Classic server, what's the argument against it now?

[Seillan]

I find that hard to believe, considering it's perfectly legitimate and allowed on the real game.

I don't really get your reasoning here. Because the official servers do something a certain way, the unofficial servers are automatically presumed to do the same thing? Heck, the whole basis of starting most private servers is due to a certain demographic wanting the game to be different than what is offered on official servers. It's not exactly a stretch of the imagination for a no-boxing policy to be a part that. Project1999 is known for their strict policy on the subject, despite official EQ servers sporting box armies the likes of which I haven't seen elsewhere.

[Alhanelem]

poster above you gave a reaosnable explanation.

[nekroturkey]

Do you think that there are 3k+ people who'd really want to play on a classic server? and if there is, would they actually stay subscribed to the game for more than a month or 2, once the nostalgia is out of their system?

Yes, I believe that there are enough people to support a classic server. Look at all of the people willing to spend their own money to re-create the classic experience (do you know how much server infrastructure costs?) and the legions of people that join them. Look at the success of classic servers in other games.

There's no reason to believe that it wouldn't be successful, honestly.

[PlumbGame]

Yes, I believe that there are enough people to support a classic server. Look at all of the people willing to spend their own money to re-create the classic experience (do you know how much server infrastructure costs?) and the legions of people that join them. Look at the success of classic servers in other games.

There's no reason to believe that it wouldn't be successful, honestly.

Basically this.

I wouldn't believe this would be a smart move for SE if the population sizes of servers was vastly larger than it is is, but given not only that most the servers pops are significantly smaller than what I feel a classic server could hit, SE announced the game basically being done after November except minor patches that basically consist of QoL changes. I find no better opportunity than now to hopefully keep the game we all hold and love running. Maybe it's success would even open more opportunities for the current servers to thrive.

Is there a chance this doesn't succeed? Without a doubt there is a chance, but again, basing what we know off of other games that have done similar things, those servers have ALWAYS been successful, well what determines success, I don't know, but I do know this, they have been more successful than their counterparts that aren't classic servers.

[Alhanelem]

Yes, I believe that there are enough people to support a classic server. Look at all of the people willing to spend their own money to re-create the classic experience (do you know how much server infrastructure costs?) and the legions of people that join them. Look at the success of classic servers in other games.

There's no reason to believe that it wouldn't be successful, honestly.

Without actual statistics, i'm inclined to believe you're strongly overstating (legions? I don't think so) the popularity of these illicit servers. You're using weasel words (e.g. vague words that can mean whatever you want them to) to make the situation look better than it is.

The number of people playing the current game far exceeds those playing on illegal servers, and I've seen no evidence to the contrary. And unless you still need a legitimate account with a paid subscription to get on to these servers, I'd wager people are more likely to doing it to avoid paying sub fees rather than because they can get a 'classic' experience.

for the 40th time, other games making classic servers is not a guarantee that it would be beneficial to this game. "Not a guarantee" does not mean "definitely won't" or "definitely will." Only that the chance is not 100% as you're asserting. From my perspective "It worked for them so itt'l work for us" is not a compelling argument. You can't predict the future with perfect accuracy. Your data supports a possibility, but it guarantees nothing.

Prior to FFXIV, there were no online games that successfully reinvented themseleves without going free to play / freemium. SE proved them wrong and did it anyway. There were at least as many examples of games needing f2p to save themselves (DDO, rift, tera) as you have examples of games making classic servers, but then a game came along that didn't need to do it. Therefore, to me three examples (the number in your original post) of classic and/or progression servers is not enough to prove the concept is assured to benefit FFXI.

(Also, since your first post i've not seen you mention any other sources of data. Three sources isn't even enough for the typical essay or paper I would have written in colllege or high school)

[detlef]

Has anybody actually played on a private server? I'm wondering what kind of populations there really are and if people can actually devote enough play time to allow for at least a semi-robust group experience. I'm picturing a server with a hundred people who play maybe 15 hours a week and are never online at the same time or wanting to do the same thing at the same time. Am I completely off base or is this accurate?

[Alhanelem]

Has anybody actually played on a private server? I'm wondering what kind of populations there really are and if people can actually devote enough play time to allow for at least a semi-robust group experience. I'm picturing a server with a hundred people who play maybe 15 hours a week and are never online at the same time or wanting to do the same thing at the same time. Am I completely off base or is this accurate?

Your perception is the same is mine- I find it hard to believe any of these have a population sufficent enough to play when you want and be able to find someone who wants to do what you want to do. In all probability these servers are most on individual machines and not server clusters in a data center and can not support that many connections.

[machini]

Has anybody actually played on a private server? I'm wondering what kind of populations there really are and if people can actually devote enough play time to allow for at least a semi-robust group experience. I'm picturing a server with a hundred people who play maybe 15 hours a week and are never online at the same time or wanting to do the same thing at the same time. Am I completely off base or is this accurate?

There are no playable ones. There are some that let you do things like log in, run around, equip items, but none of them actually function -- JAs don't work, monsters don't have AI, etc, etc.

FFXI had nowhere near EverQuest's popularity at either games' primes. The EQ Emulator project has been going almost since the game came out, and one of the EQ Private Servers (the "classic" server) is now becoming an officially sanctioned thing.

I think a huge problem is that people don't understand what a "classic" server is. A "classic" server would be using POL and FFXI from the time period in question. It would be using loottables, spawn tables, mob AI, spell effects, WSes, etc, etc, etc, from the time in question. That data no longer exists.

