No more almost impossible to obtain crap please

[Alhanelem]

Aren't the high tier magian trials for relics/mythics/etc already exclusive enough as it is? do we really need to make a single trial at the end of these long, tiresome chains even more exclusive?

Really. Fair question.

PS: "Crap" is to be taken literally, as the new trials are both "impossible" and the result is crap.

[Sparthos]

Me and Alhanelem can agree on this without any issue.

I think I'm going to need a glass of water.

[Greatguardian]

Me and Alhanelem can agree on this without any issue.

I think I'm going to need a glass of water.

+1

234567890

[Ravenmore]

Well there is a limit to just how much crap people can put up with geuss we found Alhanelem's.

[Alhanelem]

Lv90 empy weapon trial taking long enough as it is, lv95 one is worse, Lv99 version might not even be worth attempting if it's like they say its going to be.

Difficult to get is fine. But when even Square Enix comes straight out and says "only a few people are going to be able to get this," you know it's going to be absurd.

Mythics are the worst example. The total number of mythics across all servers is very small as it is; Why do we need to make it so that even the very few people who have them can't fully upgrade them?

[FrankReynolds]

Lv90 empy weapon trial taking long enough as it is, lv95 one is worse, Lv99 version might not even be worth attempting if it's like they say its going to be.

Difficult to get is fine. But when even Square Enix comes straight out and says "only a few people are going to be able to get this," you know it's going to be absurd.

Mythics are the worst example. The total number of mythics across all servers is very small as it is; Why do we need to make it so that even the very few people who have them can't fully upgrade them?

lol mythics will actually cost more than one character can hold to complete. Maybe they should introduce a Gil level cap increase.

[Runespider]

Old dev team liked FFXI having a class system (Linkshell leaders controlling underlings to get the top tier goals done like multiple relics etc, final relic trials will be done by people like this > HNMLS members/staff scrabbling with point systems for scraps from the masters table and easily replaced if they don't do as they were told/goto every event > AH/sky-ls scrubs which made up the vast majority of players that looked up in awe at the ones above them in HNM gear etc), they made gear that gave owners prestige and to be lordered over the majority as unobtainables. The whole last trials are all about this, it's retarded really but it's how it's going to be and you better get used to it. I find it disgusting that they made FFXI open to all and now are trying to make stuff exclusive to only the top tier again now but as they have shown they will do as they want and ignore any and all outrage (VW is perfect example of them ignoring the crap out of us).

I'm suprised people thing this is going to change now, they have shown their cards. Like it or lump it, they won't be moved, we are going back to old FFXI.

[Ravenmore]

This is what the poor whiteknighters for FF14 have to look forward too when thier game is put out to the milk house.

[Alhanelem]

I'm a pretty optimistic guy, but it is starting to look like even to me they want to discourage people to get them to play another game. The question is why would they do that? Even now, it still makes them a good amount of money.

[Zumi]

Old dev team liked FFXI having a class system (Linkshell leaders controlling underlings to get the top tier goals done like multiple relics etc, final relic trials will be done by people like this > HNMLS members/staff scrabbling with point systems for scraps from the masters table and easily replaced if they don't do as they were told/goto every event > AH/sky-ls scrubs which made up the vast majority of players that looked up in awe at the ones above them in HNM gear etc), they made gear that gave owners prestige and to be lordered over the majority as unobtainables. The whole last trials are all about this, it's retarded really but it's how it's going to be and you better get used to it. I find it disgusting that they made FFXI open to all and now are trying to make stuff exclusive to only the top tier again now but as they have shown they will do as they want and ignore any and all outrage (VW is perfect example of them ignoring the crap out of us).

I'm suprised people thing this is going to change now, they have shown their cards. Like it or lump it, they won't be moved, we are going back to old FFXI.

If someone can control their underlings for 3 or 5 years to get themselves a relic or mythic with afterglow. I would applaud them for that, being a master manipulator.

But seriously the afterglow trails are possibly the worst quests I ever seen that SE has ever planned to put out.

[Alhanelem]

PS what's even more silly about this is afterglow doesn't affect the user.

Especially considering how terrible the afterglows are, AND how the trials are apparently going to be stupidly hard, why bother making these things in the first place. They could have saved a lot of time and stress doing nothing. Why waste a single iota of time making content nobody is going to experience?

[Zinato]

The thing that bothers me is how the game is returning to the days of one person reaping the spoils of a large group. 500 PW kills ill take, (time consuming it maybe but then 18 people can do this trial at once) 500 drops even 20 at a time is not cool. Also three of the biggest names on the forum notorious for disagreements just straight out with no conditions agreed on this, personally I see that as impressive, we need to get more people backing this. (I'm not in any way saying disagreements are bad, the best ideas consider all view points)

[Sparthos]

Afterglow as an effect for players coming off the 99 trial would have been fine. You get your 99 weapon and you get a gift by getting to glow in town, giving your PT a little throwaway effect and overall something neat for those with the resilience to have made it from the first trial to the finale.

But oh no this is SE and apparently the ability to glow must first be tested by your ability to cry after seeing the requirements these trials entail. The thing with SE is that they always ask so much of a player for so little in return and it comes to full prominence in these joke-tier 99 'stage 2' trials. Apparently to get a glow effect and a weak sphere buff you need to put in years of effort? Cmon, at least make that level of work equivalent to the effort put in. Dev time is wasted on this garbage while things like actual large-scale tweaks are pushed back constantly.

I have a word for the devs: Priorities.

It's pretty clear this stage1/2 business was designed in response to the overwhelming rage against 99 trials being impossible tier which is why the current ultimate weapons all had afterglows on them. Looks like they'll have to add a new set of weapons to reflect lvl99s without afterglows which means that SE really intended to make ADL/PW/T6 VWNM (and all those requirements now on step2) the original way to reach lvl99 weapons.

'Don't forget your family, job, community or friends' - Really SE? When you design trials like this no-life tier garbage, you spit upon your own words to the players and make mockery of your customers.

Sit down and play your own game before designing stupidity. Please.

[Clou777]

'Don't forget your family, job, community or friends' - Really SE? When you design trials like this no-life tier garbage, you spit upon your own words to the players and make mockery of your customers.

Sit down and play your own game before designing stupidity. Please.

VERY WELL SAID!

[Zumi]

The final level 99 trails should not be insane like they currently are on the test server.

Do not tell me doing dynamis for 3 years straight with 17 other people going everyday for 3 years to get a Yellow glow effect on my character and 15 or so accuracy boost to my party is worth that much work.

Killing 500 PWs would take close to 10 years of playing and farming znm/plates.

What the level 99 weapon trails should be something reasonable and a nice way to finish off the 3 weapon trail lines. The glow is fine even if a lot of people end up getting it. Its is a nice little bonus for people who already did all these tedious trails and stuck with the FFXI for a long time. The circle effect isn't all that game braking or great but still does not warrant an insane trail. The only one that is in the realm of possibility is the Empyrean one, then you have to be really rich and hope people keep on doing voidwatch so you can buy the 3000 items needed.

Should of been a reasonable trail and you get rewarded, here is a neat little glow effect for yourself and a circle effect for your friends who may of helped you along the way for finishing all trails good job and a nice way to wrap up that quest chain.

I hope the devs realize putting in insane almost impossible to finish quest will make more people quit playing your game then stick around to try and do them. Also it has the effect of pissing off your customers so they would be unlikely to buy another online game from Square Enix.

Here I'll do your job for you SE

Relic 99 (afterglow) - 5 Arch Dynamis Lord kills. - ADL is still no pushover but this way at least people with relics can team up to take him down and you could bring your friends to help as well nothing too insane about 5 kills and everyone can get trial credit.

Mythic 99 (afterglow) 3 Pandemonium Warden kills. A reasonable amount of kills with all the zeni and lower tier NMs. In game friends probably be up to helping you get these kills.

Empyrean 99 (afterglow) 50 VW Tier6 drops. Why only 50 drops, each weapon had a huge collection phase so far, relics currency, mythics alex, empyrean plates on the 95. So 50 drops off the new VW doesn't seem all that bad and you can buy them from people not upgrading and its still a fair number of fights.

[Runespider]

I'm a pretty optimistic guy, but it is starting to look like even to me they want to discourage people to get them to play another game. The question is why would they do that? Even now, it still makes them a good amount of money.

Because it competes with their new failed crappy MMO that everyone hates? I swear they are trying to do everything they can to crap on XI atm, they put a guy they know we all hate in charge and that was directly responsible for XIV being shit (might as well of put Osama bin Laden in charge for how much the playerbase hates his ideas) and make almost everything more horrible just as they are working on V2. They must think we are all dumbasses to fall for it, to hell with them...if they turn me off FFXI there are other MMO's. Screw FFXIV and their manipulative shennanigans, this isn't FFXI > FFXIV, it's FFXI > anthing > FFXVI and they don't get it.

We aren't all just going to move over to FFXVI if they ruin FFXI.

Legion better be good, seriously. They are on the last chance for a lot of players with how we have been treated since captain barance doned his cape again.

[Tamoa]

I admit I haven't read every single post on every single forum regarding the 99 weapon trials, but what I have gathered is this:

On the test server, if you try to undertake a trial for a 99 empyrean/mythic/relic, the trial moogle tells you to obtain 3000/100/300 items accordingly, right? SE has said there are 2 stages for a finished 99 weapon, without telling us flat out what exactly the different stages involve. We are all assuming those 3000/100/300 items are for the 2nd and final stage. Why isn't the moogle on the test server giving people the 1st stage trial then? And yes, I know it's the test server, with all its bugs/unfinished stuff and whatnot, and I'm hoping that's why.

But then again, at this stage I have to say I'm expecting the worst.

As for my thoughts about these trials - well all I can say is the following: complete and utter idiocy. A total waste of dev time and players time.

Sparthos says it best:


'Don't forget your family, job, community or friends' - Really SE? When you design trials like this no-life tier garbage, you spit upon your own words to the players and make mockery of your customers.

[Hercule]

You guys have to learn that we CAN'T always get everything in life, same in FFXI, if you get everything you want, you will be bored

It's important to keep an impossible dream somewhere.
It was the voice of reason
http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/554731/554731,1281188108,2/stock-vector-old-wise-owl-reading-book-58599604.jpg

[Tamoa]

You guys have to learn that we CAN'T always get everything in life, same in FFXI, if you get everything you want you will be bored

It was the voice of reason



Yeah ok. So it's reasonable to give the players a trial that LITERALLY will take years to complete and requires not only your own time but the time of X amount of other players too, just to finish ONE single weapon???

Oh and hey, pssst - FFXI isn't real life. It's A GAME. Why shouldn't everything we want in a GAME be obtainable for us? It's not a matter of easy mode and wanting everything given to us for free, far from it. Personally I have no problem whatsoever working hard towards a goal in game. But this? This is taking it way too far and is borderline insane.

[Hercule]

Yeah ok. So it's reasonable to give the players a trial that LITERALLY will take years to complete and requires not only your own time but the time of X amount of other players too, just to finish ONE single weapon???

Oh and hey, pssst - FFXI isn't real life. It's A GAME. Why shouldn't everything we want in a GAME be obtainable for us? It's not a matter of easy mode and wanting everything given to us for free, far from it. Personally I have no problem whatsoever working hard towards a goal in game. But this? This is taking it way too far and is borderline insane.

Like it is for some IRL party of dungeon & dragon "paper RPG",
I beleive FFXI and server will stay up a realy long time, SE dont have any reason to turn off servers if there is people to play and till they're frequently adding new content i dont see any reason to stop playing it for myself,
So if you have 10 years+ to done slowly at your rythm your achievment, i think its just good like it

[Tamoa]

Like it is for some IRL party of dungeon & dragon "paper RPG",
I beleive FFXI and server will stay up a realy long time, SE dont have any reason to turn off servers if there is people to play and till they're frequently adding new content i dont see any reason to stop playing it for myself,
So if you have 10 years+ to done slowly at your rythm your achievment, i think its just good like it

What the...??? So you think taking TEN YEARS+ to reach your goal IN A GAME is reasonable? Really??? Do you even know what you are saying? I've read some stupid stuff on this forum before but I believe what you just said there tops everything.

[Hercule]

What the...??? So you think taking TEN YEARS+ to reach your goal IN A GAME is reasonable? Really??? Do you even know what you are saying? I've read some stupid stuff on this forum before but I believe what you just said there tops everything.

stop complain and cry + insulting people that dont think like you, and just done the stuff you can do, why you want the "Super Hardcore items" if you are not a "Super Hardcore player"

Personally i know i will probably never get these stuff, and only a couple of realy hardcore players will done it per server, that the idea

[Zyla420]

Like it is for some IRL party of dungeon & dragon "paper RPG",
I beleive FFXI and server will stay up a realy long time, SE dont have any reason to turn off servers if there is people to play and till they're frequently adding new content i dont see any reason to stop playing it for myself,
So if you have 10 years+ to done slowly at your rythm your achievment, i think its just good like it

i have to agree with the other guy, this is just straight ignorant dude. you honestly think this game is gonna be around that much longer? hardly. nowhere even close to reality even. this game is nearly dead as it is, a system like this is only going to start to put nails in the coffin.

think about it. there's hardly any of the "hardcore" players even playing anymore. on top of this SE repeatedly puts in content that is nothing but gigantic time sinks for at best minimal rewards. don't believe me? go look at all of the top tier rewards for VW, then look at the ppl who are 0/300-400+ on these drops. and before you even try to argue that top tier should be earned, you're right, it should be earned, but even "hardcore" players would see where the fault in systems like this lie.

this isn't about ppl not being willing to work towards a goal. this about SE being completely and utterly redundant on level that is staggering, retarded, and just playing sad. expecting ANYONE to spend 10+ years to get top tier anything stupid beyond stupid. lemme put it another way, the average human life span is what? 60-70 nowadays?

telling me that it is perfectly fine to expect ppl to spend 1/6-1/7 of your actual life only to get something that will only be a minimal boost, simply because the creators are arrogant douche bags that think they can decide what we think is fun for us, even back at the games infancy, this would've been nothing short of a bad joke.

