Long Term Options

As someone who's often been critical of the way SE has conducted business during the tenure of this game, I've recently been asked how I think SE can sunset the FFXI game service in a more positive way than the direction they appear to have chosen. So I've come up with this list of options for SE to consider (knowing full well that they likely won't) - and maybe it'll spark some discussion.

1. Open source the whole thing. The only way to ensure the game will survive forever.
2. Offline/single player mode. Preserve character data even if it means you can't enter some instanced content. (I'd gladly give up that instanced content for the ability to do some quick fishing at Cascade Edellaine during my coffee breaks).
3. Find a responsible steward for the service & game data - reach out to archive.org, see if they'd want to preserve this online space.
4. Turn the service over to a group of serious players. (Ok, that's a terrible idea.)

With the announcements of Grandmasters and the FFXI mobile native client it seems that SE has missed the mark on what it is that most of us actually want - preservation of our character data. We've had loads of fun and sorrows while working hard on building these characters over the years and the most important thing that SE can tell us is: "rest assured, they're safe, they're not going away."

Instead, what we're hearing from SE is that they'd like to keep the service going as long as it's profitable to do so, with no plans for after it's not. None of this exactly inspires confidence. So, fellow forum-goers (whether you're currently playing or not) what could SE do to help build your confidence in them and their ability to make good decisions about the long term future of this game?

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Originally Posted by Enochroot

As someone who's often been critical of the way SE has conducted business during the tenure of this game, I've recently been asked how I think SE can sunset the FFXI game service in a more positive way than the direction they appear to have chosen. So I've come up with this list of options for SE to consider (knowing full well that they likely won't) - and maybe it'll spark some discussion.

1. Open source the whole thing. The only way to ensure the game will survive forever.
2. Offline/single player mode. Preserve character data even if it means you can't enter some instanced content. (I'd gladly give up that instanced content for the ability to do some quick fishing at Cascade Edellaine during my coffee breaks).
3. Find a responsible steward for the service & game data - reach out to archive.org, see if they'd want to preserve this online space.
4. Turn the service over to a group of serious players. (Ok, that's a terrible idea.)

With the announcements of Grandmasters and the FFXI mobile native client it seems that SE has missed the mark on what it is that most of us actually want - preservation of our character data. We've had loads of fun and sorrows while working hard on building these characters over the years and the most important thing that SE can tell us is: "rest assured, they're safe, they're not going away."

Instead, what we're hearing from SE is that they'd like to keep the service going as long as it's profitable to do so, with no plans for after it's not. None of this exactly inspires confidence. So, fellow forum-goers (whether you're currently playing or not) what could SE do to help build your confidence in them and their ability to make good decisions about the long term future of this game?

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Last I read Final Fantasy XI has been SE's most profitable game ever and was still making money. I don't understand their motivations for terminating new content in November.

I would prefer they consolidate the remaining players and set aside enough resources to provide new content. I believe for most of us simply preserving our character data will not be enough to keep us interested long term.

The only possible good I can see coming from all of this is that perhaps they will pay more attention to Final Fantasy 14 and make its systems more complex so that it might appeal to the players who opted to stay on 11. Adding interesting materia or a more intricate battle system which allows for unique and varying play-styles would be a nice start. Otherwise I can't help but feel this is a slap in the face to loyal fans who have dutifully supported this game for many years.

I'm not interested in an offline single-player version. Meeting the occasional real player ingame, and seeing friends, would keep Vanadiel alive. Being the only living soul in Vanadiel would just kill the happy memories for me, even worse than the off button.

I am totally interested in keeping my character data.

I am totally interested in any kind of Museum Server / embalming system, for loyal fans to meet and chat and enjoy Vanadiel minus version updates. Either run by SE, or run by another group. I suspect that any kind of single server for loyal fans, would bring out the best in players, and the atmosphere would be really fun because everyone would only be there because they are so devoted to the core FFXI game.

Open source it!

Make it free open source as long as people don't try to make money with it and/or run it for donations to cover server cost.

Look at the Unreal Engine as an example how to successfully market an engine. This could work for a game too. Royalty free unless you make X amount per year.

