FFXI Outline and Future

[Seriha]

What *I* wish SE would do is release more add-ons like abyssea (not the abyssea style, just additional content). I don't mind paying 20-30$ a year for new content with the length and breath of abyssea. Think about it - abyssea changed ffxi permanently. How we level, what's a proc, jobs, balance, everything. And it happened over the course of 9-12 months for 3 $10 add-ons. Charge me that much extra every year for new content, and I'll happily keep buying crack. The monthly fee maintains the game, extra charges pay for additional content - this makes sense to me.

And why should we have to pay more just to get what we should be getting as subscribers? I doubt that $20-30 would magically materialize a new team to work independently of the current. Rather, it'd just pull from what's currently there to do whatever. Overall, SE's been terrible about releasing expansions in incomplete states, and while the collective whole of Abyssea is good for what it did, it's also a reflection of the lacking team size with a "second" expansion of rehashed zones, WotG being the first... and it needing years to run its course.

So, qq on BG to your heart's content, but people wanting their money's worth is the customer's right. An individual subscriber pulling their support with no voice leads to next to nothing when dealing with hundreds of thousands. Organizing mass cancellations is probably next to impossible since people who visit any kind of XI forum regularly is a minority with some accounts logging in minimally, and SE's willingly pulled team members from the game when it was doing better than it had been in a while in both content and perception. So, it's not entirely surprising that enough people choosing to quit in protest would harm the game's future irreparably and those realizing it aren't so quick to close their wallets. Like it or not, us "whiners" have helped give things you've also enjoyed in the game over time with our subs. And if Voidwatch (casual unfriendly) and poorly thought out magian trials (too much for too little) are FFXI's future under the current team, then concern is warranted. Eventually even the dirty casuals will exhaust Abyssea content pertaining to their interests. Then what? GoV (leveling is finite) and Dynamis (not everyone will chase a relic for months of daily work) certainly can't and won't satisfy these people in the long term.

SE basically has two choices here to encourage customer satisfaction: 1) Give us more than they currently are for our money. If over 4 mil a month with 350k subscribers is not enough to do this, I don't know what is. 2) Dramatically lower the subscription fee. I'm talking like 50% or more. Low-budget service does not justify premium cost. Personally, I'd guess #1 the more profitable route, as even if a larger production team sapped 1 mil a month to its thing, 3 mil is better than 2 mil at #2's rate. And with XIV set to start charging its own fee soon, they've got little excuse to not look into either alternative short of just being greedy, uncaring bastards. Given the current global economic climate, that's not a PR image you want to be conveying.

[Buffy]

SE basically has two choices here to encourage customer satisfaction: 1) Give us more than they currently are for our money. If over 4 mil a month with 350k subscribers is not enough to do this, I don't know what is. 2) Dramatically lower the subscription fee. I'm talking like 50% or more. Low-budget service does not justify premium cost. Personally, I'd guess #1 the more profitable route, as even if a larger production team sapped 1 mil a month to its thing, 3 mil is better than 2 mil at #2's rate. And with XIV set to start charging its own fee soon, they've got little excuse to not look into either alternative short of just being greedy, uncaring bastards. Given the current global economic climate, that's not a PR image you want to be conveying.

SE hasn't raised their rates since the game was released. Name another company that hasn't raised prices in 10 years.

[Arcon]

SE hasn't raised their rates since the game was released. Name another company that hasn't raised prices in 10 years.

You can spin that one any way you want it. I'm paying over 30% more now than when I started, while I'm technically, in one way, still paying the same price.