Why Cant Final fantasy 11 get the same treatment?

[Mirage]

Xbox 360 only has DirectX 9, it does not have the DLLs for previous versions of DirectX. Microsoft saw no need to create 360 versions of those because nobody would ever need them.

Then maybe SE made a dx8->dx9 wrapper for it themselves

[Zagen]

Your just making things up. First off, you have no Idea what that costs to do.

Costs to upgrade from Vicious Engine 1 to 2 was at the time (4 years ago now) going to cost the company I was working for $35k not including the programmer time for them to learn the changes from 1 to 2, not including their time to learn how to upgrade the titles customized programming from VE1 to VE2. The estimate on the project wast at minimum $100k when accounting for the additional programming time as well as another 6 months which would have been 250k-300k from a missed milestone.

Keep in mind these are prices on a lower end costing public engine.

Second, ROI - I'm not sure that means what you think it does.

Return On Investment? Nah no clue because I haven't had to convince investors why X game design additions were worth the time and money they would take in addition to what was already planned or later explained which things could be cut without hurting their ROI.

We're talking about completely overhauling 2 games. Before the over haul, game 1 has 10 times the subscriber base of game 2. After the overhaul, we have 2 newly rebuilt games, game 2 has made 1/10 the profit of game 1 during the lengthy overhaul (if that), and now needs to increase sales ten fold to even come close to game 1. In order for game 2 to surpass the profits of game one and thus become the better return on investment, 2 things need to happen. Game 2 needs to A) maintain its new 300k player base for at least 2 years, and B) game 1 needs to fail entirely in those 2 years. Game 2 then needs to survive longer than game 1 would have given the same opportunity. Just looking at that you see that game 2 possesses limited potential for ROI.

Upgrading the Graphics Engine and Server program upgrades do not equal a complete overhaul. Still missing the AI and core engine at the very least (assuming the AI isn't being handled by the core engine itself in FFXIV).

[Sesh]

If XI has 300,000 active subscribing accounts that means we're feeding SE $46,800,000 a year give or take. XIV currently has about 30,000 active subscribing accounts which means XIV right now XIV is bringing in a big fat $0 for SE in its first year. (not including game sales etc cause we could just add abyssea and mini expansions etc blah blah)

Let's say SE overhauls both 11 and 14 and releases them in January 2012. Let's also say (for fun) each overhaul cost 100 million each which game would start to turn a profit first? Which game would be the better investment? Would new gamers automatically subscribe to XIV because it has a newer title if XI has the same graphics and quality? What would make 14 turn into a success story that it turns such a bigger profit than its older sibling.

This is my prediction that I really hope doesn't come true. SE will start charging for XIV later this year, something like half of its free subscribers will quit. Over the next two years the population of XIV may slowly rise, but it will be forgotten by anyone who is not Japanese because SE will not market outside of Japan. SE will continue to put extremely small amounts of effort and money towards FFXI, and the population will decline and rightfully so. In 2-3 years time both games will sit at around 100k subscribers until the day maybe 5 years down the line, SE finally realizes that we were right and they're a bunch of tools.

[Atomic_Skull]

If XI has 300,000 active subscribing accounts that means we're feeding SE $46,800,000 give or take. XIV currently has about 30,000 active subscribing accounts which means XIV right now XIV is bringing in a big fat $0 for SE in its first year. (not including game sales etc cause we could just add abyssea and mini expansions etc blah blah)

Let's say SE overhauls both 11 and 14 and releases them in January 2012. Let's also say (for fun) each overhaul cost 100 million each which game would start to turn a profit first? Which game would be the better investment? Would new gamers automatically subscribe to XIV because it has a newer title if XI has the same graphics and quality? What would make 14 turn into a success story that it turns such a bigger profit than its younger sibling.

This is my prediction that I really hope doesn't come true. SE will start charging for XIV later this year, something like half of its free subscribers will quit. Over the next two years the population of XIV may slowly rise, but it will be forgotten by anyone who is not Japanese because SE will not market outside of Japan. SE will continue to put extremely small amounts of effort and money towards FFXI, and the population will decline and rightfully so. In 2-3 years time both games will sit at around 100k subscribers until the day maybe 5 years down the line, SE finally realizes that we were right and they're a bunch of tools.

They're not going to do something that will encourage players to stay in FFXI rather than switch over to FFXIV.

The thing you have to understand is that SE wants FFXI to slowly fade away while everyone switches to FFXIV. They have taken an "all or nothing" stance on this. FFXIV must succeed at all costs and they are willing to risk everything to achieve this even if it means burning their MMO department to the ground in the event that the plan fails.