Please SE, before you shut it down let us have the game we love and played for so many years and made you so much money. You owe us at least that.

open source yes
single player no
option 3 and 4 i dont really care for

A friend just suggested a crowdfunding campaign to save the game. Not convinced it'd make much of a difference - we're already paying a monthly fee. Thoughts on how to make something like that work?

That were my thoughts too, but you cant just steal the ffxi name and world and crowdfund it without SE's approval.

Even if they'd allow a crowdfunding campaign I don't think it will bring even close to enough to keep this game going for even a couple of months.
Apart from that, starting march 2016 they are going to lose about half if not more of their revenue by console players who are definitely not going to jump to the pc version.
I am pretty sure that they've already calculated for that.

Personally, I have already made my peace with the fact that no new content will be released after november and that I'll spend the next maybe 3 or 4 months after finishing up a few goals and calling it.

My personal long term option is simply moving on.
It has been a good 11 and a half years.

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Originally Posted by Dale

Last I read Final Fantasy XI has been SE's most profitable game ever and was still making money. I don't understand their motivations for terminating new content in November.

I would prefer they consolidate the remaining players and set aside enough resources to provide new content. I believe for most of us simply preserving our character data will not be enough to keep us interested long term.

The only possible good I can see coming from all of this is that perhaps they will pay more attention to Final Fantasy 14 and make its systems more complex so that it might appeal to the players who opted to stay on 11. Adding interesting materia or a more intricate battle system which allows for unique and varying play-styles would be a nice start. Otherwise I can't help but feel this is a slap in the face to loyal fans who have dutifully supported this game for many years.

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They're terminating FFXI because it is a horrible embarrassment to them that people still play this game when FFXIV is out. Especially considering how horrible FFXIV was on release, to require them to completely scrap the game and remake it. Having people still playing FFXI, by choice, over FFXIV, basically says "FFXIV isn't good."

As SE have already said, they have no plans to shutdown FFXI entirely. They have announced a date when they will cease further updates/expansions etc. But they will keep the game running beyond that, with bug fixes etc.

And it would be highly illogical for them to go from having multiple servers, to zero servers. Much more likely would be a gradual decrease in servers from the current number, down to four, two, one.

So, the real question would be, on all the servers today, combined, how many seriously 'devoted' fans are there. People who will play FFXI core game without further updates. I can name six such people in my Friend List. So I am guessing there are quite a few of us spread across all the servers.

So, assuming the predicted trend of console players quitting rather than getting a PC, other players quitting because they won't play without new content, etc. we can assume that a substantial number of people will quit. And since it would make no sense to shutdown a game with lots of half empty servers, when you could just merge them onto a couple of full and very devoted-player servers, this is what I would expect to happen.

I will certainly pay subs and play the game till the end, whenever that is. I know a lot of people who feel the same. If all those 'devoted' people were condensed onto one or two servers, would their combined subscription fees be enough to keep those one/two servers running without the expense of updates/expansions? I think so.

I am still working on my Empy Afterglow. At the current rate it should be finished in about ten years lol. So I'm not expecting to finish it. But I'm still working on it. Also, in 2004 I took an oath to defend the good people of Windurst, to protect the sanctuary of Heavens Tower and defend the Star Sibyl. To protect them from the ferocious hordes of darkness. To defend with my life, and I will keep my oath to the very end.

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Originally Posted by machini

They're terminating FFXI because it is a horrible embarrassment to them that people still play this game when FFXIV is out. Especially considering how horrible FFXIV was on release, to require them to completely scrap the game and remake it. Having people still playing FFXI, by choice, over FFXIV, basically says "FFXIV isn't good."

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There is the incorrect assumption on SE's part that XI players will go to XIV. XIV is a completely different game.

Embarrassment or not, unless they fix XIV to be more appealing to XI players, this is just a move that will cost them money.

SE has tried to kill XI before, I somehow doubt they are going to do it again. XIV is reviewed VERY poorly by the Japanese, actually... just look at the game's Amazon.co.jp's reviews. Out of like, 450 reviews, 200 are 1s and another 70 or so are 2s.

They can try and kill this game if they want, but just like before, they've missed their mark with XIV (at least in relation to the Japanese).

