How long do we have left?

[Asran]

I've been playing FFXI on and off for the last 7 years. I love the game but lets face it... nothing lasts forever. I've come back to it after an 8 month hiatus but it makes me wonder how much time do we have left? It seems like there are fewer and fewer players every time I come back... and we're bout to hit the 99 (100) level cap, have had two server mergers in 1 year and are approaching the 10th anniversary do you think they will keep us up long after that?

I'm not trying to sound negative, I still love this game, I am just worried if I should stay in or not. Also if it is worth bringing a friend in.

[Alhanelem]

We have until there are not enough subscribers to offset the costs of running the servers + ~6 months to a year after that.

[thefinalrune]

As I figure it, as a low estimate, Final Fantasy XI must have at least 75k players left, potentially many many more. At current figures that still puts FFXI at 60k more subscribers than the currently making zero profit FFXIV. FFXI is more or less SE's life blood after the horrendous profit losses they took this last fiscal year. I honestly doubt we'll see the end of the game any time even remotely soon.

[Asran]

Yeah, I've been reading the FFXIV forums a lot and have been getting the impression that FFXI is funding XIV. But even then, in a year or so XIV with either have sunk or swam and I dont see us gaining many (if any) more subscriptions. Perhaps I've been reading too many troll threads =/

[Sephyder]

I dont want to ever see this game going away. and with all the changes and additions (i.e. these new and wonderful forums) I cant see them taking this game offline for ATLEAST 2-3 years.

:mad:On another note the way SE released thier last 5/6 FF titles, (X, X-2, XIII, XIV, and quite possibly the new XIII-2) this is most likely the last SE game I play an/or would spend more money on :(

[thefinalrune]

Initially FF14 had a user base of approximately 60-100k (I know its a huge range, but that all the more shows how far its fallen). And since its release the only money its made has been off the actual physical purchase of the software, which more than likely barely broke even if made any money at all given development costs. SE put a big gamble on 14 and so far its failed, miserably, so far earning no gains at all now more than six months after release.

I've also read that FF13 was, despite some profit, not nearly the money maker they were hoping for it to be.

Currently I'm more than willing to wager that Final Fantasy XI is SE's primary source of income at the moment outside of its successful products from its now child company Eidos. As long as they're making money on FFXI it'll never disappear.

[Tezz]

There are MMO's with 1-2 servers. FF11 will be alive for a long time or go free to increase users.

[Asran]

Currently I'm more than willing to wager that Final Fantasy XI is SE's primary source of income at the moment outside of its successful products from its now child company Eidos. As long as they're making money on FFXI it'll never disappear.

Thats given me hope enough to return... but for how long will it keep its profit? We've already had 2 big server merges... it just makes it feel like we're rapidly losing players.

I truly hope we can keep this up for 3+ years

[Dreimar]

I've already seen people claiming the death of this game during years.
Like: "FFXI have 1 yr at max! i'm going to play .....(insert any "new generation MMORPG" younger than FFXI)"
Considering FFIVX doesnt seems to have build a "rocky base" of accounts we still have time to enjoy Vana'diel ^^

[Wade]

Well, we may be merging servers, but I can say, that I have been seeing a lot of older players return lately. Whether they are returning from XIV or just because of all the recent changes, activity on the servers seems to have picked up. Plus we are still getting new people in periodically.

[Dreimar]

That's true indeed Wade, ive got tells from ppl who left the game years ago.
tells like " Hi drei ! I've bough 1 abyssea expansion ! what i have to do now" ... 1 hour of chat later the guy was a little less
entusiasthic :P

[Runespider]

Only thing that will kill off FFXI is the Square themselves, lots of players are coming back lately and if they build on tha t it couldand should last at the very least a few more years. It will probably outlive FFXIV but I probably shouldn't say that on here. :)

[Wade]

That's true indeed Wade, ive got tells from ppl who left the game years ago.
tells like " Hi drei ! I've bough 1 abyssea expansion ! what i have to do now" ... 1 hour of chat later the guy was a little less
entusiasthic :P

Lol, yea well, at least there is new stuff for them to do now, which is nice. The grass is always greener right :D

[Wint]

We've had a ton of people come back, so many that the new linkshell we started had to shut down recruiting so we could take some time to get to know the new people. Most of us came from XIV who had come from XI, and we spend a lot of time chatting in IRC already so we knew each other fairly well. If anything, at least on Asura, the mood feels upbeat, and things are definitely still busy here.

[Wade]

I kind of feel sorry for SE. they are in a real pickle. XIV did not come anywhere near to be what they wanted and so now they have to decide what to do. Do you sink resources back into XI, or try to do both or just push everything into making XIV and hope it's not too late? Whatever the case, I think XI will be around a while just because even if there are only a few servers, I don't think they would completely shut it down. The only downside now, is that they have made it so easy to get to 90, I think a lot of people are coming in, capping out and finishing all missions and are now getting bored and just waiting on new expansions. So I hope, the next 2 level cap increases prove to be a little slower or harder to achieve, just to help keep interest alive.