[Saefinn]

You can't really expect players to turn FFXI into their life, time sinks in this game already are quite massive. Time sinks don't make the game fun or interesting, it just means repeatedly doing the same thing over and over and over until you get the piece of gear you seek. In my mind that's not playing a video game, that's work and not particularly interesting work. Yes, there is the option to not have the gear and to be honest, I don't go out to get the best, if it means elitists laugh at me, so be it, I'd rather spend the time doing something else. But I did find myself getting hooked into that mode of spending hours in the game and it didn't feel that healthy and it wasn't all that rewarding, hence I'm a casual player now, but the game is still fun to play.

But I love the game and it'd be nice to get the better gear, however, I think what would be more satisfying for me is if gear was difficult to get because the fights were hard and not difficult because of endurance and luck (luck in terms of drop rates, pops and winning lots), I think at least the proc system was a step in the right direction as you can boost your chances of a drop. I dunno, I guess I find beating a challenge more rewarding than collecting 'x' number of items or killing 'x' number of monsters.

[Tamoa]

stop complain and cry + insulting people that dont think like you, and just done the stuff you can do, why you want the "Super Hardcore items" if you are not a "Super Hardcore player"

Personally i know i will probably never get these stuff, and only a couple of realy hardcore players will done it per server, that the idea

In other words: As long as something in FFXI doesn't directly affect you, it's quite alright no matter how retarded it is.

[Kiroh]

What I don't get is why SE would even bother adding anything that takes 2 years to finish much less 10+.

Let's face it, in 10 years these items will either be woefully outdated or nonexistent because the servers will have been shut down. And with the direction SE has been taking lately, I'm guessing the latter will come sooner.

[Hercule]

i have to agree with the other guy, this is just straight ignorant dude. you honestly think this game is gonna be around that much longer? hardly. nowhere even close to reality even. this game is nearly dead as it is, a system like this is only going to start to put nails in the coffin.

think about it. there's hardly any of the "hardcore" players even playing anymore. on top of this SE repeatedly puts in content that is nothing but gigantic time sinks for at best minimal rewards. don't believe me? go look at all of the top tier rewards for VW, then look at the ppl who are 0/300-400+ on these drops. and before you even try to argue that top tier should be earned, you're right, it should be earned, but even "hardcore" players would see where the fault in systems like this lie.

this isn't about ppl not being willing to work towards a goal. this about SE being completely and utterly redundant on level that is staggering, retarded, and just playing sad. expecting ANYONE to spend 10+ years to get top tier anything stupid beyond stupid. lemme put it another way, the average human life span is what? 60-70 nowadays?

telling me that it is perfectly fine to expect ppl to spend 1/6-1/7 of your actual life only to get something that will only be a minimal boost, simply because the creators are arrogant douche bags that think they can decide what we think is fun for us, even back at the games infancy, this would've been nothing short of a bad joke.

You say that, and you still play 25 years later, Zelda, Mario or Sonic...etc, that are the exact same game since 25 years, they're only got "graphics updates" and "gameplay update"...etc, but the BASE gameplay is still the same, FFXI is an online game that can be updated forever, i spent more than 1 irl life year in FFXI (According 1 year without sleep and not AFK, i play from 2004 with 1 year break pause in 2007), i dont have any reason to restart everything from zero to another MMORPG just for a graphic update or a little gameplay update, mainly if FFXI stay updated and i enjoy it,

For myself, I see no reason to replace old MMORPG if new are not a revolution, and they're actualy not

[tyrantsyn]

"Only a few PC will ever complete"

This right here equal's to me a waste of content i'm never going to bother with. Player's want challenge, not a 1 to ??? years to complete trial. Telling the player base something like this is like a kick to the nard's and as your double over in pain just told to deal with it and their be back in 10 minutes to administer another helping. I understand the idea is to have these individual's stand out in a crowd. But it's at the crowd expense that these few player's will ever get these done. And there's no reward for those watching someone else walk away with the prize. I for one agree that atm the rewards don't seem to add up to the sacrifice. And I for one wouldn't want to participate in something that in the end some one gets left out. Whether it would be me or someone else.

[Vold]

You guys thought I was joking when I said that if SE thought they could get away with it they'd include this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) with every new update. Just wait for it. They're figuring out what stage 1 will entail after they decided to turn what they had into stage 2. And I guarantee you it will once again feel like this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ) Because it can't be easier than the level 95 trials. Though they might count both stages as one complete trial I guess and stage 1 may very well be fairly "easy." That is, unless they are bright enough to understand their own design and be all like, whoa whoa whoa no one is ever going to finish stage 2 so we need to make stage 1 hard. Yeah...
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ)

[Unleashhell]

If I read it right people that have the 95 weapons will be able to obtain the level 99 version fairly easily. Its just the 2nd part which is the Afterglow. I would think the 1st part would be like 20 Dynamis Lord kill or something like that for relics. Which isn't a big deal. Mythics maybe 10-15 PW? If that's the case at least you can get a couple items to use towards afterglow or sell them and divide it out for peoples time. Empyreans I'm not sure maybe there is something new for VW coming out for it? You will still get the stat updates and a level 99 weapon. You just wont glow :( Sort of like the relic +2 items. You get the 1st part of the relic +2 upgrade then the additional trial for the augment, in this case the augment will be Afterglow. At least this is how I read it unless something changed.

[Meyi]

Like it is for some IRL party of dungeon & dragon "paper RPG",
I beleive FFXI and server will stay up a realy long time, SE dont have any reason to turn off servers if there is people to play and till they're frequently adding new content i dont see any reason to stop playing it for myself,
So if you have 10 years+ to done slowly at your rythm your achievment, i think its just good like it

The problem is, it will take 10+ years playing hardcore. It's not like they're just killing a bunny or two for the day and logging out of the game to tend to real life activities. These aren't simple elemental staff trials. This isn't crafting.

And by the end of the 10 year span, could they look back and say, "Yeah, I spent those last 10 years effectively!"? No. Every moment on a video game is wasted time. The only thing salvageable from playing a game is the enjoyment and relaxation factor. Maybe a small sense of accomplishment and interaction, but mainly for entertainment and relaxation.

The biggest problem with FFXI is that it isn't a relaxing game. When Abyssea came out, many players were relieved that they could finally relax and take things at their own pace. If they wanted to log in for twenty minutes, get some exp with friends, and log out, they could. And now, unfortunately, FFXI is swinging back into its old hardcore self.

Problem is we don't want to go back there.

If I spent 10+ years getting a doctorate then I would say those 10 years were worth it. If I spent 10 years planning for a child and had one then I would say those 10 years were worth it. If I spent 10 years working a job I hated to pay for bills and buy a house then I'd say those 10 years were worth it. But 10 years to make a pixelated item glow?

Not worth it no matter how you look at it.

[Tamoa]

If I read it right people that have the 95 weapons will be able to obtain the level 99 version fairly easily. Its just the 2nd part which is the Afterglow. I would think the 1st part would be like 20 Dynamis Lord kill or something like that for relics. Which isn't a big deal. Mythics maybe 10-15 PW? If that's the case at least you can get a couple items to use towards afterglow or sell them and divide it out for peoples time. Empyreans I'm not sure maybe there is something new for VW coming out for it? You will still get the stat updates and a level 99 weapon. You just wont glow :( Sort of like the relic +2 items. You get the 1st part of the relic +2 upgrade then the additional trial for the augment, in this case the augment will be Afterglow. At least this is how I read it unless something changed.

That's the thing though, SE haven't told us what exactly is the trial for the 1st stage, and what's required for 2nd stage. So that's anybody's guess really. 20 DL (or did you mean Arch DL?) kills for stage 1 relics and 10-15 PW kills for stage 1 mythics could be spot on, or way off. We simply do not know.

[Unleashhell]

Yeah I would think its regular Dynamis Lord OR Diablos for relics. 20x kills. Being that Arch DL has the items for the phase 2 I would think it would be kept separate. But then again there is no Arch PW so I'm not sure what it could be for Mythics. I'm just trying to figure some kind of pattern of what they could be.

[Alhanelem]

If anyone needs an idea of how impossible these items are to obtain, click here: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/19557-dev-1065-Relic-Mythic-Empyrean-99-step-2-Trails-unrealistic?p=261707&viewfull=1#post261707

[Unleashhell]

Why does everyone care about Afterglow? The items people keep talking about are PHASE 2.... who cares if you glow.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/19515-dev1065-Relic-Mythic-and-Empyrean-Weapon-Upgrades

Look this is the FIRST PART:
[dev1065] Relic, Mythic, and Empyrean Weapon Upgrades

With the forthcoming version update, players will be able to upgrade equipment to level 99 in two stages:

>>>>>> Stage 1 <<<<<< See this right here???????

Possible upgrades will include damage, delay, and weapon skill damage along with other attributes.
The planned difficulty level for the corresponding Magian upgrade trials will be such that a majority of players with the appropriate level 95 equipment will likely be able to complete them. <<<<<< SEE THIS RIGHT HERE
*This content is not yet available on the test server.

>>>>>> Step 2 <<<<<<<<<< See this right here???

Possible upgrades will include special animations along with "Afterglow" effects that grant status benefits to party members.
The corresponding Magian trials will be exceedingly difficult to complete, such that only a select number of PCs will be able to upgrade weapons to this stage.
*Gjallarhorn and Daurdabla may not be imbued with Afterglow effects.

[Tamoa]

That's all well and good, but it's still not giving us any exact information at all.

[Chamaan]

Doesn't make any sense why they believe these afterglow effects are worth that much effort. For the amount of work you put it afterglows should do something ridiculous, like make you and your party immune to the last form of damage you did.

Would be nice if they came out and said "We plan on giving you a new full on expansion with new zones and three years of content, so that the 17 other helping you with your impossible weapon have something to do for the next three years that isn't just logging on to help you with your impossible weapon."

[Sparthos]

Why does everyone care about Afterglow? The items people keep talking about are PHASE 2.... who cares if you glow.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/19515-dev1065-Relic-Mythic-and-Empyrean-Weapon-Upgrades

Look this is the FIRST PART:
[dev1065] Relic, Mythic, and Empyrean Weapon Upgrades

With the forthcoming version update, players will be able to upgrade equipment to level 99 in two stages:

>>>>>> Stage 1 <<<<<< See this right here???????

Possible upgrades will include damage, delay, and weapon skill damage along with other attributes.
The planned difficulty level for the corresponding Magian upgrade trials will be such that a majority of players with the appropriate level 95 equipment will likely be able to complete them. <<<<<< SEE THIS RIGHT HERE
*This content is not yet available on the test server.

>>>>>> Step 2 <<<<<<<<<< See this right here???

Possible upgrades will include special animations along with "Afterglow" effects that grant status benefits to party members.
The corresponding Magian trials will be exceedingly difficult to complete, such that only a select number of PCs will be able to upgrade weapons to this stage.
*Gjallarhorn and Daurdabla may not be imbued with Afterglow effects.

Dude, we can read and my point still stands.

FFXI has an undermanned dev team who obviously are swamped with work because things are always delayed come version update time. We just heard that relic specific pets/magic are being 'reviewed' which translates to being postponed because they've prioritized something above it with regards to the workload.

What could possibly take precedence over relic specific pets/spells? A glow effect 0.005% of your base is going to obtain of course! /facepalm

Seriously? Things get canned or pushed back yet someone at SE was tasked to not only put together afterglows but also the insanity trials that accompany them. Does that sound like a good use of developer time? Developers that are already spread thin? I don't. I think it's stupid and completely showing a lack of priorities.

Now because someone at SE (Tana...someone) decided to prioritize an insanity level trial to get level99, SE now has to work backwards and duplicate work by creating non-afterglow relics/mythics/emps and design trials for these weapons because no one could realize that well.. a no-life tier trial was stupid to begin with.

This further pushes useful content back and keeps players waiting for whatever can then be trickled out. Time that could have been used to give Guttlers/Claustrum unique pets, time that could have been used to put a new healing spell on Mjollnir, time that could have been used to put Massacre Elegy on G.Horn, time that could have been used to make the game............*drumroll*.............. fun.

[Cowardlybabooon]

They should at least make afterglow apply to the wearer and maybe up the stats. Then I'm cool with impossible, as long as the weapon is broken.

