox, and that is their style. Just don't sell everything under the sun.

This has a devastating effect on the game. I have been back one month, left myself logged in for hours while I was doing other things. I have seen virtually 5% of yell with people creating groups and 95% mercs, RMT, Exp/JP sellers.
Every single yell I have seen relating to the new battle content added over the past few months has been people selling the items from said battlefields.

[Alhanelem]

Can always come to Shiva if the mercs and RMT are annoying you. The smaller servers are much better when it comes to this stuff. IMO it's totally worth the legwork you need to make friends and such.

[mkultrafanboy]

the FACT that Square Enix, a massive AAA company, chose NOT to devote more resources to making this game more accessible, is proof that they want this game to die, so that people will have no choice but to play FF14.

Why did they create 14 only 6 years after their first MMO 11? Because they were super greedy to get that huge WoW money so they rushed out a WoW clone of sorts. Then they fully turned it into a WoW clone with ARR. Square Enix is an extremely greedy company and all the original devs left by 2004 at the latest. Even still, 14 is the best MMORPG on the market right now, which proves how bad the MMO genre is presently.

[Zehira]

so that people will have no choice but to play FF14.

Nothing can stop them from playing FF11. They could just quit doing any business with Square Enix and move to private servers.

Fun FFXIV 1.0 story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWIrju3F6nU

[Alhanelem]

the FACT that Square Enix, a massive AAA company, chose NOT to devote more resources to making this game more accessible, is proof that they want this game to die, so that people will have no choice but to play FF14.

Why did they create 14 only 6 years after their first MMO 11? Because they were super greedy to get that huge WoW money so they rushed out a WoW clone of sorts. Then they fully turned it into a WoW clone with ARR. Square Enix is an extremely greedy company and all the original devs left by 2004 at the latest. Even still, 14 is the best MMORPG on the market right now, which proves how bad the MMO genre is presently.

You really dont understand how businesses and investments/investors work do you?

This has nothing to do with desire on SE's part. SE, like any other corporation, devotes the bulk of its resources to things that, based on cost-benefit analyses it conducts, it finds likely to lead to the most growth and profit in the company. This leads to more people buying stock (shareholders) based on the promise that the company will continue to grow.

You're really kidding yourself if you think dumping a big pile of cash into FFXI itself is going to suddenly print tons of money for SE. While it in fact may be possible that they might do a true remastered version of the game with updated interfaces, graphics, controls, engine, etc (hell it could even be this surprise they've been talking about, although i doubt it), it would probably be a separate project (like the mobile project, but not mobile), and we'd probably be starting from scratch.

If SE actually wanted the game to die they would have just pulled the plug years ago. The fact is, that while FFXI may be a shadow of its former self, it still makes money for SE, and they're not going to just terminate the game and lose those relatively easy subscription dollars. So no, they don't want it to die. But at the same time, they probably don't think a big cash infusion is going to make huge waves.

[Sirmarki]

So no, they don't want it to die. But at the same time, they probably don't think a big cash infusion is going to make huge waves.

However...

Things do need to change....

1. A clamp down on people selling content.. (The mass of botting/RMT).
2. Better moderation (and if not, EXTEND the BLACKLIST past 100).
3. More forms of content, be it through even the simple things such as RoE quests etc.. (Not just copy and paste jobs).

After all, we are paying FULL market rate.....

[Zehira]

While it in fact may be possible that they might do a true remastered version of the game with updated interfaces, graphics, controls, engine, etc (hell it could even be this surprise they've been talking about, although i doubt it), it would probably be a separate project (like the mobile project, but not mobile), and we'd probably be starting from scratch.

Here is an interesting article: Final Fantasy XI Mobile Reboot Still in The Works; Nexon Will Target Consoles With its Online Games

It’s worth mentioning that, while this talk about consoles and multiple platforms is promising, the Final Fantasy XI reboot is still marked as mobile-only in the presentation. We don’t know if this will change going forward.

[Alhanelem]

Yeah, i know hte mobile game is still a thing, but it's also entirely seperate and to the best of my understanding, is aimed at bringing the main story of the game out to people who aren't willing to pay for this. You can be pretty certain you won't get anything for your hard work here in that game except maybe some trinkets for having played the original.

While not a bad idea, it doesn't really do anything for most of us who want to keep the FFXI experience but being updated for modern systems and MMO conventions. It's difficult to say what the release of it will mean for the game, as most people who have invested any significant amount of time into FFXI aren't going to want to start fresh in what is certain to be a free-to-play and possibly pay-to-win experience. Thus if it did lead to the death of FFXI, I think few FFXI veterans would be on board with playing that. Remember also that while SE obviously has some creative control, they aren't developing it in a studio under their own banner.