Expanding Inventory Space

[Nebo]

More or less not possible without first gutting something else from either the UI or elsewhere in the client's code to free the additional resources needed for the increased placeholders and such. It's a holdover from legacy code that SE still wants to maintain across all clients.

It would not be possible unless SE started spending the money that we pay them for the service on....developing the service.

You won't see that.

At this stage, you are more likely to see further cutting of costs and funneling resources toward developing new products. (*COUGH FFXIV: ARR)

FFXI are dying or are SE putting a bullet in its head so they can afford to feed their new red headed step child?

News at 11.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

FFXI are dying or are SE putting a bullet in its head so they can afford to feed their new red headed step child?

I know it looks that way short-term, but I think they're trying to take a longer view and emulate SOE's example of being a central hub of multiple vibrant MMO's (for varying definitions of "vibrant").

Sure, we've seen Fantasy Earth: Zero sold off and TetraMaster shut down entirely, but most people reading this never played those games. In the meantime, we've also seen the introduction of S-E Accounts and Crysta, two mechanisms that seem intended for handling multiple MMO subscriptions specifically. POL accounts were designed for "online gaming" in general, to be S-E's answer to Xbox Live (if you can wrap your head around that), but now S-E seems to be focused on subscription-based MMO's as a business model.

Think about it: even if S-E did shut down FFXI, they still have two flagship MMOs they want to run simultaneously: FFXIV and DQX. Those are two games they will not cannibalize for the sake of the other.

Hell, they created this forum.

Granted, XI has seen its high-water mark. As an older game, there are diminishing returns for money spent developing it. The playerbase is fueled mostly by prior emotional investment at this point. But it's still profitable enough to put into station-keeping in the long-term, much like EverQuest. We'll never see another Chains of Promathia, but that doesn't mean no more expansion packs at all, just that they won't meet that high standard.

The best may be behind us, but I think so is the worst. All that remains is to see what the new normal looks like come March 26.

[RAIST]

It would not be possible unless SE started spending the money that we pay them for the service on....developing the service.

You won't see that.

At this stage, you are more likely to see further cutting of costs and funneling resources toward developing new products. (*COUGH FFXIV: ARR)

FFXI are dying or are SE putting a bullet in its head so they can afford to feed their new red headed step child?

News at 11.

Actually, it's a design issue that dates back to the turn of the century. A "hard" resource limitation that SE is still determined to keep across all clients, even though it technically only affects one platform that is slowly phasing out through attrition in most regions.

Until that situation resolves itself somehow to allow the other clients to exceed that resource limit....81+ per container is not gonna happen.