20th Anniversary suggestion: Open Source Final Fantasy XI?

[Gwydion]

Hello SE!
I am a software engineer of ~15 years and have lots of experience supporting applications and infrastructure that are aging. I think, in fact, I have made a career out of working on technical debt. I understand the perspective of many developers, who want to continuously update their skill set by working on newer technologies, or else risk stagnation by remaining on a platform, which depends on skills that will not be desirable years or decades later.

Two things will always remain true:

Operational overhead and technical support for an aging production platform will only increase, as tools, software environments and hardware are deprecated or reach their end-of-life.
Attracting or retaining engineering talent will be necessary in order to support the platform's development life cycle. This will prove difficult for the reasons mentioned above, as developers flock to new technologies and continuously improve their skill set.


Similarly, the potential revenue gained by maintaining the platform will eventually be eclipsed by the costs associated with development, operations, monitoring, alerting, as well as periodic upkeep, security fixes, compliance and infrastructure upgrades.

Producer Matsui has already mentioned some of these challenges in various interviews to Famitsu over the last two years. and again last month: https://www.usgamer.net/articles/final-fantasy-11-interview-mmo-challenge?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

However, these are not insurmountable problems:

There already exists a sizable open-source development community willing to maintain Final Fantasy XI, and I believe Square-Enix is already aware of this.
Offering a complete, free, open-source distribute-able version of Final Fantasy XI available to the public, will ensure a beloved, main-numbered Final Fantasy-title remains in circulation without any associated costs to the company. (Hosting this installation, technically, can even be done on an official Square-Enix github/gitlab/bitbucket account).



In my mind, it would be unthinkable to permanently shut-down FFXI beyond the 20th anniversary, but simply unsustainable to keep the game running without substantive, quality updates that warrant players continuing to pay the cost of one (or more) subscriptions.

On one hand, decommissioning FFXI would mean a main-numbered Final Fantasy title would not be accessible to the general public. On the otherhand, maintaining FFXI beyond the point of being able to provide regular, qualitative content or updates also goes against the reputation of the Final Fantasy brand. In other words, today, any gamer can and often does pick up any Final Fantasy game they want and start playing it by various means (retro consoles, modern consoles, various handhelds, etc etc). They do this because Final Fantasy games are historically great. Providing us with an open-source version of FFXI ensures that Final Fantasy 11 remains in the hearts and minds of both gamers and developers (as SE intends) indefinitely.

I hope you seriously consider this request, as your loyal fanbase of nearly two decades will continue to keep this game alive, long after the operational overhead and other forms of technical debt have become too burdensome.

Thank you for your time.

[Dragoy]

Being an avid open-source supported and user, I would like this a lot as well, once the time comes to shut things down (or earlier, if the official thing would still keep on going as well). It's probably very unlikely to actually ever happen though, due to various licensing issues that probably have their tentacles a ways deep in.

Of course, copyrights do expire, too, sometimes... and all that, and in the end some people just need to make a decision to 'OK' things, and things can happen. Those people usually don't, however, but you know, impossible is nothing. :]

[Typral]

How about they actually put resources into the game... cmon now. You can remaster Final fantasy crystal chronicles and Chocobos dungeon but you can't spend anything on this game that carried the company thru hard years? Give it some justice devs.

[Divaud]

I'm hoping, at the very least, SE will keep ffxi up even beyond when they stop developing.

Many games can enter "maintenance mode" and still turn a profit and i'd imagine a Final Fantasy title would easily be able to accomplish this.

Whether that means a sub price to keep to doors open or switching to a buy-to-play model, I don't see how it would go into the red long-term.

I think maintenance mode or a stand-alone game is more likely than open sourced, even though I would enjoy that.

[Alhanelem]

I question SE even has the source anymore considering how much else they don't have, since they apparently didn't keep checkpoint builds back in the day. Considering some of the things they can't change, I don't think that's too far off.


//basically, you'll get the source to a Final Fantasy title from SE when you pry it from their cold dead hard drives....

[Beastorizer]

Good points

This brought me back here
https://massivelyop.com/2020/05/08/final-fantasy-xi-offers-you-a-nice-bowl-of-fresh-tomatoes-for-its-may-login-campaign/

I am a Massively reader, saw this, decided to check up on FFXI. The next Free login for old players who are no longer subbed is Friday. I am a couple days late on this, but like I said, I was not going to play FFXI unless it was a free login period. I cannot justify paying for something that halts major updates, and also promises content they never delivered.