[Alhanelem]

The afterglow effects are so worthless that nobody will bother attempting them considering their absurd difficulty.

Basically, the whole point of this thread is: If nobody is going to obtain this and the benefits of doing so are minimal at best, then why even bother to develop this content? There are a lot of better things they could be devoting their time to.

[Dragoy]

I always saw the Relics and the Mythics something that was only designed for those who like to manipulate and use people for their own gains, cheat (buy Gil and bot for Gil and so on), and such.
No, I'm not saying everyone who did it are like that but that's not even the point. I don't understand why make items they do not intend to be obtained by most players.

Sure, it should take work to get these items, but there is a difference with challenge and virtually-impossible.
I was honestly amused when I read about these new trials for them.
They so clearly state that they don't want the players to have them, at all.
I really can't get my thoughts a round that concept, no matter how I try. It's unfair to the legit players, and unfair in that you need a lot of people/cheats to complete them within reasonable amount of time (earth-time), and only one character will get the prize in the end.

Well, I'm only glad I never really got into this all, even though I have kept every Dynamis-currency and occasionally buy some if it's cheap, I don't seriously think I will ever get any of these.
Not to forget how unimpressed I was after trying them on the test-server (not surprised though, it was just as what I expected).

All that said, it's not a surprise they don't intend people to get these items; they never did. ^^


I also figured what the Afterglow is all about: It's the tears of the character, tears of agony and sorrow, and everything it had to go through to get the item...

[Alhanelem]

The afterglow effects are terrible, the only benefit is you look shiny (and didn't you already when people saw you with a relic weapon in the first place), and the trials are virtually impossible. Nobody is going to even attempt this, and even if they do, they're insane.

[Sp1cyryan]

Aren't the high tier magian trials for relics/mythics/etc already exclusive enough as it is? do we really need to make a single trial at the end of these long, tiresome chains even more exclusive?

Really. Fair question.

PS: "Crap" is to be taken literally, as the new trials are both "impossible" and the result is crap.

FFXI Official Forums "Where all the complainers go."

[Rohelius]

Square-Enix reminds me of the episode of southpark where the game company was taking their game too seriously.

Hard work okay, but treating in-game items like they are real shit you have to put years of work/time into, not to mention you absolutely cant do them alone... I'm sorry but that's not worth my time and i feel sorry for whoever sacrifices that much IRL for that little virtual tid bit. I just really hope if its going to take years to complete that after they complete it the game still gives them time to enjoy it before most players quit or they shutdown servers~

As for me, These trials aren't ever going to be worth my time i have a wife and a good job i put above everything in this game. And seeing as i only play 3-4 days a week for 4-5 hours a time when i'm lucky. SE pretty much made that decision for me which i dont think its THEIR decision to make but hey, its their game i just pay for it right...?

[Unleashhell]

Dude, we can read and my point still stands.

FFXI has an undermanned dev team who obviously are swamped with work because things are always delayed come version update time. We just heard that relic specific pets/magic are being 'reviewed' which translates to being postponed because they've prioritized something above it with regards to the workload.

What could possibly take precedence over relic specific pets/spells? A glow effect 0.005% of your base is going to obtain of course! /facepalm

Seriously? Things get canned or pushed back yet someone at SE was tasked to not only put together afterglows but also the insanity trials that accompany them. Does that sound like a good use of developer time? Developers that are already spread thin? I don't. I think it's stupid and completely showing a lack of priorities.

Now because someone at SE (Tana...someone) decided to prioritize an insanity level trial to get level99, SE now has to work backwards and duplicate work by creating non-afterglow relics/mythics/emps and design trials for these weapons because no one could realize that well.. a no-life tier trial was stupid to begin with.

This further pushes useful content back and keeps players waiting for whatever can then be trickled out. Time that could have been used to give Guttlers/Claustrum unique pets, time that could have been used to put a new healing spell on Mjollnir, time that could have been used to put Massacre Elegy on G.Horn, time that could have been used to make the game............*drumroll*.............. fun.

Well first off, Obviously people cant read very well because they are STILL posting on various topics thinking that its takes what clearly is phase 2 requirements to get when some of us read as phase 1 requirements. Phase 1 is what gives the level 99 weapons stats buffs etc. People still are not getting this. So that is the reason I posted and bolded what I did.

Second, The dev team is small and we just have to deal with that fact that the game is 10 years old. Why should they have a massive dev team for a product that is this old when they can put resources into new products with current technology? Aside from FF14, they do have other projects whether its an MMO or any console / PC game. There will come a point where SE says we will not support FF11 anymore with content but that time hasn't come yet. If so many people are that unhappy with the game now and constantly over and over do nothing on these forums but complain why even play? Seriously, there are TONs of other games to play. Its like people in a bad marriage, if you hate the person your are with why would you stay with them? Move on already.

Don't get me wrong, I have my own issues with the game and I try my best to voice them on here also but they are game mechanics and things that should be fixed or balanced (orz I said it) out to make things more fair and enjoyable for everyone. Believe me I don't want to see the player base get smaller, but there comes a time when someone has to say enough I cant take it anymore and move on.

The dev team has given us a road map of their plans and told us what they are doing. They haven't even fixed the game mechanics to work properly and everyone wants more content so all those problems can just carry over into new zones and ruin the fun and give more frustration to players. I still enjoy the game as a whole and are very much looking forward to Legion, Salvage revamp and other things they have planned for us. Everyone is going to view things differently on the game.

[Ravenmore]

Square-Enix reminds me of the episode of southpark where the game company was taking their game too seriously.

Hard work okay, but treating in-game items like they are real shit you have to put years of work/time into, not to mention you absolutely cant do them alone... I'm sorry but that's not worth my time and i feel sorry for whoever sacrifices that much IRL for that little virtual tid bit. I just really hope if its going to take years to complete that after they complete it the game still gives them time to enjoy it before most players quit or they shutdown servers~

As for me, These trials aren't ever going to be worth my time i have a wife and a good job i put above everything in this game. And seeing as i only play 3-4 days a week for 4-5 hours a time when i'm lucky. SE pretty much made that decision for me which i dont think its THEIR decision to make but hey, its their game i just pay for it right...?

That just it you said it your self. Anyone that finish this will not be look up to in aw but looked down on in pitty.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Basically, the whole point of this thread is: If nobody is going to obtain this and the benefits of doing so are minimal at best, then why even bother to develop this content?JP gaming has always had a lot of basis in elitism. This game is nothing special in that regards.

[Economizer]

I always saw the Relics and the Mythics something that was only designed for those who like to manipulate and use people for their own gains, cheat (buy Gil and bot for Gil and so on), and such.
No, I'm not saying everyone who did it are like that but that's not even the point. I don't understand why make items they do not intend to be obtained by most players.

Currently, excluding the new 99 trials, Relics are mostly easier for a small group of friends working together. If you can get 100 currency pieces a night between four people for example, you can get one person the currency for a relic in less then two months, or two people's currency in three. Basically even with two days off a week and a bit of cushion for vacations and such, you can get a group their relics in a year. In my opinion, that is obtainable for players who are between "casual" and "hardcore" while still rewarding teamwork, which is incredibly hard to do with a loot system.

The problem I mainly see with the afterglow trails is they are based on loot and not kills - basically, it rewards that greedy manipulation you talk about.

Twenty kills for the 99 weapon stats and two thousand for the afterglow would be a bit more fair for teamwork - the thing this game is supposed to be all about more then any other MMO - then having to fetch some stupid item a thousand times.

Perhaps I may be wrong, but a legendarily hard quest like that would probably be more acceptable to players if it rewarded teamwork rather then greed. Am I right?

[Ravenmore]

Currently, excluding the new 99 trials, Relics are mostly easier for a small group of friends working together. If you can get 100 currency pieces a night between four people for example, you can get one person the currency for a relic in less then two months, or two people's currency in three. Basically even with two days off a week and a bit of cushion for vacations and such, you can get a group their relics in a year. In my opinion, that is obtainable for players who are between "casual" and "hardcore" while still rewarding teamwork, which is incredibly hard to do with a loot system.

The problem I mainly see with the afterglow trails is they are based on loot and not kills - basically, it rewards that greedy manipulation you talk about.

Twenty kills for the 99 weapon stats and two thousand for the afterglow would be a bit more fair for teamwork - the thing this game is supposed to be all about more then any other MMO - then having to fetch some stupid item a thousand times.

Perhaps I may be wrong, but a legendarily hard quest like that would probably be more acceptable to players if it rewarded teamwork rather then greed. Am I right?

Relics still carry a little bit of their past(yes not everyone boughtgil/dick LS users but there was more then enough that did). Mystics where not that bad cause it really didn't go over well for one person to hog all the alex since everyone had to spend the same amount of time burning assults.

[Economizer]

Relics still carry a little bit of their past

Definitely have a history, but the way things are currently is much better. That's all we can really change, which is why we have to fight the new anti-teamwork trials now that the call to arms has gone out. Honestly, I think SE is dead set on making a last stage of it be incredibly hard, and I can respect that - but only so long as the trials support teamwork, not greed.

[Tile]

The afterglow effects are terrible, the only benefit is you look shiny (and didn't you already when people saw you with a relic weapon in the first place), and the trials are virtually impossible. Nobody is going to even attempt this, and even if they do, they're insane.

Wrong there, people will do these just for the fact they will glow.

AfterGlow is almost the same thing as Sphere people fight the same VWNM hundreds of times to get a body that has +1 more stats then the one you can buy off AH, But it Glows and gives a Sphere effect that you dont get at all, only the people near you.

the 99 weapons are the same thing as the VWNM Bodies. you put up with alot of work and you get alittle stat boost and you glow.

[cidbahamut]

As someone who won't be affected by these trials in any way, shape or form, I'm still pretty disgusted by them.

They are the proverbial writing on the wall.

[SirDayne]

Walk of Echoes "Walk of Logs and No Spell Drops" comes to mind...


The high tier magic scrolls have been set to a somewhat higher difficulty to obtain, and it has not been balanced so that you are guaranteed to learn the spell as soon as you reach the proper level.

Enough with the "difficult to obtain" and "only a few PCs will ever equip this" garbage.

[Alhanelem]

Wrong there, people will do these just for the fact they will glow.Take a look at those trials again. The Mythic one in particular is so absurd, you'd have to be on drugs or something to even consider attempting it. Best case scenario of playing almost nonstop, it will still take you years. I cast doubt that the game would still be running in the time it takes people to finish it.

Also, the sphere effects have a lower priority than aftermath effects (meaning they get overwritten by them and do not stack with them). If anyone else is using a super weapon, they will not benefit from the afterglow. The afterglow effects are nothing big, just like the sphere effects aren't. Making you glow is about the only thing you get out of it. You get all the damage and delay and other stuff on the easier trial- nobody in their right mind would even consider this.


you put up with alot of work and you get alittle stat boost and you glow. It's not just "a lot" of work.
Estimated best case scenarios:
Empyreans: Possibly less than a year if everyone who does voidwatch with you gives you the items, probably at least 6+ months if you have unlimited gil and can buy all the items other people get. These are the most realistic and maybe some people will do them.
Relics: If you gather a pop set and pop ADL the same day, that's 1000 daily runs of dynamis with a full alliance, so like 2 and a half years. (This is roughly similar to the worst case scenario for the base relic was back in the day. Nowadays, anybody can probably get one in a span of several months). This is excessive but not quite ludicrous, considering how long it's taken people to get relics and get the trials up to this point done.
Mythics: By far the worst of all. "Mythic" is right. The weapons themselves are practically myths. Very few people have these weapons, and then they proceed to give them the worst final trials of all. It will take roughly several years to complete this one trial with the current parameters. It would have taken even longer if the pandy warden pop items weren't made 100%. All I can tell mythic people is: Not gonna happen.

[Tohihroyu]

Turn on those JP buttons folks, thats the only way to upgrade them weapons! No wait I'm wrong... time for the EGLS whore mithra to distribute full porn vids to their leaders to get that.

Trials just for a glow?! PUH-LEASE its easy to just use glowing weapon .dats...that look better too I might add.

[Alhanelem]

Turn on those JP buttons folks, thats the only way to upgrade them weapons! No wait I'm wrong... time for the EGLS whore mithra to distribute full porn vids to their leaders to get that.

Trials just for a glow?! PUH-LEASE its easy to just use glowing weapon .dats...that look better too I might add.
Actually, it's your character, not the weapon, that glows.

I tried them out on the test server (which is the only way anyone is ever going to see any of these afterglows, or at least the mythic ones)

[Krashport]

3315 Ukonvasara Rare Ex
DMG:156
Delay:482 STR+20 "Ukko's Fury"
Aftermath: Occ. deals double damage
Afterglow (Increases critical hit rate)

So in the upcoming update, SE going to gimp "Most" WAR/MNK/PUP/etc... Critical hit rate then re~adding them to the Afterglow Trial to get them back....

