Originally Posted by
Anjou
The fact of the matter is, is that FFXI still has a good bit of life left in it, because with the new stuff they implemented, I am definitely subscribed for a good long while. This was to just let old players come back to see what's changed, and while it wasn't executed like it SHOULD HAVE BEEN, hey I've been seeing an influx of players lately. I'd rather it stay P2P, just for the sole fact that it doesn't accelerate the death of the game (Because look at TOR, they went F2P for the first 20 levels, and all it did was piss everyone off. Why? Because too much content and races got locked up if you don't wanna fork up money.) Then comes the fact that employees will lose pay because a game isn't coughing up as much, people will get frustrated, complain, leave. That's only going to make the playerbase upset.
I say P2P, it's lasted so long and has continued to be a successful game for 11 years, I think if they care deeply for XI, they can produce content to keep it going for a good while. If their back is to the wall, yes F2P but only limited, but other than that if you make it F2P, the real problem is the influx of people coming in.
This is the Runescape effect. Every little prepubescent child will come onto this game, their bad mouthing behavior because they think they are cool cussing up a storm, and making everything miserable. It's the kind of little kids you find on CoD, always yelling "OMG CHEATER!" and trust me, they'll find a way to call foul play on someone who's put their time in on this game. Then there's the moochers, asking for handouts. This game was about earning your stuff, while RoE does indeed do that with weapons, you still gotta find your armor. If new players who are part of the F2P surge, things will only be worse...