Petition PS2 Players

[jlb8685]

I would like to see how about making a petition to have all PS2 players finally kicked.. FFXI is slacking do to the fact PS2 is holding it back.. I think it's time for SE to finally due away with the PS2 accounts.. Yes, Japanese players do play still on it, but knowing them they have a high tech cpu also which i know if they really love the game will switch fast to. It's killing the players that have been playing for years seeing us not being able to get new things just the same world revamped.. I know they cant do much graphics wise because they cant change it mid game but more content and finish our auto translator.. Thins to this nature would make the game come alive again..

Hopefully SE reads this and sees just how bad the players would like to see more of an improvement in this game..

Please just put your name and server and hopefully we can get enough people to be noticed.. thanks

[Korpg]

I think a more effective way to ween PS2 support away is to implement things for PC and XBOX users over a gradual period of time.

If the PS2 players want the same things PC and XBOX users have, they would buy either a cheap computer or XBOX and play on that instead.

[Bumbeen]

Probably kicking everyone off ps2 immediately is more effective than doing it gradually.

[Korpg]

Got to think of the politics of it all.

What is gained by kicking out a lot of people from PS2? A lot of canceled subscriptions, not just from the PS2 players, but their friends too.

What is gained by having XBOX/PC only enhancements? Still some players cancel their subscriptions, but not as many, and you might actually have people buy PC/XBOX versions of the game to continue to play on FFXI.

[Octaviane]

I am sure SE is battling with the problem of us Dinosaur PS2 users. About a year ago, I thought I read somewhere that they were looking into ways to improve HDD space, but I could be wrong. However, in the meantime, those of us who still use
archaic platforms to play pay the same amount of money each month as X-box or PC users. You cannot tell me that you have fewer problems with your PC's or X-Box's. Not everyone is in a position to buy a "cheap" X-box or PC. SE will decide when to terminate support for PS2. I am sure we will be given plenty of notice, like we were when they stopped supporting Tetra Master.

Try to enjoy the game as it is for now. You have been silver plattered with everything you could possibly be silver plattered with for now. Patience.:)

[Yarly]

SE is going to lose money doing this. So why would they?

[RAIST]

It's not because there are PS2 players necessarily. It is because of the legacy code that is still being used across all platforms. PC players still deal with the limitations in the code. Getting people off the PS2 won't mean they can sutdeenly ramp everything up--they have to rebuild portions of the engines driving the game.

SE did not want to support 3 different versions of the game (PS2 specific code, 360 specific code, PC specific code). So what they are doing is running the same PS2 specific code on all three platforms, and two of those run through a wrapper that allows that legacy code to run on those platforms.

The proper way to do this would be to work on a whole new environment designed from the ground up to take advantage of the next higher platform with better specs (the 360) and build a PC wrapper for it. Then, they can announce an end of life for the PS2 version to give everyone a reasonable time frame to convert over to either 360 or PC. They could role it out in advance of the PS2 EOL date so they only have to support both environments for a short time, and get everyone excited over the change to spur the PS2 die-hards to convert.

To pull this off properly would take some time, and would probably be best to do with a major expansion. that could be the big driving force behind it. They could announce that in one year they will be releasing a big expansion, but it will only be available to PC/360 users as it will be a rework of the engine to provide multiple enhancements. Thourghout the uyear, they could leak amazing screenshots and gameplay videos, as well as details on interface tweaks and such to bait the PS2 users along. By launch date, they would likely have everyone moved over who wants to stay in the game, those who don't would basically be on their own--still able to play in the old world perhaps, but if soemthing goes wrong, SE would be under no obligation to help them fix it. Eventually, if they really like the game... they would upgrade and move to another platform.

[Zaknafein]

It's not because there are PS2 players necessarily. It is because of the legacy code that is still being used across all platforms. PC players still deal with the limitations in the code. Getting people off the PS2 won't mean they can sutdeenly ramp everything up--they have to rebuild portions of the engines driving the game.

SE did not want to support 3 different versions of the game (PS2 specific code, 360 specific code, PC specific code). So what they are doing is running the same PS2 specific code on all three platforms, and two of those run through a wrapper that allows that legacy code to run on those platforms.

The proper way to do this would be to work on a whole new environment designed from the ground up to take advantage of the next higher platform with better specs (the 360) and build a PC wrapper for it. Then, they can announce an end of life for the PS2 version to give everyone a reasonable time frame to convert over to either 360 or PC. They could role it out in advance of the PS2 EOL date so they only have to support both environments for a short time, and get everyone excited over the change to spur the PS2 die-hards to convert.