[Tohihroyu]

Oh D: well Relic afterglow looks like your character has B.O. I'll stick with glowly weapon .dats

[Tile]

3315 Ukonvasara Rare Ex
DMG:156
Delay:482 STR+20 "Ukko's Fury"
Aftermath: Occ. deals double damage
Afterglow (Increases critical hit rate)

So in the upcoming update, SE going to gimp "Most" WAR/MNK/PUP/etc... Critical hit rate then re~adding them to the Afterglow Trial to get them back....

you dont get the effect of your own afterglow, only the people around you. so you dont get the crit rate boost

[Alhanelem]

Also, if someone else has an afterglow and you're using a relic/mythic/empyrean, your Aftermath overwrites the afterglow effect even if it's not the same effect.

[Tashan]

tl;dr. Add hard to obtain weapons is ok. They're not worth the effort.


To be honest, I kind of like that there's desired gear which is really hard to get again.

At LV90 in AbysseaLand, when I completed my LV90 weapon it was a really weird feeling to have gotten the best items for my job and play with nothing to aspire to achieve. Things got really dull.

However, it's also made me realise that back at LV75 when all of these Ultimate weapons were around which not many people had were really not as amazing as the effort we put in for it.

[pim-ptarutaru]

The afterglow effects are terrible, the only benefit is you look shiny (and didn't you already when people saw you with a relic weapon in the first place), and the trials are virtually impossible. Nobody is going to even attempt this, and even if they do, they're insane.
because SE loves seeing you guys QQ. if they are not that great they why worry about it? At least you will be able to most likely get 99 which is the important part. I sware its the same 10-20 ppl on the forums that do most of the bitching lol. when I talk to most of my friends in game most of them dont even care about the after glow there just happy with 99 lol. Most you guys on forums that complain and cry are mainly nothing but jokes. If your that unhappy about the game quit already Geesh. I bet you anything most ppl wont even care if you guys are gone. Now im gonna go back to my game where theres still a ton of my friends playing that aren't QQ over stupid stuff.

(waits for stupid troll face defensive comments to start flooding in)

[Unctgtg]

You guys do realize those crazy trials for for Level 2, noone knows what the level 1 trials are yet.

[Maacha]

You guys do realize those crazy trials for for Level 2, no one knows what the level 1 trials are yet.

These are only becoming the level 2 trials because everyone freaked out so much about them when they were first added to the test server. There originally was no level 1 or level 2, there was only 1 trial to get to 99.

People are complaining now because the dev team spent time to create trials that only 1-2 people per server per year will complete, instead of fixing problems effect far more people and have far larger consequences for the whole game.

[wish12oz]

because SE loves seeing you guys QQ. if they are not that great they why worry about it? At least you will be able to most likely get 99 which is the important part. I sware its the same 10-20 ppl on the forums that do most of the bitching lol. when I talk to most of my friends in game most of them dont even care about the after glow there just happy with 99 lol. Most you guys on forums that complain and cry are mainly nothing but jokes. If your that unhappy about the game quit already Geesh. I bet you anything most ppl wont even care if you guys are gone. Now im gonna go back to my game where theres still a ton of my friends playing that aren't QQ over stupid stuff.

(waits for stupid troll face defensive comments to start flooding in)

The problem with this statement, is that if it wasn't for all those people QQing, the current 'stage 2' trials would of been the ONLY upgrade to go from 95 to 99.

[Zyla420]

You say that, and you still play 25 years later, Zelda, Mario or Sonic...etc, that are the exact same game since 25 years, they're only got "graphics updates" and "gameplay update"...etc, but the BASE gameplay is still the same, FFXI is an online game that can be updated forever, i spent more than 1 irl life year in FFXI (According 1 year without sleep and not AFK, i play from 2004 with 1 year break pause in 2007), i dont have any reason to restart everything from zero to another MMORPG just for a graphic update or a little gameplay update, mainly if FFXI stay updated and i enjoy it,

For myself, I see no reason to replace old MMORPG if new are not a revolution, and they're actualy not

i'm glad that you're such an expert knowing what games i play on a regular basis. not only are you implying you know what i do, you're also implying that the core gameplay of every game you just mentioned hasn't changed in slightest since the originals were conceived. not only this, all of those games are offline, therefore are irrelevant to this point. why you ask? because all of those games can be completely and thoroughly beaten within a few hours.

ffxi is an online game, as such online games require a certain amount of timesinks to keep players interested (read as "keep paying fees"). and timesinks are not a bad thing in alot of instances, but in this particular situation SE is only adding a timesink that almost nobody is going to bother with. if they introduce content that nobody but a select handful of ppl out of the thousands that play are even gonna bother with, they are going to lose costumers. if they lose enough costumers, they will cut their losses and the servers shut down. if the servers shut down due to SE not makin enough money, it won't matter that ffxi can be updated forever, as there won't be anyone playing.

all in all my original point still stands, redundant absurdity is redundantly absurd...

[Alhanelem]

I sware its the same 10-20 ppl on the forums that do most of the bitching lol.Because only 10-20 people post more than a few times on these forums.

Valid bitching is valid, and SE needs to stop making bullshiat.

[DrForester]

I'd say emp weapons should have pretty difficult (but not impossible) trials. They're great weapons and far easier to get than Relic and Mythic. Relic and Mythic trials though should be pretty minor and reasonable. People with those weapons put in their time. They should not have those items that required an extraordinary time and gil investment downgraded by impossible quests.

[Tamoa]

I'd say emp weapons should have pretty difficult (but not impossible) trials. They're great weapons and far easier to get than Relic and Mythic. Relic and Mythic trials though should be pretty minor and reasonable. People with those weapons put in their time. They should not have those items that required an extraordinary time and gil investment downgraded by impossible quests.

This makes sense to me aswell.

[Unleashhell]

Seriously guys, how do you all know that there wasn't 2 stages for the level 99 weapons to begin with? Just because it was on the test server as 1 stage doesn't mean anything. If you go there now there STILL isn't a trial to get to 99 phase 1. They wouldn't put that information in because they don't want people getting the requirements ready and all have 99 weapons done right away. They want people to wait. For instance if it was 20 DL pop sets for 99 phase 1, people would get 20 pop sets ready to go and after the update everyone would be cramming the DL pop spot. Notice that's DL not ADL.

You guys should all know by now they don't listen to this forums so please stop thinking they changed things because we bitched. We don't work at SE nor do we know what they are doing until updates are downloaded.

[Unleashhell]

I'd say emp weapons should have pretty difficult (but not impossible) trials. They're great weapons and far easier to get than Relic and Mythic. Relic and Mythic trials though should be pretty minor and reasonable. People with those weapons put in their time. They should not have those items that required an extraordinary time and gil investment downgraded by impossible quests.

I agree with this. but now here comes the trolls saying Relics are easier. The can of worms you just opened lol...

[Vivik]

I think that time could have been spent developing things for all players instead of a select few.

[detlef]

I agree with this. but now here comes the trolls saying Relics are easier. The can of worms you just opened lol...Having just done the level 95 upgrade for Empy, yes. Yes relics are easier. At the very least you have to agree that the disparity in requirements between level 95 versions is not that great.

[Unleashhell]

See, told you lol...

[Camiie]

I think that time could have been spent developing things for all players instead of a select few.

Especially since, as they've told us, their manpower and resources for FFXI are very limited these days.

[saevel]

Second, The dev team is small and we just have to deal with that fact that the game is 10 years old. Why should they have a massive dev team for a product that is this old when they can put resources into new products with current technology? Aside from FF14, they do have other projects whether its an MMO or any console / PC game.
That is ~NOT~ how MMO's work. Their not a single player console game that you just release and make updates / patch's for. Their a service and need to be treated as such. The company is providing you an entertainment service in exchange for your monthly service fee. They take that money and use it to cover operational expenses and maintenance. They then should budget a portion of that money for future product development and whatever is left is considered profit. This is not what SE's been doing, their taking the lions share of your service fee and using it on development for FFXIV, a service your not paying for that has its own service fee. Their doing this when their primary service (FFXI) is in serious trouble of losing revenue due to lack of development. ~Every~ MMO that has done this has failed, just look up EA's "Earth and Beyond". EnB was a good game, had a good crafting system and a remarkable XP / leveling system. It's failure was that the developers didn't develop it, they just kinda made it and planned on getting all this EQ style money without having to put in the effort. Thus eventually players got bored and moved on.

[Unleashhell]

That is ~NOT~ how MMO's work. Their not a single player console game that you just release and make updates / patch's for. Their a service and need to be treated as such. The company is providing you an entertainment service in exchange for your monthly service fee. They take that money and use it to cover operational expenses and maintenance. They then should budget a portion of that money for future product development and whatever is left is considered profit. This is not what SE's been doing, their taking the lions share of your service fee and using it on development for FFXIV, a service your not paying for that has its own service fee. Their doing this when their primary service (FFXI) is in serious trouble of losing revenue due to lack of development. ~Every~ MMO that has done this has failed, just look up EA's "Earth and Beyond". EnB was a good game, had a good crafting system and a remarkable XP / leveling system. It's failure was that the developers didn't develop it, they just kinda made it and planned on getting all this EQ style money without having to put in the effort. Thus eventually players got bored and moved on.

Do you work at SE? Do you know first hand what they do with their money? I highly doubt it. It is their money to do whatever they want with it. Is makes no sense for a business to keep 100% original resources onto a 10+ year old product. If that was the case there would be no upgrades to anything hardware or software based. We would still be using Windows 95 with your statements. You should be happy SE even supports FF11 anymore. Just because your paying a monthly fee doesn't mean they should throw an alliance of resources at a 10 year old product. Do you think the support team for windows XP is as large as it was when it first came out? No it isn't because people moved on to newer OS.

Business are there to make money, and how do you make money? You create new and improved products. Not all products are a success, in this case FF14. But does that mean they should just give up and say ok we are done lets put all resources back to a 10 year old product? Think of it like having a car, automakers make new cars every year with improvements to existing models or completely redesign them. They don't just make the same car for 10+ years with no improvements or redesigns what so ever. You need innovation to push forward not sit on old products.

[saevel]

Do you work at SE? Do you know first hand what they do with their money? I highly doubt it. It is their money to do whatever they want with it. Is makes no sense for a business to keep 100% original resources onto a 10+ year old product. If that was the case there would be no upgrades to anything hardware or software based. We would still be using Windows 95 with your statements. You should be happy SE even supports FF11 anymore. Just because your paying a monthly fee doesn't mean they should throw an alliance of resources at a 10 year old product. Do you think the support team for windows XP is as large as it was when it first came out? No it isn't because people moved on to newer OS.

Business are there to make money, and how do you make money? You create new and improved products. Not all products are a success, in this case FF14. But does that mean they should just give up and say ok we are done lets put all resources back to a 10 year old product? Think of it like having a car, automakers make new cars every year with improvements to existing models or completely redesign them. They don't just make the same car for 10+ years with no improvements or redesigns what so ever. You need innovation to push forward not sit on old products.


Are you daft, or just ignorant of business's in general?

It has NOTHING to do with the age of the product. Consumers have a demand, you supply that demand and thus create a revenue stream. You continue to provide that supply for as long as there's enough demand to warrant a profit. Not providing that supply will lead to the demand going elsewhere and thus less profits for you.

They still sell monopoly and risk, those are both much older then 10yrs and they still make money. They sell those games because there is a demand that is profitable to supply. The original Everquest is still going, their still supplying that demand and making and profit off it. It makes no sense not to supply the demand of a 10yr old game.

Now let me school you about product development, cause I actually do some of this for a living.

The highest cost sink isn't in the maintenance of the game, but the initial development to go from concept to design to the actual key pounding of code. MMO's don't make profits in their first year or so due to this fact. It costs tons of money to develop the original game mechanics, design the artwork, assign the various mechanics and so forth. Create all the models and animations, build your server side software, work out the bugs in your backend databases.

Now all of these are sunk costs, their costs you can't immediately pass onto the consumer as it would price your product out of the market and you must accept them as an investment in the future of your product. After the first couple of years you'll end up making the original investment back and then your operating on pure profit from that point on. Any money left over after maintenance and operations expense's can be spent on product development and pocketed as profit.

Starting over again, aka making a new MMO, means you must start back at year one sunk costs all over again. Discontinuing or failing to maintain and develop for a product that is already banking you tons of money is a very very bad business decision. Especially if your doing it to develop a "new" MMO from scratch, which will just cost you more money. This is why Blizzard didn't make "WoW 2" and instead decided to further develop the original WoW. In the long run it costs them less to develop and expand on their original product then it does to sink money into a "new" product and hope people go for their bait. When they made EQ2 they though all the players would jump over, and while some did most did not. This was a very harsh lesson that needed to be learned. Players do not like switching MMO's like they do cars and they do not develop a brand loyalty to MMO's like they do. Each and every MMO is treated like a separate product and has a separate player base. No matter what it's name is or who developed it.

[svengalis]

Without the impossible to obtain crap we get the whiners saying content is to easy.

[detlef]

See, told you lol...I only responded since you asked. But it's true.

[Alhanelem]

Without the impossible to obtain crap we get the whiners saying content is to easy.
There's nothing hard about this for the people that are ready for it. It's just a colossal waste of time. After the first 100 pandy warden kills, I'm sure you'll be sick of it. You've proven yourself after the first two or three, the rest are just to make it take a long time.

[Lafaiel]

I think that time could have been spent developing things for all players instead of a select few.

This is something I notice about a lot of asian game developers, they do this because it seems to be a mentality they have, to be honest most of us might not like wow very much, but if it were to be released in places like korea and japan thier respective mmo's markets would be decimated by it.

[Rohelius]

The afterglows are for people on disability that get a check every month and don't do anything all day but get fat and sit in front of the computer.

Its This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT0-OL_71yU&feature=related) guy that is going to own one of the 99 stage 2 weapons as he looks right now.

and This (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxbGnCUxUhg&feature=related) is how hes gonna end up.

And its all worth it because its for this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3w211lay5U)

http://files.sharenator.com/1008_behold_the_sword_The_evolution_of_the_WoW_user-s720x556-55590-535.jpg

[Unleashhell]

Are you daft, or just ignorant of business's in general?

It has NOTHING to do with the age of the product. Consumers have a demand, you supply that demand and thus create a revenue stream. You continue to provide that supply for as long as there's enough demand to warrant a profit. Not providing that supply will lead to the demand going elsewhere and thus less profits for you.

They still sell monopoly and risk, those are both much older then 10yrs and they still make money. They sell those games because there is a demand that is profitable to supply. The original Everquest is still going, their still supplying that demand and making and profit off it. It makes no sense not to supply the demand of a 10yr old game.

Now let me school you about product development, cause I actually do some of this for a living.

The highest cost sink isn't in the maintenance of the game, but the initial development to go from concept to design to the actual key pounding of code. MMO's don't make profits in their first year or so due to this fact. It costs tons of money to develop the original game mechanics, design the artwork, assign the various mechanics and so forth. Create all the models and animations, build your server side software, work out the bugs in your backend databases.

Now all of these are sunk costs, their costs you can't immediately pass onto the consumer as it would price your product out of the market and you must accept them as an investment in the future of your product. After the first couple of years you'll end up making the original investment back and then your operating on pure profit from that point on. Any money left over after maintenance and operations expense's can be spent on product development and pocketed as profit.

Starting over again, aka making a new MMO, means you must start back at year one sunk costs all over again. Discontinuing or failing to maintain and develop for a product that is already banking you tons of money is a very very bad business decision. Especially if your doing it to develop a "new" MMO from scratch, which will just cost you more money. This is why Blizzard didn't make "WoW 2" and instead decided to further develop the original WoW. In the long run it costs them less to develop and expand on their original product then it does to sink money into a "new" product and hope people go for their bait. When they made EQ2 they though all the players would jump over, and while some did most did not. This was a very harsh lesson that needed to be learned. Players do not like switching MMO's like they do cars and they do not develop a brand loyalty to MMO's like they do. Each and every MMO is treated like a separate product and has a separate player base. No matter what it's name is or who developed it.


I'm well aware how business works. All you are doing is trying to justify how you think SE should run their business. And you are missing the point that they are not going to put 100% of the original man power into a 10+ year old product. Do you actually think Blizzard will not make WoW 2? They will, just like every other game has either an entirely new game in a franchise or a sequel of some kind.

What you don't seem to realize is that the next gen gamer will have an interest in future releases of any MMO or any game for that matter. Do you actually think some 16-22 year old is gonna say oh hey let me play this 10+ year old game with outdated graphics and game mechanics. No they aren't interested in it. They want the newest more current technology. That is where the money will be because they can hook that gamer into that more recent product for 5+ years if its an MMO, just like we got hooked into FF11 8-10 years ago. Otherwise we wouldn't even have FF14 cause according to the way you are looking at things you think a business should just put all the manpower they got into a 10 year old product and completely rule out new potential customers. New customers and next gen gamers don't want old products. They want new products.

As for profits, they go into new products. They go into research, development, planning, writing, graphic artists etc. If any business just took profits and did nothing but support old outdated products their business would fail because consumers would move onto better more up to date products. Sorry but if I was 18 again I sure as hell wouldn't even have the slightest interest in a 10+ year old MMO when there are more up to date graphically superior products out there. And if this is what you do for a living I feel sad for the company that hired you. With your logic you would have more overhead in payroll making a ridiculously large employee base for every project you ever work on. That sure makes great business sense... Your employees need to work on more projects to help keep your company in business.

[Alhanelem]

Thanks for the business economics lesson. Back to talking about not adding pointless, irrelevant, impossible things to the game when no one will accomplish them.

[Dragoy]

I always saw the Relics and the Mythics something that was only designed for those who like to manipulate and use people for their own gains, cheat (buy Gil and bot for Gil and so on), and such.
No, I'm not saying everyone who did it are like that but that's not even the point. I don't understand why make items they do not intend to be obtained by most players.Currently, excluding the new 99 trials, Relics are mostly easier for a small group of friends working together. If you can get 100 currency pieces a night between four people for example, you can get one person the currency for a relic in less then two months, or two people's currency in three. Basically even with two days off a week and a bit of cushion for vacations and such, you can get a group their relics in a year. In my opinion, that is obtainable for players who are between "casual" and "hardcore" while still rewarding teamwork, which is incredibly hard to do with a loot system.

The problem I mainly see with the afterglow trails is they are based on loot and not kills - basically, it rewards that greedy manipulation you talk about.

Twenty kills for the 99 weapon stats and two thousand for the afterglow would be a bit more fair for teamwork - the thing this game is supposed to be all about more then any other MMO - then having to fetch some stupid item a thousand times.

Perhaps I may be wrong, but a legendarily hard quest like that would probably be more acceptable to players if it rewarded teamwork rather then greed. Am I right?
Very true.
I was largely thinking of ye olde Dynamis time basically when writing what I wrote.
They are definitely much more accessible now (level 75 Relics), and I am very much interested to see the renovations on the Aht Urhgan content, and if they will do anything similar to the Mythic stuff.

That said, one might fondle with the thought that these new trials are basically the new level 75 Relic/Mythic content.

And yes, I agree with that too, that it is quite funky how they create content that more or/and less require more players to do, yet they usually don't really reward but one person (at a time), depending a lot of the people doing it of course (how they decide to distribute the rewards which doesn't really work with Voidwatch though I imagine, which might have been an attempt out of this pattern orrr maybe it was just about messing around).

[saevel]

So you are daft, thought so.

This pretty much sums up your ignorance


Do you actually think Blizzard will not make WoW 2? They will, just like every other game has either an entirely new game in a franchise or a sequel of some kind.

Blizzard has already said no WoW 2, instead they remade the game in Cataclysm. Soon they are doing another major overhaul that is completely discarding the current talent trees and replacing them with an entirely different system.

Instead of trying to create a ~new~ game, they are instead turning their ~old~ game into something new. That is how you make money in MMO's, as proven by Blizzard's WoW being the biggest MMO in the world despite being "old" by gaming standards and having constant competition.



As for profits, they go into new products. They go into research, development, planning, writing, graphic artists etc. If any business just took profits and did nothing but support old outdated products their business would fail because consumers would move onto better more up to date products. Sorry but if I was 18 again I sure as hell wouldn't even have the slightest interest in a 10+ year old MMO when there are more up to date graphically superior products out there. And if this is what you do for a living I feel sad for the company that hired you. With your logic you would have more overhead in payroll making a ridiculously large employee base for every project you ever work on. That sure makes great business sense... Your employees need to work on more projects to help keep your company in business.

You have no idea how a business works, your just pulling stuff out of your fifth point of contact.

As of now this discussion is over. Your no longer capable of actual debate and instead are trying to defend SE's decision to pull R&D money from FFXI and put it into FFXIV even though it's already a failed product. FFXIV is a failed product, it has failed to pay back it's original development and launch cost and was a huge money sink for it's developer and producer. Their having to create a third MMO from FFXIV just to try to make back their original investment.

/add ignore list.

[Runespider]

Blizzard has already said no WoW 2, instead they remade the game in Cataclysm. Soon they are doing another major overhaul that is completely discarding the current talent trees and replacing them with an entirely different system.

Instead of trying to create a ~new~ game, they are instead turning their ~old~ game into something new. That is how you make money in MMO's, as proven by Blizzard's WoW being the biggest MMO in the world despite being "old" by gaming standards and having constant competition.

This is why Blizzard make so much money, they can refrain from "exciting" things that would be stupid bsuiness ideas. Making WoW 2 would kill WoW and WoW 2 would probably flop too. Square don't get this, they would of made far far more money revitalising FFXI full force than continuing to throw money at a game everyone hates, and one that has a minimal chance to get even half the success FFXI had.

The really stupid part is that FFXIV flopping made a lot of players come back to FFXI, but they aren't capitalising on it at all lol

[saevel]

This is why Blizzard make so much money, they can refrain from "exciting" things that would be stupid bsuiness ideas. Making WoW 2 would kill WoW and WoW 2 would probably flop too. Square don't get this, they would of made far far more money revitalising FFXI full force than continuing to throw money at a game everyone hates, and one that has a minimal chance to get even half the success FFXI had.

The really stupid part is that FFXIV flopping made a lot of players come back to FFXI, but they aren't capitalising on it at all lol

I've played tons of MMO's over the years, and honestly I can't think of a single one where the sequel made more then the original. EQ2 didn't make anywhere near the money that the first EQ did, neither did Lineage. Lineage II eventually got to be decent enough, but still wasn't nearly the smash in SK that the first one was. Squaresoft really should of done market research before making a new product. They should of instead put that money in revamping FFXI's game engine to modern standards, creating an entire new continent. Create new quest lines and content, upping level caps and adding more variety of gear. Revamp the augment system, including hunt registry and the Aug weapons. Lots they could of one but instead the bleed the game dry a few years during WoTG while they make FFXIV. Then further bleed it after FFXIV fails as predicted.

[Crysten]

What you don't seem to realize is that the next gen gamer will have an interest in future releases of any MMO or any game for that matter. Do you actually think some 16-22 year old is gonna say oh hey let me play this 10+ year old game with outdated graphics and game mechanics. No they aren't interested in it. They want the newest more current technology.

You forget about the thousands of people still playing this game and expecting somewhat better service for the money than we're getting currently, so no, I don't think you understand how business works. XI is currently long-tailing and SE should be doing their damnedest to keep us interested and continuing to support the game financially.

So what's the best way of doing that? Wasting already scarce resources to design trials and objectives that they only indend to see a minute fraction of the playerbase achieve instead of actually developing worthwhile, fresh new content (...wait, what?).

None of the content currently planned for us is fresh in the slightest. All we have coming is simply either cut and paste work (Legion), or "new" versions of stuff we already did until we were blue in the face 3 years ago (Nyzul, Limbus, possible Salvage revamps).

What would you rather see? Afterglow trials or potential new missions, storylines or unique endgame events? The Dev team apparently wants to see (a very small percentage of) people doing the former, which boggles the bloody mind.

[Seriha]

It takes money to make money. Conversely, a lack of money can deprive you of potential profit. The latter is something FFXI has ultimately experienced beginning at some point during the ToAU era, no doubt when work on XIV began on the side. WotG comes grossly incomplete with poorly conceived jobs and hobbles along for a good number of years with shoddy mini-addons slapped on near the end through ACP, ASA, and MKdE.

So, why has content diminished? I highly doubt there are a lack of competent programmers out there. The are plenty of minds out there to pen stories or formulate concepts on new content (Some of this even coming FREE from their players). The unfortunate and obvious solution is one we were recently given privy to in both money and manpower being short.

Figuring most people have their main and 2 mules on average, we're looking at roughly $15 per sub. During the ToAU days, the reported number of players was reportedly around 500k. That's $7,500,000 monthly. While I won't sit here and profess to know how much it cost to power the servers, maintain them, and pay employees to code/fix content, I would be highly surprised if it cost more than one mil a month. Where did the other 6.5m go? It certainly wasn't going into XI.

Upon FFXI's original launch, it fielded about a million subscribers. Back in the day, I'd call that pretty huge. Those numbers declined quickly toward that popular 500k figure, though. Early FFXI wasn't that good, going through the growing pains all new MMOs do. Some probably quit due to bugginess. Some quit due to lack of content. Some may have preferred an old game or found they just didn't have the time for it. Whatever the reason, you can look at 1 million boxes sold at $50 per. Let's halve that for retail purpose, putting 25 mil in SE's pockets on initial box sales alone. At the very least, that put a hefty dent in initial production costs.

Months, then years tick by, the cash rolls in. Profit, profit, profit. Now, SE isn't a one-trick pony. Money for other games has to come from somewhere, and I don't think anyone would be mad knowing part of FFXI's profits went toward the production of such things. However, these games also make their own profits. SE also sponsors manga/anime/music, generating cash from those sources. The problem with FFXI is that the money it generates hasn't gone toward its future first. Of the earlier figure I mentioned, only 13% of FFXI's money would've been returning to it. Imagine if it got 25%, 35%, or even 50%.

That's the difference in expansions being launched largely complete, more frequent updates/fixes, more resources for art in abilities/spells/monsters/areas, more scripts, more cut-scenes, more... everything, including a potential engine overhaul to bring the game up to the times. In kind, when players see their investments being returned to the game for its betterment, they'll notice. They'll tell their friends. Those friends can, in turn, yield more profit, who then go on to tell their friends.