[lathos]

lets face it ff 14 is the future and when they fix it sure im gonna play it that being said ff11 has been fun for me for over 7 years although im no endgame player i havent done all the quest,i dont know everything there is to know and i just came back from a year and a half break due to the death of my old playstation its ok,ff11 has been fun since they launched it,its not plagued by slow interface or need of a super computer to play,and its easy to jump right in and get lost in the megatons of content,that said ff14 is the future and its more like ff11 everyday,yoshi p has done a phenomonal job revamping and continues to make the changes the players want so that it can be a more pleasing experience,but ff11 will not die theres too many people who have spent long years on it to leave it on a whim,but ff14 is more like it than u think and getting closer to being playable by the hardcore ff base everyday,but whether u choose that or ff11 it doesnt matter they are sisters and we can love them both

[Yopop]

As of April of 2009 FFXI had over 2 million subscribers.

I would put money on it if the subscribers have not increased that it's floating somewhere in the 1.5 million range

Just because you guys don't see people on the servers doesn't mean there are no subscribers. It's a reoccurring fee based game.

[Savanah]

If a weekend late prime-time PST is any indication on Leviathan, FFXI is still going strong. I've seen in excess of 3700 players on at times. That's a really good number.

[Dreimar]

3700 ?!? Eekk too many! You shoulda toss some thousand down from airship into the sea :D
Seriously, i didnt see any lack of players on Sylph , over 1.5k on working days , 2.5k on weekends

[HFX7686]

I don't think that SE would trot out the Abyssea expansions and then this nice shiny forum only to shut the game down in a few months. People truly underestimate the finances of a pay-to-play game online. There are still pay-to-play games from the late 80s (old text based MUDs) that are still running today as pay-to-play. The costs of running a couple of servers and maintenance on those servers without expansions/development/updates is only a few hundred subscribers. As long as people pay, they will keep it running.

Personally, I think the game deserves a complete graphics overhaul like I think Ultima Online did a few years ago. Hopefully they'll finally ditch PS2 support (or just not do the graphics overhaul for the PS2) and really spruce up this game a bunch. It'd be nice.

[ReplicaX]

It seems XI is the life line with the trend of XIV. The stock holders alone are upset with XIV besides the gamers. I would love to see XI upgraded to XIV's engine and if the PS2 player base is still high then retain them on their own servers with the option of PC/360 users as well.

There are many XI users including myself that upgraded their PCs for XIV as well. With an upgraded XI these current PS2 limitations can go away and provide SE with more content options, jobs, etc to keep the subscriber rate going.

[ringthree]

The posters in all threads about the future of FFXI (or any MMO for that matter) are always the same:

1. The people that understand the economics of an MMO, and realize that once they are launched and production costs are recouped they basically become a huge cash cow even at very low player levels.

2. The people that use no logic and have no understanding of that situation and claim that it will die tomorrow because their buddy George quit last week and now they feel like quitting.

[Unaisis]

FF11 wont die ^.^

[rufuslupus]

I'd say we got till 2012 or a few months into 2012. Right now were living off updates, the thrill of being level 99, new magics and abilities, a new possible merit category. But that wont satisfy us for long which is why they always drag out these changes over a year's time to keep us interested in playing. What will we do after it's all finished and the dust settles? Wotg was the last expansion, abyssea won't be challenging at level 99, they are revising old content to be easier. The game will die only when the player loses interest, and we have no interest beyond the current planned updates.

A new expansion to test our might would keep our interest. Just adding new jobs would have everyone massing with eagerness more so than being level 99.

[Lutschfactor]

game wont die anytime in the near future. everquest has been online what 20 if not close to it years. look for ffxi to run another good 5-6 years b4 maybe small issue come up. only reason wow does better. coz its a kids game. just hope SE doesnt do that to this game. this games doesnt need to be a kids game. but with the additions of late, they r trying to kill it faster then it should be

[Savanah]

Main thing holding this game back, of course, is the PS2 and its limitations. If someday SE can pull the plug on the PS2 version, they can really pump out some big updates to this game in the form of graphical/system updates and large scale expansions. It's like beating on a dead horse here, but at this point, the 10 year old PS2 console is holding this game back from becoming so much more. Ultima Online and EQ *still* are releasing expansion packs and have plenty of subscribers, and UO has been around for 14 years, EQ about 12-13. FFXI can last that long too if not longer, if SE plays their cards carefully and correctly.

[katoplepa]

the future of Vana Diel is here :

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090401054320/ffxi/images/6/63/CompleteWorldMap.jpg

[Lilsanchez]

I'm not sure why people keep thinking the game is going to end, like the end is near! I'm assuming we still have at least 5 years+. Quit feeding people doubt.