Even though I'm sure it's a consideration to SE and to others here, discussion of XIV is outside my intended scope of this thread. Apart from what we hear from SE (assuming we choose to believe them after all the times they've let us down in the past) all we have to go on are best guesses, suppositions, conjectures, whatever. I don't pretend to know their financial situation or their motivations in the decisions they make.

It's not about whether XIV is any good. It's about being able to satisfy the urge to goof around in Vana'diel whenever one pleases - using the characters that we've spent so much time and effort building. There's still time for them to change their tune on the mobile native client so that we'll still have our characters. To be honest, that might be good enough for me. It all depends on the experience.

They say they're not going to support PS2/360 because the hardware support isn't there any more. That makes sense and I understand it. I believe it. Have they thought about moving the toolchain to Windows so they could keep support going? Their lack of detail about the long-term future troubles me and makes me lose confidence in them and the service. That's no fun. What I'd love to hear is "we've heard you, we're committed to keeping the servers online as long as there are folks playing - and when there aren't we have a transition strategy for the service. Your character data is safe." Simple and vague enough not to actually mean anything - but it'd still make me feel better. :)

With regards to crowdfunding, I figured it'd be something that SE could set up to gauge interest in continuing the service. If it meets the funding goal, it'd be a good indicator to them. They've got lots of ways to raise funds using the XI intellectual property - what would be nice to hear is "we're going to re-invest some of that money in keeping XI running."

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Originally Posted by Enochroot

Even though I'm sure it's a consideration to SE and to others here, discussion of XIV is outside my intended scope of this thread. Apart from what we hear from SE (assuming we choose to believe them after all the times they've let us down in the past) all we have to go on are best guesses, suppositions, conjectures, whatever. I don't pretend to know their financial situation or their motivations in the decisions they make.

It's not about whether XIV is any good. It's about being able to satisfy the urge to goof around in Vana'diel whenever one pleases - using the characters that we've spent so much time and effort building. There's still time for them to change their tune on the mobile native client so that we'll still have our characters. To be honest, that might be good enough for me. It all depends on the experience.

They say they're not going to support PS2/360 because the hardware support isn't there any more. That makes sense and I understand it. I believe it. Have they thought about moving the toolchain to Windows so they could keep support going? Their lack of detail about the long-term future troubles me and makes me lose confidence in them and the service. That's no fun. What I'd love to hear is "we've heard you, we're committed to keeping the servers online as long as there are folks playing - and when there aren't we have a transition strategy for the service. Your character data is safe." Simple and vague enough not to actually mean anything - but it'd still make me feel better. :)

With regards to crowdfunding, I figured it'd be something that SE could set up to gauge interest in continuing the service. If it meets the funding goal, it'd be a good indicator to them. They've got lots of ways to raise funds using the XI intellectual property - what would be nice to hear is "we're going to re-invest some of that money in keeping XI running."

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Making the tools to make game assets on PC would be a substantial investment of time and or money. The big problem is that the original dev team that made the tools is not working on this project anymore, so the current dev team would have to study up on just how all of it works, and then code from scratch a tool kit to make compatible assets on the PC instead of on PS2 dev kits. Just because you know how to use an existing tool doesn't mean you know how to make that tool. They stated in the press meeting and Freshly Picked that they are now shifting focus from trying to grow the userbase to trying to reduce costs of this game (and making a new tool kit would go against reducing costs). If they were going to make a replacement tool kit, they should have done it before WotG released. Too much of the old team is gone now, which has led to a major brain drain on the project for people being able to manipulate certain core functiona of the game. Is it really worth training peopl to code for PS2 so they can understand the existing code, and then convert an equivalent to PC, when this is going to be the very last official software release for PS2?

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Originally Posted by Stompa

<snipped for space, but a lot of sense, as always :-)>

So, the real question would be, on all the servers today, combined, how many seriously 'devoted' fans are there. People who will play FFXI core game without further updates. I can name six such people in my Friend List. So I am guessing there are quite a few of us spread across all the servers.

So, assuming the predicted trend of console players quitting rather than getting a PC, other players quitting because they won't play without new content, etc. we can assume that a substantial number of people will quit. And since it would make no sense to shutdown a game with lots of half empty servers, when you could just merge them onto a couple of full and very devoted-player servers, this is what I would expect to happen.