Or you can be minimalistic misers, piss off your customers through various means (like ignoring feedback), watch subscriptions diminish, take back promises, and basically create the current stagnant and socially volatile environment that is today's FFXI. And they'll tell their friends, too. You then get people who want to stay away because of the negative feedback.

I know I've personally been vocal about feedback toward the game over the years, much as some may have come to hate me given my opinions on various matters. Regardless, it's always been because I've had hope of the game's betterment in mind. I still believe FFXI can be better. I can only fantasize about how much better it could've been by now if it got the resources it deserved. Starving the game of cash will do it no good and it's unfortunate some can't grasp that concept, especially hiding behind the logic of "FFXI having had its time in the limelight" or some such drivel.

Frankly, if SE's going to give us 1/4th the effort, I want to pay 1/4th the subscription. The alternative is myself and others who feel similarly just canceling and looking elsewhere. Plenty of other activities out there, and I'm not just talking about MMOs.

[Falseliberty]

Jesus who comes up with these ideas... they are soo bad
you can make a quest hard without it being a boring mindfuck for example click ??? get CS of some shadowy figure "So you wish to truly unlock the power of your -insert weapon here-" kill the Arc boss of each zone 5 times blah blah" at which point your sent to dyna tav to take out some kind of mega Diablos in then which your weapon trial is done and you get a CS of Diablos going "Fool have you realized what you have done!" /insert shadowy figure maniacal laughter.

Anyways I think a quest line with something along this kind of path would be a better fit for 2 reasons, 1 Its long but not super omg kill myself long, 2 it would produce a large amount of different gear VS the static gear drops that come from 1 zone + your not doing the same dam thing over and over

the mythic trials should be something involving the new nyvule isle system NOT the outdated zeni system which no one wants anything from

emp weapons honestly should have had new content fleshed out in abbysea just for the trials that is hard and cant be brewed but i guess manpower is an issue

the trials should be something that you have to ask for help for, but the people helping get something in return. Hence the above ideas. The current set of trials reminds me of AV and PW back in the day... content that only maybe 2% of the playerbase will ever participate on

Sorry if I'm rambling I shoulda been in bed hours ago

[Avina]

I apologize, I haven't read through all the posts so far so forgive me if I am reiterating past responses.

I find it to be a waste of my money to fund a developer that takes my money to design something in a game that they openly admit "Only select few will be able to obtain these trials." With how the trials appear on the test server, and their open admission that this is the strategy they are taking, I am truly clueless as to why they think their playerbase would cheer and be excited about content that SE themselves think so few of us will obtain.

It's a question that deserves answering. Why are you designing content for only a few of us? And realistically the servers could possibly be shut down before any single person accomplishes these trials. Maybe you get five people with truly no lives to pursue these weapons, while the rest of your playerbase falls to the wayside.

I was always someone who liked the challenge of the original game. I advocated for there to be a level cap on Abyssea so that people couldn't Fell Cleave party their way from 30 to whatever. But clearly you favored the casual then and the game has moved on and the old ways aren't coming back. You have to meet the game, and the playerbase where its at. And clearly the FFXI developer team is showing a complete, inability to do so.

If they end up driving XI to die, its going to come back to haunt them. They expect us to naturally move on to FFXIV, just like they expected us to do so a little more than a year ago when they released the game. They were overconfident once, if they are that way again... well, I'm sure their investors won't be too happy.

[Alhanelem]

As of now this discussion is over. Your no longer capable of actual debate and instead are trying to defend SE's decision to pull R&D money from FFXI and put it into FFXIV even though it's already a failed product. FFXIV is a failed productIt's not a failed product until the plug is pulled The fact is they've made great strides and when they re-launch with 2.0 and the PS3, they will get a second chance. They wouldn't be the only ones to bounce back to any degree after a re-launch, because other games have pulled it off.

I'm not seeing what this has to do with adding useless things to this game though.

[Sparthos]

It's not a failed product until the plug is pulled The fact is they've made great strides and when they re-launch with 2.0 and the PS3, they will get a second chance. They wouldn't be the only ones to bounce back to any degree after a re-launch, because other games have pulled it off.

I'm not seeing what this has to do with adding useless things to this game though.

Serious question:

What MMO has pulled off a failed launch of XIVs magnitude and re-released to praise and success?

From what I see SE is in uncharted waters here. They have no choice but to continue down the path to XIV's rebirth because XI has been damaged via neglect and to have two failed MMOs would be a monumental embarrassment. XIV must succeed but that doesn't mean that it will succeed.

Diablo III and GW II are going to be strong competition and this is going to be a path fraught with danger.

SE is going to try everything to make XIV work but with the fans in disarray and people generally bashing for poor decisions on the console side, this is one of those moments that the name "Final Fantasy" really applies with regards to the MMO market. Can SE recapture the base they pushed away? Can they shock the market by bringing a phoenix from the ashes? Can they compete with Blizzard and succeed? Can SE become what Squaresoft once was in the market?

Next time on Dragon. Ball. Z.

[saevel]

Serious question:

What MMO has pulled off a failed launch of XIVs magnitude and re-released to praise and success?

From what I see SE is in uncharted waters here. They have no choice but to continue down the path to XIV's rebirth because XI has been damaged via neglect and to have two failed MMOs would be a monumental embarrassment. XIV must succeed but that doesn't mean that it will succeed.

Diablo III and GW II are going to be strong competition and this is going to be a path fraught with danger.

SE is going to try everything to make XIV work but with the fans in disarray and people generally bashing for poor decisions on the console side, this is one of those moments that the name "Final Fantasy" really applies with regards to the MMO market. Can SE recapture the base they pushed away? Can they shock the market by bringing a phoenix from the ashes? Can they compete with Blizzard and succeed? Can SE become what Squaresoft once was in the market?

Next time on Dragon. Ball. Z.

LMAO at the DBZ reference.

Honestly it's best to view FFXIV 2.0 as a different MMO. It's going to take that much of an overhaul to make the game profitable, several of it's fundamental concepts are flawed and won't work with on a Fantasy MMORPG. Their going to borrow the artwork and some game mechanics from FFXIV, but their going to have to redesign several core elements and the associated R&D involved.

And to answer your question, not a single MMO has comeback after a failure that complete. The only one that comes close is Dungeons and Dragons Online. The original team screwed it up pretty badly and it was on it's way down the toilet. Turbine then started managing it as a F2P game and overhauled 90% of the game. Now it's turning a good profit and has become the standard for how to run a F2P game profitably. Their model involved everything being unlockable with in-game earned fame points. Or you can buy turbine points from their store and use those instead. You can also spend points on various potions for boosting XP / Loot for a 3hr period of time. Again you can earn these in-game with time / effort. Subscribers (people who pay months service fee's) get all content unlocked and a small amount of free monthly turbine points. So it rewards those who pay money but also allows those who don't to achieve the same stuff, no loot or accomplishment is restricted.

[Sparthos]

F2P MMOs, the bane of our era. Can't wait till they hit you with a surcharge for logging in during high server volume periods.

If FFXIV goes F2P that'd be a huge slap to the faces of fans and would probably make things worse than they are at the moment. What's worse is that Wada has considered this in the past.

[svengalis]

I apologize, I haven't read through all the posts so far so forgive me if I am reiterating past responses.

I find it to be a waste of my money to fund a developer that takes my money to design something in a game that they openly admit "Only select few will be able to obtain these trials." With how the trials appear on the test server, and their open admission that this is the strategy they are taking, I am truly clueless as to why they think their playerbase would cheer and be excited about content that SE themselves think so few of us will obtain.

It's a question that deserves answering. Why are you designing content for only a few of us? And realistically the servers could possibly be shut down before any single person accomplishes these trials. Maybe you get five people with truly no lives to pursue these weapons, while the rest of your playerbase falls to the wayside.

I was always someone who liked the challenge of the original game. I advocated for there to be a level cap on Abyssea so that people couldn't Fell Cleave party their way from 30 to whatever. But clearly you favored the casual then and the game has moved on and the old ways aren't coming back. You have to meet the game, and the playerbase where its at. And clearly the FFXI developer team is showing a complete, inability to do so.

If they end up driving XI to die, its going to come back to haunt them. They expect us to naturally move on to FFXIV, just like they expected us to do so a little more than a year ago when they released the game. They were overconfident once, if they are that way again... well, I'm sure their investors won't be too happy.

This and the 95 Empyrean trials is why I won't be resubscribing after this month. I recently restarted in 2010 quit then came back once I realized how easy Abyssea gear was to obtained, tried VW and realized if this the direction the game is going after Abyssea I want no part in it. The bolded part is why I quit in 05. They are going back to the 03-05 game design where only a small player base reaps the high end rewards. It makes absolutely no since to me and I will never understand why they go down this path.

Why am I playing if I can't get the best gear in the game? Back to The Old Republic for me.

[Atomic_Skull]

Aren't the high tier magian trials for relics/mythics/etc already exclusive enough as it is? do we really need to make a single trial at the end of these long, tiresome chains even more exclusive?

Really. Fair question.

PS: "Crap" is to be taken literally, as the new trials are both "impossible" and the result is crap.

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9394/bawwwwwbunny.jpg

[Unleashhell]

So you are daft, thought so.

This pretty much sums up your ignorance



Blizzard has already said no WoW 2, instead they remade the game in Cataclysm. Soon they are doing another major overhaul that is completely discarding the current talent trees and replacing them with an entirely different system.

Instead of trying to create a ~new~ game, they are instead turning their ~old~ game into something new. That is how you make money in MMO's, as proven by Blizzard's WoW being the biggest MMO in the world despite being "old" by gaming standards and having constant competition.



You have no idea how a business works, your just pulling stuff out of your fifth point of contact.

As of now this discussion is over. Your no longer capable of actual debate and instead are trying to defend SE's decision to pull R&D money from FFXI and put it into FFXIV even though it's already a failed product. FFXIV is a failed product, it has failed to pay back it's original development and launch cost and was a huge money sink for it's developer and producer. Their having to create a third MMO from FFXIV just to try to make back their original investment.

/add ignore list.


OMG not the ignore list. FYI Blizzard said they weren't ever going to make Diablo III and quess what.. they did. I love the fact you add everyone to your "ignore list" when you end a debate on your terms. I find it funny how you can play a game like FFXI and have the nerve to come on here and not even know the mobs have jobs. So your credibility is nil and so are your so called business thoughts.

Just for reference:


Defense on monsters has next to nothing to do with VIT. It's based on whatever their template is defined as. Monsters don't wear gear, eat food and rarely have buffs on them (PLD / WHM / RDM notwithstanding).

Just like they don't have ridiculous attack, neither do they have ridiculous defense nor evasion.
And Kirin is not a SMN, he's a "monster", special stats and all. Player community has defined him as a SMN because he astral flows, otherwise we could just as easily of called him a BLM because he use's Stone V / Stonega IV / Quake. Or a MNK because he attacks with two hands. And so forth.

This made me laugh.

If you actually had a clue about running a business you would be making a some huge salary somewhere and not care about some video game. I love when people like you say "I do this for a living" to try and make it look like you know what your talking about. Funny how when someone disagrees with you, you decide to take it as an attack and add them to your /lolignorelist

[Unleashhell]

You forget about the thousands of people still playing this game and expecting somewhat better service for the money than we're getting currently, so no, I don't think you understand how business works. XI is currently long-tailing and SE should be doing their damnedest to keep us interested and continuing to support the game financially.

So what's the best way of doing that? Wasting already scarce resources to design trials and objectives that they only indend to see a minute fraction of the playerbase achieve instead of actually developing worthwhile, fresh new content (...wait, what?).

None of the content currently planned for us is fresh in the slightest. All we have coming is simply either cut and paste work (Legion), or "new" versions of stuff we already did until we were blue in the face 3 years ago (Nyzul, Limbus, possible Salvage revamps).

What would you rather see? Afterglow trials or potential new missions, storylines or unique endgame events? The Dev team apparently wants to see (a very small percentage of) people doing the former, which boggles the bloody mind.

Funny how nobody complained when abyssea came out about rehashing old zones and just adding new monsters. All everyone cared about was the gear you got from it. Now that everyone has all the gear they want and weapons that do massive damage all of a sudden they are bored.

SE gave us a timeline for what they say is "content". Abyssea was part of that "content" yet everyone seems to forget about that now that they have everything from Abyssea. You seem to misunderstand that fact that SE is moving on. They are creating newer and better things. Not sure why people on here don't see that. There WILL be a day the servers shut down for this game. There WILL be a day that SE says we will not be supporting FF11 anymore.

Now do I want to see that happen? Of course not. Putting 8+ years into this game this is almost like a second job for me. Granted what I say sounds negative, but its reality.

Lets do a quick google search and see what we come up with.

Lets look at this...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/243465/world_of_warcraft_loses_2_million_subscribers_in_a_year.html

Read this article and you tell me how you take it. Then read all the comments at the bottom. WoW still has years to catch up to the length of time FFXI has been out. By that time their subscription numbers will continue to tank. Even the comments at the bottom say they need to revamp the game.