[Leonlionheart]

If XI has 300,000 active subscribing accounts that means we're feeding SE $46,800,000 give or take. XIV currently has about 30,000 active subscribing accounts which means XIV right now XIV is bringing in a big fat $0 for SE in its first year. (not including game sales etc cause we could just add abyssea and mini expansions etc blah blah)

Let's say SE overhauls both 11 and 14 and releases them in January 2012. Let's also say (for fun) each overhaul cost 100 million each which game would start to turn a profit first? Which game would be the better investment? Would new gamers automatically subscribe to XIV because it has a newer title if XI has the same graphics and quality? What would make 14 turn into a success story that it turns such a bigger profit than its younger sibling.

This is my prediction that I really hope doesn't come true. SE will start charging for XIV later this year, something like half of its free subscribers will quit. Over the next two years the population of XIV may slowly rise, but it will be forgotten by anyone who is not Japanese because SE will not market outside of Japan. SE will continue to put extremely small amounts of effort and money towards FFXI, and the population will decline and rightfully so. In 2-3 years time both games will sit at around 100k subscribers until the day maybe 5 years down the line, SE finally realizes that we were right and they're a bunch of tools.

Older sibling*

[Sesh]

They're not going to do something that will encourage players to stay in FFXI rather than switch over to FFXIV.

The thing you have to understand is that SE wants FFXI to slowly fade away while everyone switches to FFXIV. They have taken an "all or nothing" stance on this. FFXIV must succeed at all costs and they are willing to risk everything to achieve this even if it means burning their MMO department to the ground in the event that the plan fails.

I agree. This is why at very least we have to keep making threads like this to hope that SE realizes what a stupid plan that is.

Older sibling*

Ya meant that lol :P

[FrankReynolds]

Costs to upgrade from Vicious Engine 1 to 2 was at the time (4 years ago now) going to cost the company I was working for $35k not including the programmer time for them to learn the changes from 1 to 2, not including their time to learn how to upgrade the titles customized programming from VE1 to VE2. The estimate on the project wast at minimum $100k when accounting for the additional programming time as well as another 6 months which would have been 250k-300k from a missed milestone.

Keep in mind these are prices on a lower end costing public engine.

Even if the cost was $35 million, The return on FFXI would be better because it already brings in that much annually.

Return On Investment? Nah no clue because I haven't had to convince investors why X game design additions were worth the time and money they would take in addition to what was already planned or later explained which things could be cut without hurting their ROI.

See above.

Upgrading the Graphics Engine and Server program upgrades do not equal a complete overhaul. Still missing the AI and core engine at the very least (assuming the AI isn't being handled by the core engine itself in FFXIV).

Out of curiousity, were you the one who sold them on FFXIV's design? Because that would explain a lot.

[Zagen]

Even if the cost was $35 million, The return on FFXI would be better because it already brings in that much annually.

You're speaking as a gamer who is attached to FFXI, investors don't care about you personally or any of us past the money we pay to play. They don't care about how things are done just how long, how much it takes for them to get results, and how much the profits will be. This isn't how it should but it is.

Out of curiousity, were you the one who sold them on FFXIV's design? Because that would explain a lot.

LOL no.

[cidbahamut]

You're speaking as a gamer who is attached to FFXI, investors don't care about you personally or any of us past the money we pay to play. They don't care about how things are done just how long, how much it takes for them to get results, and how much the profits will be. This isn't how it should but it is.

If this were the case they would've written off FFXIV as a loss by now and moved on to other projects.

[Alhanelem]

Let's say SE overhauls both 11 and 14 and releases them in January 2012. Let's also say (for fun) each overhaul cost 100 million each which game would start to turn a profit first? Which game would be the better investment?

You're not making a proper comparison here. If both games revamped, which one would increase it's current income level by more? It's highly unlikely that a major revamp of FFXI is going to bring in a lot of new customers. FFXI has been around for a long time and is already very well known and still has a userbase above what the typical random start-up MMO achieves (which isn't very much when you consider the rising number of fail MMOs). Because FFXIV's current user base is relatively low, it has much more room to gain customer base with the proper improvements.

If this were the case they would've written off FFXIV as a loss by now and moved on to other projects.

The fact that they haven't tells me that they honestly feel they can succeed with the project. Of course, since this is an FFXI forum, nobody wants that to happen, but hey, fandom is a fickle thing.