I will certainly pay subs and play the game till the end, whenever that is. I know a lot of people who feel the same. If all those 'devoted' people were condensed onto one or two servers, would their combined subscription fees be enough to keep those one/two servers running without the expense of updates/expansions? I think so.

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Hear, hear! :-)

I intend to keep playing (and paying) as long as there's a server base on which to do so. I still have a heap of goals to achieve, more than enough to keep me occupied for a very long time.

Your analysis strikes a chord with me; I do hope this is the way it can pan out - maybe one day we may even meet on a combined Leviathan/Odin/??? server :-)

Art.

Blame Tanaka, he ignored FFXI while pissing away the development funds that should have gone to improving FFXI on his terrible game engine that ended up looking like something made in 2005 when it was in fact released in 2010.

They should have started planning for the eventual end of the PS2 platform and began migrating the tools to the PC/360 version back in 2007 or so but Tanaka was convinced that it wouldn't matter because we'd all leave FFXI en mass for FFXIV and then they could just pull the plug on the servers.

SE has always had terrible practices when it comes to development though. For example all of the final source code and original assets for FF7 were deleted from their development systems to make room for FF8 files and nobody at SE thought to back anything up. This is why the PC version of FF7 used PS1 textures and video files, the originals were gone. Also the PC version was based on a copy of the beta source code that someone found laying around on an old hard drive that hadn't been wiped.

If true, that's insane. I have no reason to disbelieve it either, given the mismanagement I've seen from SE during my 11+ year tenure playing this game. But again, the past is immutable and the future is not. The point of this thread isn't about XIV, SE's broken management and corporate culture, placing blame on individuals, or singling out examples of poor decision-making (of which there are plenty) - but coming up with ideas to save not just Vana'diel, but our characters. A long-term plan that may or may not even include SE. The point is to keep talking about this, keep harping on it, until SE is forced to acknowledge it and respond.

It seems to me that their decision was made in a rush and considering the bad moves SE has done in the last few years, that wouldn't surprise me.

I, too, will continue paying even after the final update, I still have a lot of things to do and I would like to stay in Vana'diel until the end, whenever this may be.

I don't think XIV is as successful as they make it out to be and it probably has something to do with their decision regarding XI.
The thing is, and it has been said by others, XIV is a completely different game, a bad game according to me. Me and my friends played during 1.0 and then 2.0, we all came back running to XI after what they did with XIV.

XI might be seen as a niche game, but there are people still playing, people who simply cannot find this "something" Vana'diel has anywhere else, there are also many players who do not play anymore but are still deeply fond of this game, do they even realize this ?
What I don't understand is, if their decision wasn't made in a rush, why make all these QoL updates, why add RoE, why add job points, why even increase Mog Houses size in the update to come ? Why make so many useful changes and additions only to say "we will stop updating the game after November" ?

There is something off, disrespectful and illogical about what they plan to do with FFXI. And considering their games since FFXII, FFXI will probably be my last SE game ever. I tried XII, XIII, XIV, Type-0 and FFXV demo and they were bad. I used to be a huge FF fan but enough is enough. Add on top of that that they keep popping games and remakes left and right, I do not believe one second that they need FFXI devs somewhere else.

I even told myself "why keep paying for XI now ?", I gave them enough money, money that wasn't even used for XI, but that is probably exactly what they want us to do, leave the game. Since I am still enjoying XI I will stay and express my disagreement with their decision. This is naive, I know they don't care at all, but if we can push the end of Vana'diel further away because we love and enjoy this game, then we should do it altogether.

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Originally Posted by Artharian

Hear, hear! :-)

I intend to keep playing (and paying) as long as there's a server base on which to do so. I still have a heap of goals to achieve, more than enough to keep me occupied for a very long time.

Your analysis strikes a chord with me; I do hope this is the way it can pan out - maybe one day we may even meet on a combined Leviathan/Odin/??? server :-)

Art.

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Hi Art,

thanks for your reply. I totally agree with you about many of us still having lots of goals, and we still wish to play the current game for a long time, and we're just hoping that we continue to have that option.

Also I would love to go adventuring with you in the future, that would be great fun! Here's hoping we all have a happy future together in Vanadiel. ^^