Lets look at this...

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/02/14/blizzard-titan-mmo-is-not-world-of-warcraft/1

Funny how you guys say its bad business to release another MMO to compete with your own products. Then turn around and say this is why Blizzard has done things right. Meanwhile they have a new MMO coming out in 2012 (AND IT LOOKS LIKE WoW) go figure....

[Alhanelem]

What MMO has pulled off a failed launch of XIVs magnitude and re-released to praise and success? Most recently, all points bulletin, which was shut down less than 90 days after launching (this was very close to when FFXIV launched). The original developers were mostly unprepared for the kind of attention an MMO needs to survive after launching and it resulted in a lot of problems being ignored and the developers running out of money and folding. Another company later picked it up because they felt the game had potential, and it recently re-launched and seems to be doing fine.


Diablo III and GW III don't know what GW II is, but Diablo III isn't even in the same genre. It's not an MMO, it's a co-op Roguelike game. It's not a persistent world and you only play with a few people in created games at a time.


Even the comments at the bottom say they need to revamp the game.And WoW is actually doing that. They started with the world itself, which underwent some major changes in Cataclysm, and apparently the Talent system which has been a part of the game since its inception is being completely remade into something new. Blizzard isn't afraid to totally redo something if necessary, and neither is the FFXIV team. It's just FFXI's team that seems to be stuck in the mud, as it were.

[Ravenmore]

What to say hes not making a HUGE salary some where. You know MMOs are a hobby everyone has a hobby. I hate that kind of small minded thinking that you can't be into video games unless you have a low paying mind numbing job.

[Unleashhell]

What to say hes not making a HUGE salary some where. You know MMOs are a hobby everyone has a hobby. I hate that kind of small minded thinking that you can't be into video games unless you have a low paying mind numbing job.

That is true. I will agree that it is possible, but its an extremely rare case. He just likes to make his point and ignore any other debate cause he always thinks he is right about everything.

[Ravenmore]

Most recently, all points bulletin, which was shut down less than 90 days after launching (this was very close to when FFXIV launched). The original developers were mostly unprepared for the kind of attention an MMO needs to survive after launching and it resulted in a lot of problems being ignored and the developers running out of money and folding. Another company later picked it up because they felt the game had potential, and it recently re-launched and seems to be doing fine.

I don't know what GW II is, but Diablo III isn't even in the same genre. It's not an MMO, it's a co-op Roguelike game. It's not a persistent world and you only play with a few people in created games at a time.

And WoW is actually doing that. They started with the world itself, which underwent some major changes in Cataclysm, and apparently the Talent system which has been a part of the game since its inception is being completely remade into something new. Blizzard isn't afraid to totally redo something if necessary, and neither is the FFXIV team. It's just FFXI's team that seems to be stuck in the mud, as it were.

Had to look up APB lol. It looks interesting and a rough lunch to get back 150k for the open beta is something to respect but that far from a smashing success. Then there is the fact it was sold that might draw people back to it like a restaurant
putting a sign up saying under new management/ownership. You can kinda say that with FF14 but the fact that the old team didn't leave the comapny and they were not the main problem to start with just a sysmtom. It took them to long to admit there was a problem and to long to really do something about the core problems.

Then all the damage that the current FF11 team is doing to the brand name and in 5 years they might start making another game drawing resources away from it like they did with FF11. I admit its not outside the realm but its got more agaisnt it then APB has.

[Unleashhell]

SE rushed FF14 out too fast. Maybe to compete with WoW? I forgot the exact years they came out. They put alot of emphasis on how it looks (which is does look good) and not enough into game mechanics. Maybe if it was actually put out a couple years later it wouldn't have failed as bad. There would have been completed quests and actual mob placement that made sense. It is going to be a long hard road for SE to recover in the MMO market after what happened to FF14. If they do make another MMO in the future with as much publicity as 11 and 14 I'm sure they wont have the big rush of people going out to buy it right away. Its a shame being that I love the FF series as a whole.

[Ravenmore]

Don't think it was really to compete with WoW more to deal with presure from within to get the game out the door. It was being worked on for 5 years and most of that was on the graphic engine and it showed. Had they just bit the bullet and lience one and spent the 5 years they had on content, story lines, zones they might not be in this spot. Not to mention FF14 player have all this that the topic is about to look forward to as well.

[saevel]

F2P MMOs, the bane of our era. Can't wait till they hit you with a surcharge for logging in during high server volume periods.

If FFXIV goes F2P that'd be a huge slap to the faces of fans and would probably make things worse than they are at the moment. What's worse is that Wada has considered this in the past.


WTH is your issue with F2P MMO's? They wouldn't be making money unless there was a demand for them, which means customers. Or are you wanting to turn the MMO industry into a authoritarian dictatorship where only Sparthos approved MMO's are allowed to be published.

There is nothing wrong with F2P, it's a different revenue model with P2P and if implemented horribly will result in your MMO shutting down and going out of business. If implemented properly then you'll turn a profit. See Turbine.

[Tanakisnumberone]

hello, i wish to address ur issue OP. tanaka-san has created a vision in which our FFXI players can have weapons that r very rare. this creates a sense of accomplishment and makes players feel unique. plz understand his vision and u will b brought to a good feelings on this matter.

[Crysten]

Funny how nobody complained when abyssea came out about rehashing old zones and just adding new monsters. All everyone cared about was the gear you got from it. Now that everyone has all the gear they want and weapons that do massive damage all of a sudden they are bored.

SE gave us a timeline for what they say is "content". Abyssea was part of that "content" yet everyone seems to forget about that now that they have everything from Abyssea. You seem to misunderstand that fact that SE is moving on. They are creating newer and better things. Not sure why people on here don't see that. There WILL be a day the servers shut down for this game. There WILL be a day that SE says we will not be supporting FF11 anymore.

Now do I want to see that happen? Of course not. Putting 8+ years into this game this is almost like a second job for me. Granted what I say sounds negative, but its reality.

I bolded the main part here, but if you've been paying attention for the past year, but FFXIV was originally supposed to be the "bigger and better thing." We all know how that turned out, and it's potentially going to take them two tries and going vastly overbudget to get it right. Any right-minded company would have pulled the plug and had the original dev team fired, but this is Final Fantasy. The brand is far too important and SE have gone all in to make sure that succeeds.

Abyssea was a cut and paste job in terms of zones, I concede that, but you also had completely fresh elements not ever seen before - the stagger system, cruor buffs and Atma being the main part and the sudden U-turn from grind-filled level 75 content being the other. Arguments for/against Abyssea aside, Abyssea had an intriguing battle system and then they went and abused the idea into the ground by extending it into the other endgame at the time; Dynamis, WoE and Voidwatch.


Lets do a quick google search and see what we come up with.

Lets look at this...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/243465/world_of_warcraft_loses_2_million_subscribers_in_a_year.html

Read this article and you tell me how you take it. Then read all the comments at the bottom. WoW still has years to catch up to the length of time FFXI has been out. By that time their subscription numbers will continue to tank. Even the comments at the bottom say they need to revamp the game.

Lets look at this...

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/02/14/blizzard-titan-mmo-is-not-world-of-warcraft/1

Funny how you guys say its bad business to release another MMO to compete with your own products. Then turn around and say this is why Blizzard has done things right. Meanwhile they have a new MMO coming out in 2012 (AND IT LOOKS LIKE WoW) go figure....

I'm not saying XI should be around forever. I'm saying, in the current climate (XIV currently in limbo and the XI community generally weary and constantly in awe of how stupid the dev team is), SE cannot afford to be cutting corners and pulling things like this out of their ass.

If there is sufficient demand for a product (much like people asking for new content/UI overhauls) then a company should be capitalizing on that demand should it be high enough. Instead we have a skeleton development team pretty much insistant on covering their ears and implementing what they "think" we like, rather than listening to players and enticing people to continue playing and subscribing until the next big thing.

SE currently have two stagnating MMOs and it's in their best interest to not try screwing up the one with the esablished playerbase right now, else there won't be anyone supporting either when FFXIV 2.0 rolls around. If people think XI is crap, and XIV 2.0 is 9 months away, they're not going to be waiting around paying for a game they don't like. They'll be going directly to the competition.

[svengalis]

Funny how nobody complained when abyssea came out about rehashing old zones and just adding new monsters. All everyone cared about was the gear you got from it. Now that everyone has all the gear they want and weapons that do massive damage all of a sudden they are bored.

SE gave us a timeline for what they say is "content". Abyssea was part of that "content" yet everyone seems to forget about that now that they have everything from Abyssea. You seem to misunderstand that fact that SE is moving on. They are creating newer and better things. Not sure why people on here don't see that. There WILL be a day the servers shut down for this game. There WILL be a day that SE says we will not be supporting FF11 anymore.

Now do I want to see that happen? Of course not. Putting 8+ years into this game this is almost like a second job for me. Granted what I say sounds negative, but its reality.

Lets do a quick google search and see what we come up with.

Lets look at this...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/243465/world_of_warcraft_loses_2_million_subscribers_in_a_year.html

Read this article and you tell me how you take it. Then read all the comments at the bottom. WoW still has years to catch up to the length of time FFXI has been out. By that time their subscription numbers will continue to tank. Even the comments at the bottom say they need to revamp the game.

Lets look at this...

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2011/02/14/blizzard-titan-mmo-is-not-world-of-warcraft/1

Funny how you guys say its bad business to release another MMO to compete with your own products. Then turn around and say this is why Blizzard has done things right. Meanwhile they have a new MMO coming out in 2012 (AND IT LOOKS LIKE WoW) go figure....

Blizzard's new MMO won't come until 2013/14 and it will be a fps MMO. It won't compete with WoW.

[Unleashhell]

I bolded the main part here, but if you've been paying attention for the past year, but FFXIV was originally supposed to be the "bigger and better thing." We all know how that turned out, and it's potentially going to take them two tries and going vastly overbudget to get it right. Any right-minded company would have pulled the plug and had the original dev team fired, but this is Final Fantasy. The brand is far too important and SE have gone all in to make sure that succeeds.

Abyssea was a cut and paste job in terms of zones, I concede that, but you also had completely fresh elements not ever seen before - the stagger system, cruor buffs and Atma being the main part and the sudden U-turn from grind-filled level 75 content being the other. Arguments for/against Abyssea aside, Abyssea had an intriguing battle system and then they went and abused the idea into the ground by extending it into the other endgame at the time; Dynamis, WoE and Voidwatch.



I'm not saying XI should be around forever. I'm saying, in the current climate (XIV currently in limbo and the XI community generally weary and constantly in awe of how stupid the dev team is), SE cannot afford to be cutting corners and pulling things like this out of their ass.

If there is sufficient demand for a product (much like people asking for new content/UI overhauls) then a company should be capitalizing on that demand should it be high enough. Instead we have a skeleton development team pretty much insistant on covering their ears and implementing what they "think" we like, rather than listening to players and enticing people to continue playing and subscribing until the next big thing.

SE currently have two stagnating MMOs and it's in their best interest to not try screwing up the one with the esablished playerbase right now, else there won't be anyone supporting either when FFXIV 2.0 rolls around. If people think XI is crap, and XIV 2.0 is 9 months away, they're not going to be waiting around paying for a game they don't like. They'll be going directly to the competition.


For the most part I agree with you on your statements. But consider how long FF11 has been around. If you read about MMO's alot of articles will tell you that most (not all) MMO have about a 5 to 10 year or so shelf life. Final Fantasy 11 is already pushing the 10 year mark and that in itself is a pretty awesome accomplishment. As a business SE needs to push forward, and they decided to make FF14. Unfortunately FF14 came way too early imo. They should have waited another 2 years maybe even 3 before releasing that. They figured they would have both games out and a decent amount of players from FF11 would play both 11 and 14.

Unfortunately as we know it tanked big time. So SE most likely said look we gotta get all hands on deck here and salvage what we can. Don't forget this is a very long running series and has a very loyal following. SE knew if they screwed up 14 it could potentially have a huge impact on any future products they release especially anything with the Final Fantasy name attached to it. Unfortunately FF11 took the big hurt from this and almost all of the resources from 11 had to salvage what they could of 14.

From a business aspect in a way they had to do this, it effects them long term. Plus they have to not only fix FF14 but they have to continue with new products. They cant put everything on hold just to fix 14, nor can they put too much into ff11 which is close to the end of its shelf life. So you can see how spread thin I'm sure SE is right now. Its not a matter of just going out and hiring more people. More people will equal more payroll, insurance (not sure how insurance works in Japan so I'm just going by the USA) etc etc throwing budgets even further into negative numbers. I'm not sure exactly when it happened but SE had a MAJOR tank in its stock price. I believe it was a few years ago. That is alot of money lost right there. So they continue to be spread thinner and thinner.

This is why sometimes I try to defend SE on my posts because I can understand things from their side. Which leads to debates, arguments /lolignorelists etc. I'm not here to fight with people and I can understand where the player is coming from. Things aren't as easy said and done. I blame alot of FF11 lack of attention because of the failure of 14 which I'm sure we all can agree on. But they have alot at stake and they need to redeem themselves.