The fact they take sub money, not sure if it is sustainable, but it has been so far so can't argue with the results.

I used to play a game called City of heroes. The title shutdown like a decade ago, but fans have it back up and running again. People were hesitate to play, because they believed NCSoft would use action against those for using their IP. I guess it was akin to emulators to an extent. It was awfully quiet on NC's front, which made suspicions worst......

In the end, NC did not care that much lol.....

There is a huge difference from City of Heroes and a Final Fantasy IP though.....players have added so much to City of Heroes, including new powers. I feel that players tend to be the best developers. Fallout 76 is an example of that compered to their modded counterparts. Players also seem more likely to support a community maintained game, because they are dealing with one another.

I feel that, if players got hold of FFXI to support it similar to CoH (Pipe dream) the game would be in a much better place (Will finally get a monstrosity update among other things), but I digress....

Not sure that is what you are getting at in terms of a community ran title, but CoH instantly came to mind...

[RagingAvatar]

I have been a videogame programmer for over 15 years.. It is my genuine dream job to work on the FFXI team and port the renderer to DirectX 12 and optimise the game systems. My dream job <3

[Ultimoore]

I have been a videogame programmer for over 15 years.. It is my genuine dream job to work on the FFXI team and port the renderer to DirectX 12 and optimise the game systems. My dream job <3

Vulkan would be a far better choice for the rendering.

[Gwydion]

Thank you for the mostly positive feedback thus far. I think a version of FFXI that is platform-independent (can be hosted on Windows or Linux operating system, on physical or virtual hardware) would be ideal.

Similarly, a version of FFXI where the POL client can be deprecated would be another boon for SE's loyal fan base. I know this is all just wishful thinking, and SE ultimately holds all the cards, but I don't see a problem with holding out hope.

[Pixela]

>Company makes product

>Company makes product 2

>Product 2 becomes companies main focus, reduces funding to product 1

>players of product1 "please let us make product 1 better"

>company looks at product 2 and tells you no

When they make another mmorpg in 5 years they will do the same to product 2. The circle of life.

[Dragoy]

I think a version of FFXI that is platform-independent (can be hosted on Windows or Linux operating system, on physical or virtual hardware) would be ideal.
As a Linux user since 2010 myself, yeah, this would be quite nice indeed. :]


Similarly, a version of FFXI where the POL client can be deprecated would be another boon for SE's loyal fan base.
I know it's probably beyond dated, and many will think it's silly, but I actually make use of the PlayOnline Viewer quite a bit. I tend to have it running at all times, and when I see friends online, I know to jump into the game myself if I'm not there already (very handy during the rare times I've been unsubscribed).

It also allows me to see if some friends of old have visited at times I'm AFK, and they can see that I am around still as well.

So with that said, I'm actually glad that it is still around.

[Gwydion]

As a Linux user since 2010 myself, yeah, this would be quite nice indeed. :]


I know it's probably beyond dated, and many will think it's silly, but I actually make use of the PlayOnline Viewer quite a bit. I tend to have it running at all times, and when I see friends online, I know to jump into the game myself if I'm not there already (very handy during the rare times I've been unsubscribed).

It also allows me to see if some friends of old have visited at times I'm AFK, and they can see that I am around still as well.

So with that said, I'm actually glad that it is still around.

I guarantee you're in the extreme minority if you think players want to continue to use the POL interface (or even a friend list feature). If you need proof, take a look at their FFXI Refriender system, it just uses Twitter's APIs ....lol.

[Alhanelem]

The game's code is heavily intertwined with Playonline. It depends on it for both certain front-facing features like the friend list etc. as well as backend features like account functionality (content IDs, etc)

[Neogon]

I admit I sometimes wonder why, other than licensing restrictions, dev studios or publishers don't outsource their code to allow it be turned open source when a game has long passed its "sell-by date". It's generally free labor & advertisement years after a game's original release, and definitely will generate some good publicity. However, it won't necessarily work in the case of an MMO that's still running and bringing in more cash since it'll just popularize private servers more (and I've played on private servers before and enjoyed them, so I'm not against them).


The game's code is heavily intertwined with Playonline. It depends on it for both certain front-facing features like the friend list etc. as well as backend features like account functionality (content IDs, etc)

The sad thing is how POL was seemingly not unlike an early version of Steam; ahead of its time. Read the other day about it. I'd like a Real Life world transfer to a universe where it worked out.

