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

[Bluestar2kx]

Virtually 0%? This is total supposition, backed by your own personal feelings. I respect your opinion, but I'm going to need evidence to support what you're saying.

Then why is every MMO under the sun copying Warcraft? FFXIV included. Square have shown that they're willing to copycat things that are successful.

It's not quite 0%, but it is very small.
Most of the people a classic 75 era server would entice back is the old vets who left years ago due to aby. And they likely wouldn't stay very long because half left that age because they were bored, the other half left because they were bored and didn't like how aby changed things, and the new CoD crowd that was trying the game, granted, you can't get away from those people, they're a dime a dozen on the net now, and they don't care about you or what you need or the alliance, their out for themselves, that would be FFXI's influx group, and getting 18-32 people to cooperate was hard back then, imagine doing it with a few dozen entitled every wo(man) for themselves attitude gamers have these days?

The odds of having any sort of new player influx are extremely low, you might get some players, a few thousand at first, trickling down to few hundred maybe over 6 months on such a server, but nothing that could sustain such a server for long. The reason being several parts (in addition to the above), 1: the engine. Most of the complaints I hear from people who've not tried XI or thought about it but decided against it, are over the graphics being too dated to play, part of why XIV has such a big emphasis on beauty, but lacks in so many other areas I bet my fellows here could help me write a book about it.

2: MMO's are dying. They partly because old ones are running their course due to lack of interest by new and old players, they've been out so long that only the die hard fans still play consistently with but a few new players. But the biggest reason is your last point: "Every MMO under the sun is copying WoW." And if you notice, 90% of the games that do are effectively failures, they go F2P within a year, and effectively die within 2years, because they're nothing new, they're the same rehashes and their too easy, there's no investment in these MMO's at all, no reason to stay, so players don't, this is why WoW dropped 3m subs just after an expansion pack.

But the additional problem is, except korean mmo's there's nothing in the western portfolio that has that sort of value, esp long term, so MMO's are dying across the board as players become less and less interested in them. This same problem is starting to crop up in mainstream gaming too. Mobile games are struggling to hold players, AAA titles are slowly declining from most of the major houses with but few exceptions, because their all the same thing, and they all lack a reward for time investment (or don't have time investment at all) why do you think tougher games are starting to get more attention? Even korean MMO's are starting to get more attention then their western counterparts. I know many XIV players are they say the same as we hear in every other modern MMO: There's nothing to do, there's nothing worth staying for.

Nothing lasts forever, esp in the MMO world.

3: MMO's put so much focus into the easy fast grind that WoW taught us and that favors the rapid risers in order to keep them interested, that they've forgotten their main income comes from those who are average or casual players, and there's nothing for them. The rapid risers to cap are always done in a few months, partly because the way up is so easy and simple, and partly because they like it, but they make up a small portion of the average player base of an MMO. Average players and more casual players make up the bulk, but they have so little to do but level because there's nothing to do other then that because the game caters to those who hit cap in a couple weeks.

True FFXI is one of those games, as are several others such as EQ, that have survived the ages, but as I said, it's aging, and due to it's original design, SE can't keep it updating as is for much longer without going back and re-writing half the game, which would cost a lot more then it takes to run it, and likely would increase those costs afterwards that the game isn't able to bring in, or isn't likely to bring in even with a new influx of players, because getting the word out would require a marketing campaign and those costs millions more on top of rebuilding the game even if they used XIV's engine and worked it up for FFXI.

A campaign to upgrade FFXI like that would need to bring subs up to around 500-600k+ to get SE to be willing to put in the money (likely closer to a million), and nobody can promise, or expect, even a 1/4th of that, because there's just not enough players left with interest in MMO's, and esp not old ones with a face lift. True, a classic server might entice some people if XI got updated, but you'd again have the old problem of: Losing so much content, and could FFXI's extreme grind from the old days push people away again? MMO's these days can't swing to far one way of the other, towards extreme grind, nor towards very easy, it requires a balance, one FFXI is about as close to as we can get, only now. If you take that away, you run back into the same problem that started all of this years ago.

i just don't see a classic server working.
Maybe it works fine for those private groups, who can be more particular about who's in the game then SE can, but the odds of it working large scale on public servers, are very small, as is the long term interest group. I would give it, at most, 3 months before the classic server started to fail on itself, and that's not really enough to warrant the expense. This thread is up to 17 pages, and I'd bet most of it is the same small group of people arguing, which lends credit to this not being a good idea.

The only way to truly determine interest is a poll SE sends through our account emails for all FFXI account holders, and see what happens.
But I can't foresee that giving results interested groups here are seeking, and certainly not enough to give SE pause.

[Ethereal]

Why are you against the idea? Players have a choice. This is getting redundant as you never seem to get that part. Plus no offence but from past encounters I have seen in threads with you involved, you bash every idea you don't agree with like you are preaching against the Devil itself.