[Dragoy]

I don't know what GW II is, but Diablo III isn't even in the same genre. It's not an MMO, it's a co-op Roguelike game. It's not a persistent world and you only play with a few people in created games at a time.
Guild Wars 2?
May bee.

[Yarly]

There's nothing impossible to obtain. Everything can be done by any casual player. Why all the complaining?

[Kraggy]

It's important to keep an impossible dream somewhere.
Er, no, if it's impossible then only a retarded idiot would try to do it, normal people will just pack up and leave if that's all there would be keeping them playing.

People here are agreed on that, the debate is just how near 'impossible' the thing should be, because right now it is, for all practical intents, 'impossible'.

[Camiie]

It's important to keep an impossible dream somewhere.

Just wondering, but do you get your philosophy from fate/Zero? Are you a king?


There's nothing impossible to obtain. Everything can be done by any casual player. Why all the complaining?

Yeah a casual player and 17 of his closest friends literally devoting years of their lives to obtain a single item just for him. I suppose it technically isn't impossible, but I'd like to see you get it done. I'll stop back by in a decade to see how it's going for you.

[Sparthos]

WTH is your issue with F2P MMO's? They wouldn't be making money unless there was a demand for them, which means customers. Or are you wanting to turn the MMO industry into a authoritarian dictatorship where only Sparthos approved MMO's are allowed to be published.

This is an opinion board and my opinion is that F2P MMOs are a blatant cashgrab designed to squeeze money from players rather than creating a world where people enjoy themselves. It's no different than the system of DLC that also plagues the market - publishers give you less and less for your 40/50/60 dollar purchases then nickle and dime you for things you'd have normally got with the original bundle. Console releases already do this to the annoyance of gamers and MMOs only scale up the problem.

F2P reward people with deep pockets and to those who are on tight budgets? You're screwed because you can't afford to "play" (keep up with) the game. People play games to escape the realities of real-life, not to be shown that they can't obtain beamsword +12 because it costs $5 in a cash shop and has become the standard in gameplay within the virtual world. F2P almost always turns out costing the player more than the subscription model so it's no wonder that publishers are more than happy to put a price tag on everything, especially when doubled-down with the obsessive nature of MMOs.

Wait, here's where you say "Spar, you don't have to buy anything at all you'll simply just have to limit yourself." and to that I say why shouldn't players be on equal footing? The developers demonize RMT activities then turn around and basically design a game around it, what a joke. As far as I'm concerned F2P models actively encourage the old adage of throwing money at problems and quickly become less about enjoyment and all about keeping up with your credit card.

The developers know it and that's why most of the good things wind up in the cash shop. Or should I call it the Crysta shop to blunt the reality of it being an RMT store?


There is nothing wrong with F2P, it's a different revenue model with P2P and if implemented horribly will result in your MMO shutting down and going out of business. If implemented properly then you'll turn a profit. See Turbine.

Who said anything about profits? You think I can't see the lucrative benefits of a company doing a F2P MMO? Oh I can see it but that comes at the price of selling your playerbase down the river. Instead of centering on satisfying the customer (who is willing to pay) you become totally obsessed with turning a profit by pushing the envelope. The "free to play" is the bait and once they have their hooks in you it becomes $1 here, $5 there and $10 to go anywhere.

[Lafaiel]

This is an opinion board and my opinion is that F2P MMOs are a blatant cashgrab designed to squeeze money from players rather than creating a world where people enjoy themselves. It's no different than the system of DLC that also plagues the market - publishers give you less and less for your 40/50/60 dollar purchases then nickle and dime you for things you'd have normally got with the original bundle. Console releases already do this to the annoyance of gamers and MMOs only scale up the problem.

F2P reward people with deep pockets and to those who are on tight budgets? You're screwed because you can't afford to "play" (keep up with) the game. People play games to escape the realities of real-life, not to be shown that they can't obtain beamsword +12 because it costs $5 in a cash shop and has become the standard in gameplay within the virtual world. F2P almost always turns out costing the player more than the subscription model so it's no wonder that publishers are more than happy to put a price tag on everything, especially when doubled-down with the obsessive nature of MMOs.

Wait, here's where you say "Spar, you don't have to buy anything at all you'll simply just have to limit yourself." and to that I say why shouldn't players be on equal footing? The developers demonize RMT activities then turn around and basically design a game around it, what a joke. As far as I'm concerned F2P models actively encourage the old adage of throwing money at problems and quickly become less about enjoyment and all about keeping up with your credit card.

The developers know it and that's why most of the good things wind up in the cash shop. Or should I call it the Crysta shop to blunt the reality of it being an RMT store?



Who said anything about profits? You think I can't see the lucrative benefits of a company doing a F2P MMO? Oh I can see it but that comes at the price of selling your playerbase down the river. Instead of centering on satisfying the customer (who is willing to pay) you become totally obsessed with turning a profit by pushing the envelope. The "free to play" is the bait and once they have their hooks in you it becomes $1 here, $5 there and $10 to go anywhere.

Couldn't say it better myself.

[Alhanelem]

Technically, all MMOs are a cash grab. but hey, let's blanket bash all f2p games, there aren't any good ones out there!

[saevel]

This is an opinion board and my opinion is that F2P MMOs are a blatant cashgrab designed to squeeze money from players rather than creating a world where people enjoy themselves. It's no different than the system of DLC that also plagues the market - publishers give you less and less for your 40/50/60 dollar purchases then nickle and dime you for things you'd have normally got with the original bundle. Console releases already do this to the annoyance of gamers and MMOs only scale up the problem.

F2P reward people with deep pockets and to those who are on tight budgets? You're screwed because you can't afford to "play" (keep up with) the game. People play games to escape the realities of real-life, not to be shown that they can't obtain beamsword +12 because it costs $5 in a cash shop and has become the standard in gameplay within the virtual world. F2P almost always turns out costing the player more than the subscription model so it's no wonder that publishers are more than happy to put a price tag on everything, especially when doubled-down with the obsessive nature of MMOs.

Wait, here's where you say "Spar, you don't have to buy anything at all you'll simply just have to limit yourself." and to that I say why shouldn't players be on equal footing? The developers demonize RMT activities then turn around and basically design a game around it, what a joke. As far as I'm concerned F2P models actively encourage the old adage of throwing money at problems and quickly become less about enjoyment and all about keeping up with your credit card.

The developers know it and that's why most of the good things wind up in the cash shop. Or should I call it the Crysta shop to blunt the reality of it being an RMT store?



Who said anything about profits? You think I can't see the lucrative benefits of a company doing a F2P MMO? Oh I can see it but that comes at the price of selling your playerbase down the river. Instead of centering on satisfying the customer (who is willing to pay) you become totally obsessed with turning a profit by pushing the envelope. The "free to play" is the bait and once they have their hooks in you it becomes $1 here, $5 there and $10 to go anywhere.

Ahh there is our difference. Your referring to some horrible F2P MMO's that are similar to drug dealers. I'm referring to significantly better ones. Specifically I'm referring to DDO run by Turbine, something I've been playing on and off for several years now.

DDO is free to download, no purchase necessary. There is nothing you can "buy" that isn't obtainable in game. You can either spend money on a TP bundle and buy the Drow race, or you farm fame for a week and buy the Drow race option. Nothing is locked out from F2P members, they only need to put in the effort to acquire the points if they want access to things.

DDO has three systems, first being F2P where it's 100% free no purchase required yet does require time. Second option is the most popular where people occasionally spend $5~20 for a point pack and use that to speed up the unlocking process. The third system is a full blown subscription model. I spend $15 per month subscription fee, for this fee I get a fully unlocked account bank, access to all zones, access to all jobs and races, and access to all expanded content on day 1. I never need to buy an expansion pack as due to being a subscription member it's provided to me for free. Along with this I'm provided with 500 TP per month to spend on things like XP / Loot potions or consumables. Both potions only provide a +20% bonus over the course of three hours and are a something like 200TP each. Their designed to be used prior to spamming quests for level ups / loot rewards. Did I mention the entire game is instanced. The only zones that are shared are the city's which are used as quest and market hubs. The moment I walk outside I get an instanced zone of the region. This would be like walking out of Jeuno and getting an instanced copy of Rolenbery and everything attached. For my moneys worth, DDO provides me with significantly more then FFXI. So if it's a "cash grab" then so too is FFXI.

Now I play both because while I enjoy a hardcore MMO like FFXI, I like to have something I can jump in / out of as a break to prevent the burnout that eventually sets in.

So yes I agree with you that many "F2P" MMO's are absolute crap and do nothing but force players to "pay to win". I would never play those games because I can recognize a rip off when I see it. Also realize that there are good F2P/P2P hybrid games out there. They use the F2P model to get casual players in and the subscription model for the hardcore players and thus establish a large player-base with which to interact.

[Sparthos]

Technically, all MMOs are a cash grab. but hey, let's blanket bash all f2p games, there aren't any good ones out there!

Al, you can't be serious.

There is a significant difference between a F2P and a subscription-oriented MMO and the old 'all MMOs are a cashgrab' doesn't make a F2P system superior to a subscription-oriented MMO for the player.

In the former the developer is more inclined to put up barriers between the player and items which require money to overcome. That shiny sword? 4 bucks. That new armor set? 6 bucks. New pet? 2 bucks. In this setup, the purchased equipment has to be superior to the in-game stuff or else you'll have a lack income and your cash shop will suck.

This directly ties your success ingame to real-life funds and basically turns a game into a long-term investment. For any serious MMO that means the base demanding people get this gear or be hopelessly gimp compared to others. That peer pressure works well for the developers counting the money but it damages gameplay and makes the game not worth playing.

I'd much rather pay a set price that the developer then uses towards improving the game than micro-transactions where Richie Rich can win the game because he tossed his wallet at the biggest challenges the game had to offer.

These companies need to keep their damn hands out of my wallet. A store for things like game-related merchandise is well and good but when you have to pay to get anything done it's well beyond the line for me.

[Seriha]

I can't see F2P inherently being evil. It's what the occasional costs a player may encounter that can be problematic. Both styles of games need their money to survive, and while I'd basically call the RMT Paradise style a crappy game, those that otherwise allow players to get everything through reasonable effort are at least on the right track. Regardless of game style, anyone sitting there demanding people unconditionally have the best of the best are probably not people you want to play with.

Off the top of my head, I've tried things like Mabinogi, Rappelz, and at least a few others whose names I can't recall which weren't too bad in the early phases. However, I can't get behind games that lock out basic functionality like auction houses, bazaars, or personal storage. At that point, they may as well call it what it really is, an extended free trial.

[Alhanelem]

There is a significant difference between a F2P and a subscription-oriented MMO and the old 'all MMOs are a cashgrab' doesn't make a F2P system superior to a subscription-oriented MMO for the player. i didn't say either was superior to the other.

Just because a game is f2p doesn't automatically mean the game is inferior. Look at league of legends. It has no paying for power, all gameplay content is earnable without paying a dime, and they don't compel you to pay for anything. Primarily, alternate looks for champions is what they sell. And they still make money, even while the vast majority of players never give Riot a penny.

There are several f2p games out there that are of quite good quality and do not force you to buy stuff to progress.


That shiny sword? 4 bucks. That new armor set? 6 bucks. Very few of these games sell you useable, statted equipement for money. Generally, it's cosmetic stuff. Some, like MapleStory, do sell power, but not directly through buying equipment, rather they sell stuff that makes it easier to upgrade items. D&D online does sell equipment, but you can earn points in that game, not just buy them, and the sold equipment is generally inferior to the loot you can find in dungeons, so it's only useful in rare circumstances.

f2p games don't automatically, inherently grab more cash than subscription MMOs. Subscription games give the maker a steady stream of funds, while income from an f2p game is fairly volatile- you're also depending on a few hardcore players to give you lots of money while the majority of the people who download and play your game will pay little to nothing.

[Dragoy]

At least in a Free to Play game you are still able to stick around without paying, and if you want more content, then you pay for it. I don't see how that can be bad.
Can't speak for all of them, but at least for some, you can even post on their forum without paying!
Amazing, I know!
Before you say "wööt the amount of trolls", yeah, I don't care about that since I'm immune I guess.

Point being, Free to Play is good in my opinion, but just like anything else, it can be made poorly, so not all of them are great, or even good.
That's only natural.

That being said, when was this thread about Free to Play, eh? ^^;

Oopsies, my mind just almost imploded as I thought for a slight moment about FFXI being Free to Play and the players being able to work on a Relic/Mythic\Other while not paying the full price we still have to play for the product we shouldn't be paying so much in the first place but I digress and this sentence is going into somewhere very dark and I doubt anyone wants to see that so I will just

[Alhanelem]

Zing! Isn't amazing how every thread these days goes off track like a bad version of the telephone game? :p

The first post in this thread is the only one anyone really needs to read, anyway. It doesn't get simpler than that.

[Apelila]

So I'm convinced that the escalating trials are someones response to PW/AV being easier to kill.

Machiavellian dev: Hmm, I wanted these fights to grind the joy out of the players souls, but now they can be done without any challenge. What could possibly restore these to the level of angst I had originally intended?
*see's the QQ over 1500 plates*
http://cdn.blog.mrm.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/grinch-300x286.jpg