Many companies that make MMOs have huge issues (as do most other game companies, oddly enough) with keeping backups and older versions archived somewhere. Since the idea of "classic" servers didn't exist back when EQ, or FFXI, came out, that data was not saved. The only way to get older versions of the EQ Client (not even talking about legitimately, talking about at all) is via boxed copies of the game. Somewhere I have a copy of EQ Trilogy, which is a copy of the game client with the base game and the first two expansion. So great! I have the classic version of the game, client and all, back when you had a tiny little window and we were still using the Quake engine. Awesome. Now what?

Nothing, that's what.

The server binaries, the databases of game information, probably even the source code for the servers of that time, don't exist anymore. And the amount of time it would take to recreate that when a good deal of the internal mechanics were not recorded, or the records of how they function were deleted, would be insane.

I don't know that half the people in this thread who are clamoring for a "classic" server have any idea what sort of work is involved in such a thing. Right now Squeenix is saying they're discontinuing development because the money isn't there to support it. Do you really think a classic server would bring in the dosh to support the amount of time that would go in to outright recreating the server and client software of the time? Do you have any idea how much time it would take to recreate databases of loot and mobs of the time? No, you don't, otherwise you wouldn't be asserting this is a doable thing.

And that's not what you want, anyway. One month of 75-cap where it takes a year to level a job, and hours to find a party, with no RUN or GEO, without half of the JAs and spells you've become accustomed to, where people will take rotating shifts holding land kings, where there is no fast travel, no mog sack, no porter moogle, no satchel, etc, etc, etc, after one month of that you'd unsubscribe while wailing that that's not what you wanted or asked for.

I played EQ starting the day it came out and quit with Luclin. I fully understand the "desire" for a classic server. Those were some of the most fun times I've had in a video game -- almost all entirely due to the community -- but I would not want to return to them. I can take off the rose tinted glasses and accept that 4 hour corpse runs, being unable to get a party as a hybrid class, some classes being absolutely worthless to the point no one wants to party with them or play them, no proper raid mechanics, etc, etc, were really unfun, and that the only thing that made them tolerable were the community. Someone helping you with a corpse run, whether it was a free teleport (and SoW, maybe), or helping you physically locate your corpse, or helping you by dragging it or clearing mobs: that made it tolerable. Sitting around and shooting the breeze for four hours at a single camp killing the same 3 monsters over and over again: that made it tolerable. That sense of newness in every zone you visited, every level you gained, spell you learned, piece of gear you wrested from the cold, dead hands of its previous mob owner: that was tolerable; doing it with a great community, with friends, is what made it fun.

You're not going to have that community. I am not going to ditch literal years of work to go back to 75 cap, especially if we don't have ToAU and Wings. I am not going to go back to 75 cap if I can't get 75 cap versions of my mythic back. I'm not going to go back for a lot of reasons, and other than the listed above, they all sum up as "I'm not going to throw away years of work and start over from scratch."

I really, really sympathize with you. I really, truly do. But sometimes what we want is not what we need, nor is what we get what we wanted. It is impossible, for practical reasons, and monetary reasons, for you to get your wish. If you truly want that, go learn C++ and lua and contribute to a project that will give you what you want. SE is not going to do it for you.

[nekroturkey]

I am not going to ditch literal years of work to go back to 75 cap, especially if we don't have ToAU and Wings. I am not going to go back to 75 cap if I can't get 75 cap versions of my mythic back. I'm not going to go back for a lot of reasons, and other than the listed above, they all sum up as "I'm not going to throw away years of work and start over from scratch."

Okay... then don't? Are you under the assumption that we're asking for all of the servers to be rolled back? Because that's the impression you're giving. In fact, most of the anti-classic server people here are giving me that impression.

If you enjoy the way the game currently plays, then keep playing on the main servers. Let the people who want a classic server play on the classic server. Everybody's happy. It's really that simple, or would the simple existence of a classic server bother you?

Historically speaking though, and as I've mentioned before, the game had more people playing during this game's golden era than it does now. A classic server has a lot of potential.

[Alhanelem]

FFXI had nowhere near EverQuest's popularity at either games' primes. The EQ Emulator project has been going almost since the game came out, and one of the EQ Private Servers (the "classic" server) is now becoming an officially sanctioned thing.

So the "classic server" as mentioned in the original thread for EQ wasn't actually created by the game's developers?
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If you enjoy the way the game currently plays, then keep playing on the main servers. Let the people who want a classic server play on the classic server. Everybody's happy. It's really that simple, or would the simple existence of a classic server bother you?

It's really not that simple. If the classic server is succesful, it will hurt the community of the main game, e.g. it will get harder to group (Becuase it already is). The classic servers is more likely to simply take a portion of the current playerbase away than it is to attract new players or bring old ones back.

If it fails, on the other hand, it will be seen as wasted resources. It would be very challenging to hit just the right spot where both can exist and both can be enjoyable. FFXI is smaller than the other games you've mentioned and it's already in a position where it can be challenging at times to form groups. Splitting the community would only make that even harder, no matter which side you're on. IMO FFXI is not big enough to support a variety of server types. Because of that I'd be sounding off against any such concepts- Not just classic servers, but other types like RP or PvP (even though I like PvP) or <insert server ruleset here>.

If FFXI was as big as WoW, I'd be a lot more reseptive to special servers with unique rulesets. But FFXI's population is really not able to support that.