To pull this off properly would take some time, and would probably be best to do with a major expansion. that could be the big driving force behind it. They could announce that in one year they will be releasing a big expansion, but it will only be available to PC/360 users as it will be a rework of the engine to provide multiple enhancements. Thourghout the uyear, they could leak amazing screenshots and gameplay videos, as well as details on interface tweaks and such to bait the PS2 users along. By launch date, they would likely have everyone moved over who wants to stay in the game, those who don't would basically be on their own--still able to play in the old world perhaps, but if soemthing goes wrong, SE would be under no obligation to help them fix it. Eventually, if they really like the game... they would upgrade and move to another platform.

^ This should be required reading when people sign up for an account. Also if you can't spell you have no petition privileges.

[jlb8685]

Yea, I would just like to see more add on's that will give us PC/360 users a little more fun.. It's terrible how we have to lower our standards on a game due to the fact thats it is on an obsolete system like the PS2..

[Leonlionheart]

It depends what you want from the game, some things would require reworking the code, like GUI and Macros and things that would just make the game overall more enjoyable, like inventory limitations etc.

However PS2 presents the HDD space problem, where it's 'petition' isn't large enough and that forces SE to make less graphical additions to the game (New .dats new JA animations etc, notice how efflux and several other newer animations had copied animations before they changed the way PS2 updates).

Personally I've been dealing with the GUI, Menus and Macros for 8 years and don't mind them anymore but I would like PS2 to go simply so we can have new zones, new .dats, and more variety of that kind of thing. Emphasis on new zones.

For some PC users there are no macro problems, considering spell cast and other GUI enhancements that you can do through .dat swaps etc. Not that I personally use them.

[Raxiaz]

I'm in pain over the fact that we're going on more than a year's worth of updated terms missing from the auto translate... that's my only gripe with PS2 limitations at the moment, really. Everything else I can deal with for now. Would be nice if in the future they do away with it and create an enhanced FFXI. I would certainly still pay $12.95/month to play that.

[Atomic_Skull]

The proper way to do this would be to work on a whole new environment designed from the ground up to take advantage of the next higher platform with better specs (the 360) and build a PC wrapper for it.

Xbox 360 uses a stripped down version of Windows and DirectX 9. Code written for the Xbox 360 can basically be compiled straight to the PC with only minor changes.

[RAIST]

Xbox 360 uses a stripped down version of Windows and DirectX 9. Code written for the Xbox 360 can basically be compiled straight to the PC with only minor changes.

The point is, the current 360 release still contains the legacy PS2 restrictions in the code, so all that has to be revamped to get rid of those restrictions. SE is not willing to run multiple cores for this game when they can make it work with the wrapper like they are now. Source code is tweaked once, then compiled to work with the wrapper by a static process, and pushed out. Otherwise, they have to tweak seperate source codes, increasing development time and costs.

It's kind of like doing a Java App. you work with one source code, that is compatible with one version of java. A new JDK/JRE comes out with more features you want to take advantage of. you recompile that source to work with that newer JDK, and when you push it out, you tell everyone they need the new JRE to run it. you only have to tweak that one source code, and you can push it out to Linux, Windows, and Mac at the same time.

[Zaknafein]

Xbox 360 uses a stripped down version of Windows and DirectX 9. Code written for the Xbox 360 can basically be compiled straight to the PC with only minor changes.

Would that new code be compatible with fat Ps3's that employ backwards compatibility? I wanna say no, but that is just a guess.

[Leonlionheart]

Would that new code be compatible with fat Ps3's that employ backwards compatibility? I wanna say no, but that is just a guess.

I doubt they will release XI on PS3 in order to drop PS2 support, although it is a fix.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Would that new code be compatible with fat Ps3's that employ backwards compatibility? I wanna say no, but that is just a guess.They never will, but you may be happy to know that their new MMOs that they announced they are working on will more then likely be released on PS3.

[Atomic_Skull]

Would that new code be compatible with fat Ps3's that employ backwards compatibility? I wanna say no, but that is just a guess.

If they used a licensed engine like Unreal or CryEngine the development kit has tools for quickly porting your code and scaling the assets to each platform.

I'm not sure about Unreal but with CryEngine porting from PC to PS3 and Xbox 360 is close to automatic. CryEngine has also been used in MMO's previously with Aion so it's capable of handling it.

[Insaniac]

SEs online game dept. is hemorrhaging money right now because of the epic failure that is FFXIV. There is no way they are even thinking about a rebuild or a full pc/360 only expansion until 14 starts producing revenue. Even then it's a 1 in a million chance. I mean think about it? How much is this rebuild gonna cost them? How much more money is it going to make them? None. They are a business and it makes no business sense. If anything they would lose subscribers. It's just not gonna happen so just let it go. Be happy they are even making small tweaks like HQ text and Icons and a 2048x2048 setting for the pc.

[Atomic_Skull]

There is no way they are even thinking about a rebuild or a full pc/360 only expansion until 14 starts producing revenue.

It's never going to recover because FFXI players hate it (and even if they "fix" it they'll still hate it) and non FFXI players don't care about it.