Fatty
05-17-2018, 01:51 AM
Hello,
From Matsui-san's letter:
As such, many of our players have always valued in-game interactions quite highly, and we know how difficult it is when one of our treasured friends takes a break from the game. The development team is currently considering what we can do to alleviate this issue, and may ask you for your ideas, input, and assistance in the future.
I'd like to provide my input on how you can improve and alleviate this issue. Also because, unfortunately, I can't even get my friends to try FFXI.
1. Please provide an easy way to download the game. People that use different browsers are having trouble downloading the .DAT.001 etc. files, and can be too confused to run the installer when there are multiple files lying around, sometimes with wrong extension (due to the browser), wrong locations, and/or corrupt downloads. This is not straightforward, and it demands more attention than just clicking and downloading like how people install other games. This is discouraging especially for new players. One solution could be to create a downloader that downloads these files and runs the installer automatically.
2. Please provide an up-to-date client that doesn't require many hours of patching upon installing the game. This is quite important, many people are very disappointed they cannot play the game after installing. Some patching is to be expected, but the current installer available on PlayOnline is many years old! It needs to be updated. For people with slower internet access this is even more troublesome: the hours of patching comes in addition to the initial downloading of the game. This means you have to be extremely determined to play FFXI because the first 2 days are going to be just downloading and patching.
3. Please provide a clear and brief guide on how to set up game accounts (for new players). For example: to create a POL ID (and what is a "POL ID"?), its relation to SE accounts, what are Content IDs, what is a Member Password, etc. This would need to be very concise and clear. All of this can be very confusing to people who don't know any of these concepts, and when other games don't even have these concepts. It only gets worse when they have to read lengthy pages of documentation, google everything, or even have to watch a YouTube video that is 23 minutes long (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hANfs9jQp9A) just to set things up.
4. Trials are very short and scarce. I believe that in this age, there aren't many good reasons for this. We all want more people to try FFXI after all. Trials are only 14 days long, and when people spend 2 days just to install, or even worse, they get stuck for days - and then find out that their trial period is already almost over, they simply quit. One of the solutions could be to include a very limited but permanent free login for people to check out the game at their own leisure. Of course, this would require development effort, but arguably that could also have been done many years ago when the development resources were not as scarce as it is today.
I also see Final Fantasy XIV is making similar mistakes as FFXI: Free login campaigns get activated the minute you login in the launcher (and not the game), and then you have to patch the game. People on slower net connections spend a day or two to download and update the game. For only "up to 96 hours" of free login, people can simply give up when they have to spend half of it just to patch the game. This is not a good customer experience.
5. Please make the default control scheme more sane and familiar by default. I'm not talking about implementing a new control scheme. But the default config options in the game could be adjusted to be more intuitive: people know how to move with WASD in almost all games, but when installing FFXI for the first time, anything people try to type opens the chat window. That is extremely bizarre for most new players (and probably even for returners that's been absent for many years). They don't know or remember how to change it, or if it can be changed at all. For example, please make the "compact" keyboard option default, for starters. Buff timers and AoE range indicators should always be on by default in my opinion. And please make these "first steps in Vana'diel" a part of the "installation guide" (as referred to above), or even better, make a new in-game Primer that opens up automatically (which also includes steps to navigate the primer itself).
6. Please make the default graphics options more sane and familiar by default. Because nobody expects a game to crash when they alt-tab. This is extremely bad, especially for new players. Please at least make "borderless window" the default setting in FFXI Config. Please make all other graphical options more sane and familiar as well, by default. So the game actually looks good and behaves good on first launch.
Final Fantasy XI is a special game, but it has always been extremely difficult to set up and install and to try for the majority of people out there. Despite that difficulty, even after 16 years, there are still 16 servers online, which is a huge accomplishment - and kudos to the development team for keeping things up and giving us new content to enjoy over the years.
But that also speaks volumes: If FFXI was easier to set up and install (and hence more accessible), imagine how much more it could have thrived. People would come back much more often, new players would be a lot more common. New players are the life force of the game, and they should never be neglected.
There are games out there that became extremely successful because of how accessible they are (RuneScape comes to mind). "Final Fantasy" is a very strong brand, however it could reach many more people if it was more accessible, and not by just relying on the brand itself.
As of late (last ~2 years), development responses in English forums have been extremely scarce. I don't know if my message will be seen or acknowledged, but I hope it will (since Matsui-san himself asked for feedback!). We're just trying to help FFXI to become more successful because we all love the game. And I want my friends to play with me.