[K466inDmin]

This forum could be a source of income for them as well. But it doesn't look like they're going for that-- no ads. I wonder what Ffxiclopedia & Zam make on the ads? The few million a year they could make from ads must not be an appeal for them-- so I don't think they're hurting as badly as we may think.

[ringthree]

the future of Vana Diel is here :

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090401054320/ffxi/images/6/63/CompleteWorldMap.jpg

That was player created. That is not from SE.

[Sama]

I would guess 1-2 years max if they keep going with Aby like this.

[Saylor]

As of April of 2009 FFXI had over 2 million subscribers.

Hate to nitpick but its not subscribers, its characters.

Still though with the catastrophic failure that FFXIV was I believe alot of people have come back that quit forever. God knows I keep getting bugged from people coming back who gave me all there stuff thinking they would never be back.

[Dreimar]

I'd say we got till 2012 or a few months into 2012. Right now were living off updates, the thrill of being level 99, new magics and abilities, a new possible merit category. But that wont satisfy us for long which is why they always drag out these changes over a year's time to keep us interested in playing. What will we do after it's all finished and the dust settles? Wotg was the last expansion, abyssea won't be challenging at level 99, they are revising old content to be easier. The game will die only when the player loses interest, and we have no interest beyond the current planned updates.

A new expansion to test our might would keep our interest. Just adding new jobs would have everyone massing with eagerness more so than being level 99.

We were "restricted" to lv75 for years so what ?
SE declared they wont ever rise the lv cap over lv75, many years ago .. wonder why they changed theyr plans :P
This game already had total DeV team changes ( 3 or 4 maybe, cant remember )
In the yeah 2015 were gonna say all this things again :P

[Autymn]

What's one sure way to have people lose interest in something?

Give them everything they want.

I've often joked that SE is making everything easier on the players so that we'll finish all our goals and stop playing. It's like they are intentionally sabotaging their own game. I don't REALLY think this, but it is a thought to mull over.

[Swords]

Hate to nitpick but its not subscribers, its characters.

Still though with the catastrophic failure that FFXIV was I believe alot of people have come back that quit forever. God knows I keep getting bugged from people coming back who gave me all there stuff thinking they would never be back.

Blizzard uses the same methods for counting WoW subscribers, they use it as a draw to attract people with the thought "Hey alot of people play this, it must be a good game". Now how many of those 6 million players thay have stickerd on the box are actually mules. If I had to give an honest guess, at least 3/4 of their claimed playerbase.

To address the concerns over the server merges, I would not doubt that SE merged the servers in order to cut maintence costs and with periodic upgrades the servers were probably improved to where they could handle a greater capacity of players.

As far as FFXI being on it's last legs people have been saying that since ToAU had finished. Four years, one expansion and six mini-expansions later FFXI is still here, still has at least another few years of planned content left in it.

[remy5623]

Wow, this thread is fascinating. Nine years later and the game is still getting updates. I think even now Final Fantasy XI has many years left.

[Immortal]

What's funny is that every year along the way you have these threads popping up and the usual pessimists saying the game will die in a year.

[Catmato]

OMG ffxi is dieing!!

[Pixela]

This thread was made in 2011, person above bumped it from 9 years ago.

[BST]

Shall visit again, in ten years time, this very thread.

[Teraniku]

If they were to do a Final Event / Mission to close it out on, What would you want it to be?

-For Me it would be a quest Storyline that would end with the Wedding of Trion and Curilla, with our character, depending on Nation Allegiance, be the Special Invited Guest of the Nation, if not San D'Orian, or the Best Man / Maid of Honor if San D'Orian.

[Pixela]

None, I don't want and would not accept them closing it. There are tens of thousands playing now and many who are still subbed and not currently playing who agree.

Thee is no reason to do so, if they did I and many other FF fans would never forgive them.

[Zehira]

None, I don't want and would not accept them closing it. There are tens of thousands playing now and many who are still subbed and not currently playing who agree.

Thee is no reason to do so, if they did I and many other FF fans would never forgive them.

Oh, I would if they bring us a remaster/reboot. DirectX 8.1 game soon to be over! Yay!

FF14's story is much better than before now and the same producer that is currently working on FF16. Awesome.

Edit: Due to DirectX 8.1, my friends from FF14 who have bought a copy of FF11 have a trouble trying to do a setup and update. I understood how difficult it is to many players who want to try it for a first time.

[Gwydion]

None, I don't want and would not accept them closing it. There are tens of thousands playing now and many who are still subbed and not currently playing who agree.

Thee is no reason to do so, if they did I and many other FF fans would never forgive them.

I know it's too early to speculate, but I imagine SE could choose to not do a master/reboot and instead open-source the game. (It would allow the game to live on, as it was originally intended, without SE incurring any additional costs of support, development or overhead).

However, having said that, SE also has a tendency to try and "cash in" on all of their Final Fantasy intellectual property. So who knows what the future holds? :shrug: