Final Fantasy XI 2.0

[Atomic_Skull]

I'm sorry, but the only people who want an FFXI 2.0 are the people still playing it. I have a lot of friends who had their fill of XI and quit years ago. Not one of them are going around thinking, "Gosh, I sure would love a polished up XI so I can go back and do content I've already done with prettier graphics." They've played the game, they're satisfied with their progress, and they're not coming back. New players? Forget it - it's been eight years. That time has come and gone; people have already passed it up for one reason or another, and are even less likely to touch a reboot than ex-players. Maybe - MAYBE - it could be profitable in another ten years, but we're still dealing with the same generation that skipped FFXI to play WoW.

Say what you will about XIV, but expecting an XI-2 to happen is a pipe dream. The only thing I'm really expecting at this point is a lower monthly subscription. We've been paying for XIV all year. Now that they're charging XIV players, I better not be paying as much for XI as I did three years ago for a fraction of the update size. Especially when I'm seeing the juggernaut updates XIV is getting for the same fee.

EVE Online has proven that a good game with periodic technology updates can continue to increase it's subscribers over the years.

[Alhanelem]

There has been tons of remakes of SUCCESSFUL games

It's not a remake if it's the same game played by the same players on the same platforms and there was no interruption of service. Overhaul, perhaps, but you can't brand it a remake as if it were say the DS remake of an old final fantasy game. There's a difference between a "remake" and an upgrade or overhaul.

virtually all of these tons of successful remakes you refer to are offline single player games that everyone who isn't a fan wouldn't know or has forgotten about.

Someone once said that past performance is no guarantee of future performance. That's true whether or not the past performance was good.

Finally, there remains the matter of practicality. SE very well may re-release the game under the PS2 classics or follow through on that supposed rumor to release it on the PS Vita. But any of these rereleases are going to be just that, and not an upgrade, overhaul, remake, or anything else. Just adding the game on a new platform.

Of course trying to argue in support of this on a forum for the old game is most likely a futile effort regardless. Most likely, everyone here is of the mind that they shouldn't have attempted to make a new game in the first place, regardless of how good or bad it would have ended up being. Personally though, I'd rather join the cling to the old. It's been a good run, and it will be for at least a little while longer, but eventually, the game will have been milked of all it's worth and a new game, be it XIV or some other game someone else makes will eventually take its place.

(PPS: In reality, SE has more than enough money to devote funds to both projects. If XIV was cancelled, that would NOT suddenly mean that XI gets a ton more money and more developer support.)

(PPPS: I still play XI and I still enjoy it. But I don't feel that XIV nor SE's attempt to improve its quality should be mindlessly shot down.)

Name them.

Already named them. Read the thread.

Successful relaunches are unprecedented however.

No, they're not. See previously mentioned games that grew after a product revamp and re-promotion/re-branding.

That is the type of thinking that causes companies to go bankrupt.

Show me your MBA please. I've never heard a more silly comment. If you've already done 90% of the work on a project, you should just finish it. Even if it doesn't do well, some sales is better than zero sales and throwing everything you invested out the window.

[Runespider]

In the MMO world a 1 year old game is an old MMO, there are too many new games coming out soon to worry about a failure of a game for most players. I highly doubt v2 will have much impact at all honestly, outside of the few that already bought it anyway lol

FFXIV will have to be epic beyond cmpare to even have a chance at a 2nd attempt, 1 year is not enough time to do what they are doing because a) they are slow and incompetent b) it just never happens that a failure comes good to the standard required to overcom the massive investment. I don't think they can do it at all but in one year? Have you seen what they accomplished in the last year?

If by some miracle they did turn the game around they would have to massively cut the budget back after it happens because it's just cost them so much money. If you think anything else you haven't been paying attention to FFXI, which is still one of the most successful monthly sub MMOs out there...and they still scrimp us. Most companies would kill to have a playerbase the size of the XI one but they just take us for granted.

[Atomic_Skull]

It's not a remake if it's the same game played by the same players on the same platforms and there was no interruption of service. Overhaul, perhaps, but you can't brand it a remake as if it were say the DS remake of an old final fantasy game. There's a difference between a "remake" and an upgrade or overhaul.

They are replacing the entire graphics engine, all of the zones, the entire UI and all of the gameplay mechanics. It is an entirely new game that reuses the same textures and models. It is a completely different MMO with "FFXIV" slapped onto the title screen. They are even calling it a "reboot".

If that's not a remake then I don't know what is.

[Atomic_Skull]

Already named them. Read the thread.

The SWG overhaul was widely considered a failure. DDO and LOTR only got more players because they went FTP. And none of those games were as awful as FFXIV is now.

If you've already done 90% of the work on a project, you should just finish it. Even if it doesn't do well, some sales is better than zero sales and throwing everything you invested out the window.

They haven't done 90% of the work though. They are basic starting over again from the ground up. Best case they are 50% done, but probably more like 35-40%. You should not let a failing project get to the 90% mark in the first place.

Valve and Blizzard have both dropped projects partway though because they weren't working out. There is a common factor between these two companies, they both produce consistently good, successful games. If you have a project that is failing throwing good money after bad is not wise.

