With all the changes, do you think SE is trying to end us/this

[chubrocka]

I wanted to say thank you to all who have given great thought and insight to this thread. As i intended it was to make/want SE to hear from us that we need FFXI to remain and that with some more effort on there part they can do a "ROCKY" moment and bring it back. Advertise, promote, make change and increase. This game doesnt have to die, its great. Lets just hope the Skeleton crew thats we think is left is reading this and can push it to the top???!!!!!

[ShadowHeart]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2...antasy_XIV.php


says it all right there they wanted people to go from here to 14 but of course play both but mainly to cease development on here and to contour to their next evolutionary state of ffxiv ... but it hasn't panned out yet and may never to reach the heights of this game in its peak days

do they want to kill this game no but they did want to put it on the back burner and not have to waste the time and man hours to continually upgrade it as its main game while 14 sits around and they pull their hair out.

[chubrocka]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2...antasy_XIV.php


says it all right there they wanted people to go from here to 14 but of course play both but mainly to cease development on here and to contour to their next evolutionary state of ffxiv ... but it hasn't panned out yet and may never to reach the heights of this game in its peak days

do they want to kill this game no but they did want to put it on the back burner and not have to waste the time and man hours to continually upgrade it as its main game while 14 sits around and they pull their hair out.

Thanks for posting this. Lets hope something happens huh!

[Revanchist]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2...antasy_XIV.php


says it all right there they wanted people to go from here to 14 but of course play both but mainly to cease development on here and to contour to their next evolutionary state of ffxiv ... but it hasn't panned out yet and may never to reach the heights of this game in its peak days

If SE thought gamers would abandon their characters they've created and nurtured in XI, for the shambolic mess that is XIV, they've got rocks for brains.

do they want to kill this game no but they did want to put it on the back burner and not have to waste the time and man hours to continually upgrade it as its main game while 14 sits around and they pull their hair out.

With what SE's doing now, forcing gamers into this payment option before ensuring that the methods they've made available for non JP gamers are legally accepted/available in every country (and yet let their JP gamer base opt to choose between either of the two as well as continuing with direct payment), it does seem to some that is what SE wants to do.

Of course, if they really wanted people to flock to XIV, they'd of released a complete game, not one with multiple inherent flaws... which is still ftp 11 months after it's release (sucking more money from SE the longer it is ftp)! At least FFXI recouped the cost in making that within 6 months of it's release...

[BurnNotice]

I strongly disagree that SE is trying to "End" FFXI. Instead, they've talked about expanding the game even further beyond its current limits. Don't let the level cap increase and easy leveling process fool you into thinking that the game has lost its fun-factor and only catering to a specific audience. The changes, refinements, and implementations being shown this year is to have us read for the big battles ahead of us.

Granted, I am not an SE/FFXI Insider or anything, but the development team made it very clear that there will be some big installments that will not only give current, loyal players a bang for their buck, but it will even bring back the retirees to the game with an appetite for adventuring and fighting for a very long time.

At level 99 (or 100) cap, we still have to face Beastmen, HNMs, storylines that far exceeds our cap. Think back when we finally hit lvl 75. Didn't things get a bit more interesting? Wasn't the significance of being capped at 75 was us not only grow into our jobs, but to perfect it by building skills, knowledge, and be the expert in that job?

For the people that have all their jobs at 90, how many of them have perfected their job(s)? This game has never been about lvling to 90 and falling out because everyone has been hitting it, its been about team development with people who are experts in their chosen job(s) that understands the battlefield they've entered with their comrades. Fights like Pandemonium Warden, Absolute Virtue, Odin Prime, and any lvl 85+ HNM at our lvl 75 time are prime examples. We will be facing these kind of battles once again.

Give SE's Development Team sometime to work things in. I assure you guys they wont disappoint us.

[Upokupo]

I honestly think that SE may be gearing up for a pay-to-play/free-to-play hybrid model. Just trying to connect some dots with the changes being made and doing a tiny bit of research. If reports are accurate of Turbine's revenue increasing on D&D roughly 300% and LOTRO increasing 200%, this would not be out of the realm of possibility.

There seems to be a trend happening. I just think SE is gearing up and looking for a way to increase revenue with FFXI.
This seems like a no-brainer.

[Olor]

if it went all "micro transaction" style I would quit. Do not like.

[Panthera]

It's absurd to think they'd deliberately kill their own product if they're still making enough profit out of it. But I don't think that's what the OP is really saying. To quote Iron Man 2, "It would appear that the same thing that is keeping you alive is also killing you, sir." Obviously, the fatal detriments are an unintentional side-effect.

The problem of FFXI has nothing to do with the limitations of being based on older platform capabilities, as the article suggests. Indeed, the game has gotten more beautiful over time. The real, fundamental problem is the balance of difficulty vs reward. This has been and always will be a problem in specific instances; Vrtra was difficult and dropped nothing wortwhile, while other Wyrms were easier, but had better rewards. The problem is now systemic. You can now do nothing or next to nothing and get rewards as a general principle. AFK leveling can be purchased in Fell Cleave alliances, or is available for free in GoV. The bonuses from GoV are so inflated, it's smarter to fight easier mobs and go for the Bonus exp than to go for the higher exp itself of harder mobs.

What puzzles me about this is that the populace of FFXI is made up largely of veterans, so why did the game get easier rather than harder? No one takes issue with the game being more rewarding or faster in any sense. The problem is that the game became easier and more rewarding at the same time, rather than more difficult and more rewarding simultaneously. The only possible way it could get any worse in terms of reward-to-difficulty ratio would be if armor that's comparable to Homam were available via NPCs or the AH, irony intended.

If FFXI were offline, discussions of this nature would be moot. But the issue is more relevant than ever. While 90-95 are at this point written, 96-99 are as yet unwritten. It really comes down to if players really want to accept whatever is fed to them, or want to be challenged, and challenge SE in return. "That's right, we beat your Absolute Virtue, so you go ahead and update him again." Or do players really want a game with Primeval Brew +2's? You see, the problem may not be Square-Enix at all. The problem is us.

[Runespider]

It's absurd to think they'd deliberately kill their own product if they're still making enough profit out of it. But I don't think that's what the OP is really saying. To quote Iron Man 2, "It would appear that the same thing that is keeping you alive is also killing you, sir." Obviously, the fatal detriments are an unintentional side-effect.

They spent 50-60mill on FFXIV, FFXIV can't get a larger playerbase unless they kill off the competition. FFXI is direct competition for FFXIV subs, most of the returnees are disgruntled FFXIV players.

That's a reason for them killing it off, they are doing it slowly to milk profits off xi still but they are definately doing it. FFXI pays for FFXIV development right now, thats an even bigger signpost as to what's going on. If both games were to be considered seperate XIV would of been killed off by now as a failure, it's still around cause they still think they can get us all to convert by making XI more bland while slowly turning XIV into old XI.

[Panthera]

They spent 50-60mill on FFXIV, FFXIV can't get a larger playerbase unless they kill off the competition. FFXI is direct competition for FFXIV subs, most of the returnees are disgruntled FFXIV players.

Because there's a rule that you can only play one MMO at a time?