From Matsui-san's letter:
As such, many of our players have always valued in-game interactions quite highly, and we know how difficult it is when one of our treasured friends takes a break from the game. The development team is currently considering what we can do to alleviate this issue, and may ask you for your ideas, input, and assistance in the future.
I'd like to provide my input on how you can improve and alleviate this issue. Also because, unfortunately, I can't even get my friends to try FFXI.
1. Please provide an easy way to download the game. People that use different browsers are having trouble downloading the .DAT.001 etc. files, and can be too confused to run the installer when there are multiple files lying around, sometimes with wrong extension (due to the browser), wrong locations, and/or corrupt downloads. This is not straightforward, and it demands more attention than just clicking and downloading like how people install other games. This is discouraging especially for new players. One solution could be to create a downloader that downloads these files and runs the installer automatically.
2. Please provide an up-to-date client that doesn't require many hours of patching upon installing the game. This is quite important, many people are very disappointed they cannot play the game after installing. Some patching is to be expected, but the current installer available on PlayOnline is many years old! It needs to be updated. For people with slower internet access this is even more troublesome: the hours of patching comes in addition to the initial downloading of the game. This means you have to be extremely determined to play FFXI because the first 2 days are going to be just downloading and patching.
3. Please provide a clear and brief guide on how to set up game accounts (for new players). For example: to create a POL ID (and what is a "POL ID"?), its relation to SE accounts, what are Content IDs, what is a Member Password, etc. This would need to be very concise and clear. All of this can be very confusing to people who don't know any of these concepts, and when other games don't even have these concepts. It only gets worse when they have to read lengthy pages of documentation, google everything, or even have to watch a YouTube video that is 23 minutes long (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hANfs9jQp9A) just to set things up.
4. Trials are very short and scarce. I believe that in this age, there aren't many good reasons for this. We all want more people to try FFXI after all. Trials are only 14 days long, and when people spend 2 days just to install, or even worse, they get stuck for days - and then find out that their trial period is already almost over, they simply quit. One of the solutions could be to include a very limited but permanent free login for people to check out the game at their own leisure. Of course, this would require development effort, but arguably that could also have been done many years ago when the development resources were not as scarce as it is today.
I also see Final Fantasy XIV is making similar mistakes as FFXI: Free login campaigns get activated the minute you login in the launcher (and not the game), and then you have to patch the game. People on slower net connections spend a day or two to download and update the game. For only "up to 96 hours" of free login, people can simply give up when they have to spend half of it just to patch the game. This is not a good customer experience.
5. Please make the default control scheme more sane and familiar by default. I'm not talking about implementing a new control scheme. But the default config options in the game could be adjusted to be more intuitive: people know how to move with WASD in almost all games, but when installing FFXI for the first time, anything people try to type opens the chat window. That is extremely bizarre for most new players (and probably even for returners that's been absent for many years). They don't know or remember how to change it, or if it can be changed at all. For example, please make the "compact" keyboard option default, for starters. Buff timers and AoE range indicators should always be on by default in my opinion. And please make these "first steps in Vana'diel" a part of the "installation guide" (as referred to above), or even better, make a new in-game Primer that opens up automatically (which also includes steps to navigate the primer itself).
6. Please make the default graphics options more sane and familiar by default. Because nobody expects a game to crash when they alt-tab. This is extremely bad, especially for new players. Please at least make "borderless window" the default setting in FFXI Config. Please make all other graphical options more sane and familiar as well, by default. So the game actually looks good and behaves good on first launch.
Final Fantasy XI is a special game, but it has always been extremely difficult to set up and install and to try for the majority of people out there. Despite that difficulty, even after 16 years, there are still 16 servers online, which is a huge accomplishment - and kudos to the development team for keeping things up and giving us new content to enjoy over the years.
But that also speaks volumes: If FFXI was easier to set up and install (and hence more accessible), imagine how much more it could have thrived. People would come back much more often, new players would be a lot more common. New players are the life force of the game, and they should never be neglected.
There are games out there that became extremely successful because of how accessible they are (RuneScape comes to mind). "Final Fantasy" is a very strong brand, however it could reach many more people if it was more accessible, and not by just relying on the brand itself.
As of late (last ~2 years), development responses in English forums have been extremely scarce. I don't know if my message will be seen or acknowledged, but I hope it will (since Matsui-san himself asked for feedback!). We're just trying to help FFXI to become more successful because we all love the game. And I want my friends to play with me.