[Dragoy]

I guarantee you're in the extreme minority if you think players want to continue to use the POL interface (or even a friend list feature).
Oh I definitely don't think that, hence the "and many will think it's silly" part. ^^

But yes, like mentioned, it's got its tentacles pretty deep, and would no doubt require quite a bit of work to get rid of, but considering the topic, I'd consider nothing beyond the realms of possibility.

[Gwydion]

I sincerely hope we get a response from SE regarding the game's future, the 20th anniversary, the SquareEnix-Nexon relationship, as it relates to FFXI.

Please throw us a bone, SE!

[Alhanelem]

I admit I sometimes wonder why, other than licensing restrictions, dev studios or publishers don't outsource their code to allow it be turned open source when a game has long passed its "sell-by date". It's generally free labor & advertisement years after a game's original release, and definitely will generate some good publicity. However, it won't necessarily work in the case of an MMO that's still running and bringing in more cash since it'll just popularize private servers more (and I've played on private servers before and enjoyed them, so I'm not against them).



The sad thing is how POL was seemingly not unlike an early version of Steam; ahead of its time. Read the other day about it. I'd like a Real Life world transfer to a universe where it worked out.
As illustrated in a trailer for PlayOnline, it was originally going to have a lot more robust online functionality that wouldn't appear on consoles for a while after the PS2- there was to be a music player (which sort of exists but only plays a limited selection of built in background music tracks) and a lot of other features. The interface looked a lot more slick than it ended up being as well. In other words, even more ahead of its time than most people realize.

Instead, the games ended up hamstrung by it. There were a number of other playonline compatible games, but none other than FFXI and Tetra Master ever made it outside of Japan (supporting playonline at least). And all of those other games have since ceased operation.

[Beastorizer]

Q: Can’t you remake FFXI as a brand-new MMO and continue service?

A: MMORPGs were originally games that were played on PCs; however, we wanted to make this playable on the console and this was what started FFXI. Just like how we challenged ourselves when people voiced their concerns about a FINAL FANTASY MMO, we would like to continue pushing the boundaries of FFXI to release the game for iOS or Android devices in order to expand Vana’diel.


Q: Is there any possibility to release an offline version of the game?

A: We have talked about plans for an offline version several times; however, every time we start looking into the cost it is too high and we end up dropping the plan. We do want to make it available, but it is impossible to make the entire FFXI game something that is playable by one person, so we would have to take away specific parts. For these reasons we currently have no specific projects for this.

Yeah, I feel the Mobile game may be the big news. Also, it could mean the death and birth of XI. "Wanting to expand" seems akin to how they cutoff console support. Money can be made in a HD version of XI; perhaps the mobile game is just that?

The fact that this game has been in development for years, and not a peep is known other than some screenshots is strange....

Why so James Bond about the game? I would at least like for them to take some player suggestions and questions instead of being like "Here ya go!!!" At least a play test,beta/alpha.

[Alhanelem]

There's honestly not that much stuff that simply can't be done by one person. Most of the stuff that isn't would just require some swings of the nerf bat and that's about it.

[Dragoy]

Why so James Bond about the game?

Perhaps because it's not really mobile-only as originally announced? -.^

(Honestly, I'm not sure I'd like XI on Unreal, unless they put some effort into making the camera and characters move the same way they do in current XI. Little things. Of the mobile-only version I'm not interested at all.)

And then they also open-source it!

[Beastorizer]

Perhaps because it's not really mobile-only as originally announced? -.^

Maybe, that would be great. Regardless, with how FFXI has pretty much been abandoned......I would not be shocked if they were in development and thought it would benefit more as a HD XI remake instead of a cash grab, half A$$ mobile game.

[Beastorizer]

Also, may have already stated this, but the best years of FFXI are ahead if it is indeed sourced to the community. I feel they could do some really neat things with it.

[Alhanelem]

(nevermind)

[Gwydion]

Also, may have already stated this, but the best years of FFXI are ahead if it is indeed sourced to the community. I feel they could do some really neat things with it.

You really don't understand or bothered to read my OP. "They could some really neat things"? Really? .....It costs time/money/resources to keep the game running AND introduce new (recycled?) content. As a comparison, remember the original NES from 1985? ....They stopped making games for that and it's end-of-life ....but people (indi-devs) still produce games for that console from 35 years ago!).