[Vold]

They have a finish date for the end of 2012/2013. THEY ARE NOT CLOSE TO BEING DONE WITH FFXIV. They are basically rebooting it from the ground up AGAIN. They don't seem to have a problem with abandoning FFXI before it's population even started to dwindle. I don't think it's inconceivable for them to abandon FFXIV half way through. Give that game frickin extremely small dev crews and focus on 11, not the other way around.

Bottom line you don't make sequels to MMOs. They never do well unless it's one of the free ones. And while we can argue until we're blue in the face about how 14 was not a sequel to 11, that's exactly how people view it. 14 only had a shot because of the promise. A FFXI without PS2 limits. Fresh start for SE. People were hopeful. The ball got dropped. I'm sure PS3 will pull in some more JP support in the end but as far as NA goes the game is toast.

[Saefinn]

Whilst a vamped up FFXI would be nice, all you're really doing is reselling an existing product and yes remakes do sell, I mean I've got Final Fantasy I, II & III and Monkey Island 1 & 2 (also on my Xbox 360) on my iPod and I'm looking forward to the remake of Abe's Oddysee. I've also bought some old games off of Steam too. But it's all pretty much nostalgia for me and I'm not paying a montly subscription to play them and heck remakes and rereleases are cheap to buy.

A remake of an MMORPG would be a big risk because an MMORPG isn't the same as every other game as it's an ongoing subscription and people spend plenty of hours on an MMORPG, I reckon a portion of the current userbase they'd subscribe but they're already subscribed, but at the same time, the drop of console support would lose a number current subscribers, plus folk with below-par PC systems. FFXIV itself requires a powerful system.

FFXI 2.0 would have to be a lot of work too because of the current engine, it was built around the PS2's hardware...a decade ago and it horribly optimised and I suspect over the years different coders have touched it. The XBox 360 and PC versions are ports. But lets say they are able to do it or just use a different engine (and spend the time redoing everything) they'd have to make a lot of content - remoddelling and retexturing content to look more up to date. So it'd be time and money, perhaps more time and money than FFXIV 2.0 will take them.

SE of course would have to ask themselves: will it give us a return? Given the risk of losing a number of current subscribers, would it bring back players to fill the missing gap, attract new ones and increase the userbase? FFXI has been played and tried by many and people have played through the content and I suspect that'll have a huge factor to play. Does the current content have enough of a replay value for somebody to pay a monthly fee? Will a rerelease bring enough new players to make up for it?

Saying that, FFXIV 2.0 is a big risk too, but at least they've got FFXIV's content and all they need to do is build on top of it and improve the content and remarket it. The trouble will be convincing people who have already played it to play again and also to entice people away from the bad reviews, but then, a repackaged and remarketed FFXIV 2.0 could receive a new set of reviews praising it and giving it good publicity. A PS3 release will open up the market for more players as not everybody plays on a souped-up gaming power machine.

Of course, it could just be a flop. I'd hold out and see how good (or how bad) the end result is actually going to be. You never know, SE might actually do something to regain a little bit of their credibility. Saying that, SE thinks FFXIII-2 is a good idea.

[xbobx]

It would be stupid to invest that type of money in a 10 year old mmo also.

SE should have canceled ff14 a long time ago but their ego probably got in the way.

[Aikagi]

According to SE, FFXI has had more than 500k players at some point in its life. Amazingly quite a few years after its initial launch.
http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...opics_all.html

I think the joke at the time was to figure out how many of those were RMT, but you can't really make that call with any game.

It's no WoW, but then again... I don't think any game will beat that one any time soon.

I understand FFXI is old at this point, but old games do get some reworks. Ultima Online just celebrated its 14th birthday, and their devs are still developing content for it. This is with Mythic also having two other MMOs running at the same time along side it.

Everquest is still running, and looks like it gets updates of some kind twice a month. They're also on their 17th expansion, soon to be 18th in November (which apparently will raise their level cap and add 12 new zones, among other things). Pretty good for a game that came out in what? 1999?

I don't think FFXI will ever see a complete overhaul, but can we stop punching it in the face with the "You're too old!" line? If SE is smart they'll run both games, and develop for both. This is the best way to gain the most overall subscribers.

As far as FF14 goes... I'll wait until 2013 to see how it all pans out. I still enjoy XI, and will continue to play it for the time being.

[Byrth]

I think we would see a very substantial surge of players if they re-released FFXI. The Dev team has addressed many old problems with the game and the nostalgia value is very high. I don't think it would be a case where nostalgic players pick it up again for two weeks and go, "Oh man, now I remember why I quit!" and cancel their subscription. They'd get to level cap (99) in the new way, be able to do all the storylines with a small group of friends (2), and have fun in Abyssea. That's months of content, plus whatever new stuff they add.

Apart from the graphics re-work and stuff I mentioned above, the main thing that they need to do to make the game restart friendly is eliminate the skill up system. Just have people automatically cap skills whenever they hit the next level. XPing isn't an "event" in the game anymore really, so why should skilling up still be an event?