This is inevitable and SE should let us know what's going to happen to FFXI.

[Beastorizer]

You really don't understand or bothered to read my OP. "They could some really neat things"? Really? .....It costs time/money/resources to keep the game running AND introduce new (recycled?) content. As a comparison, remember the original NES from 1985? ....They stopped making games for that and it's end-of-life ....but people (indi-devs) still produce games for that console from 35 years ago!).

This is inevitable and SE should let us know what's going to happen to FFXI.

Relax, you take this online stuff way too seriously my man.

I supported many projects run by independent developers or a community of former players such as Ship of Heroes and City of Titans. City of Heroes was a title shutdown in 2012. In 2019, a server which is run by the community has been opened. Since then, the game has improved and the population numbers soared, while adding new powers. I believe CoX servers cost nearly $3,000 per month to run.

Like I said though, City of Heroes vs FF is a huge disparity in IP value; meaning I am not so sure they will let their IP go to the public so easily. I thought you were referring to the community running the game. Nintendo is also pretty protective of its' Pokemon IP, but they still allow the community to create fan-made games from the Game Boy Color or Advance.

As for old games, yeah...I am part non-profit rom-hack communities, where the goal is to archive or preserve old gems by keeping them up to date. Adding little things here and there. I am by no means some hot shot dev, but I am familiar with the emulation of older stuff. Old Pokemon titles from the late 90s and early 2000s are things I am familiar with. Adding sprites, making new maps, etc, small things like that.

Even though the GB Color is obsolete, the community still utilizes titles from that system. They even release new fan-made games.

[Rolodex]

Relax, you take this online stuff way too seriously my man.

I supported many projects run by independent developers or a community of former players such as Ship of Heroes and City of Titans. City of Heroes was a title shutdown in 2012. In 2019, a server which is run by the community has been opened. Since then, the game has improved and the population numbers soared, while adding new powers. I believe CoX servers cost nearly $3,000 per month to run.
Let's not pretend the ones that released it were saints. There was PLENTY of drama that blew up into the guys who had a copy of the source code releasing it early. I'm not 100% sure of the details but it boiled down to there being a private CoH server that was up and running for years, a youtube guy found out and gathered an internet mob to bug them about it until the guys who were working on the private server just released it saying "it's not completely bug free, you guys deal with it then."

[Alhanelem]

Nintendo is also pretty protective of its' Pokemon IP, but they still allow the community to create fan-made games from the Game Boy Color or Advance.Point of clarity here, Nintendo doesn't actually own pokemon. Game Freak / The Pokemon Company are sort of between 2nd and 3rd party. Pokemon Go in particular had zero involvement from Nintendo, since it wasn't on their platform.

[Beastorizer]

Let's not pretend the ones that released it were saints. There was PLENTY of drama that blew up into the guys who had a copy of the source code releasing it early. I'm not 100% sure of the details but it boiled down to there being a private CoH server that was up and running for years, a youtube guy found out and gathered an internet mob to bug them about it until the guys who were working on the private server just released it saying "it's not completely bug free, you guys deal with it then."

No argument here, but the game has improved.


Point of clarity here, Nintendo doesn't actually own pokemon. Game Freak / The Pokemon Company are sort of between 2nd and 3rd party. Pokemon Go in particular had zero involvement from Nintendo, since it wasn't on their platform.

It is more complicated than that. If N gives them the go, its a go. Example, Horizon Zero Dawn, that Sony published title?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1151640/Horizon_Zero_Dawn_Complete_Edition/
Hmmmmm.......We live in a world were Sonic, Ryu, and FF characters fight in Nintendo titles. If there is an agreement that "Whatever...." is ok, then it is ok.....

[Beastorizer]

I digress though, this is going off the rails.

[Pixela]

The game is actively being updated, they have staff updating the game. Questions like this should happen when that is no longer the case.

Also the mobile game is 100% going to be just a mobile game, this is because the rights were sold to Nexon and it is not a Square Enix game at all. If the mobile game came out on PC it would directly impact the income for FFXI, which would be counter productive.

[Gwydion]

Going on 4-years since I made this post. Hoping to get an actual reply from SE. Open-sourcing FFXI, may be a crowning accomplishment for the game if it continues to receive diminishing internal support.