Plus like I said there is interest in this, I should just copy and paste this sentence to every response.

Also comparing the mobile game to FFXI is like comparing apples and oranges. They ARE not the same game, not even close.

If Alhanelem agrees with a post, it is very rare you'll see a comment. Only when he disagrees with someone's opinion, he'll post....which is 99% of the time lmao.

[Tidis]

If there's enough of you who want to do 75 content at level 75 you realise you can right? Whether you have to start new characters or delevel your old ones, you can hit 75 and change to limit mode, that way you'll never level up past 75. Sure some content has been changed, you won't be able to do old school dynamis but Limbus, Sea, Sky, Einherjar are all the same.

[Shirai]

I've opted them to do that before, the counter argument is a valid one too though.
Partially you are excluding yourself from the rest of the "world" with that, and as you say yourself, there are things that are going to be largely different from how they were before.
One example is the challenge of the level capped CoP missions.
(I'd say the Dynamis thing is an improvement though, the content itself is still beatable by level 75 players, including the Dynamis lord.)

But it may still be the best option because in all fairness, there won't be a classic server. It's not going to happen.
Especially not one which also has a lot of the positive changes that have been brought to the game like the extra inventory, equipsets, macro books, home points, and I just started to name a few.

[Ethereal]

The original players that were into the hardcore 75 content back in the days, myself included...grew older, life changed, more responsibilities etc etc. We're not in our teens anymore (now ~30+). Even if the 75 grinding content days came back, I'd guess that it would last for a short time for most and then fade. A lot of us just don't have the time that we used to. The lucky ones might lol.

I would personally like the option to have an official 75 content server, just because more options is always better, but that's doubtful.

A growing playerbase is what is needed to keep a game alive because old players fade away over time. But there is not a substantial amount of new players coming in. Unfortunately I think the FFXI ship sailed, and honestly I blame the lack of marketing and innovation. They didn't get the word out there enough like WoW. New younger kids don't know of this game or anything about it at all, so why would they ask mom or dad to sign up?

All I can honestly see them doing is throwing us a bone and keeping it running for those that still care to play (which is what they're doing). Hopefully they will spend the $ and remaster the game and market it correctly for the new players. I would very much like to see Vana'diel continue strong even if I don't have the time to run with it.

[Idleness]

Unfortunately I think the FFXI ship sailed, and honestly I blame the lack of marketing and innovation.

Why blame? This game stands as one of the most successful MMOs of all time. Very few of its contemporaries are still running, those that are have largely gone F2P/P2W. It's certainly the most profitable FF ever made.

It's been 13 years, that's incredible. But at a certain point we will all have to let it go, gracefully. As a side note, a lot of older MMOs enjoy a certain amount of activity on, shall we say, less then entirely authorised servers. SWG pre-CU is still going, I believe.

[bazookatooth]

I'm just imagining what fun people would have with all the exploits that have been patched since 75. Think of all the old shifty stuff that people have done over the years that would be possible again on a classic server. salvage duping, position hacks, claim bots, fishing bots, speed hacks, NM pinning, MPKs... the list goes on. Nefarious individuals and RMT would have a field day with it.

[Alhanelem]

Why are you against the idea? Players have a choice. This is getting redundant as you never seem to get that part. Plus no offence but from past encounters I have seen in threads with you involved, you bash every idea you don't agree with like you are preaching against the Devil itself.

Plus like I said there is interest in this, I should just copy and paste this sentence to every response.

Also comparing the mobile game to FFXI is like comparing apples and oranges. They ARE not the same game, not even close.

Perhaps I need to copy and paste this in every response because apparently the reasons don't get read
1) If work began right now, it would take resources away from remaining development time on the current version.
2) Whether or not it happened as soon as possible, it would divide the community, damaging the ability of either group of players to fully enjoy the game due to the game's comparatively small population.
3) A progression server makes a little more sense than a "classic server" as described. Being frozen in time with a more limited selection of content is only going to mean people will play for a while, get bored, and quit again, making it effectively not worth it (little more than a nostalgia trip), whereas a progression server would last longer due to the full range of content and areas still being playable. Because of this, the time and money spent to implement the classic server would be wasted
4)As a player of the current game and my view of how it would damage my ability to play it, I simply do not want to see the "classic server" exist. because I'm not interested in the classic server. It would not be the same as literally going back in time to when the game was the most popular, because we've already been through the content before. We have fond memories of the past, but creating a server in the past is not going to restore those experiences the way people think they would.
5) I have perfectly reasonable reasons not to like the idea. You're totally welcome to disagree and that's fine. But attacking me for my opinion like i must be crazy for not liking it is not acceptable or reasonable.

Further, the supporting arguments are flawed and based on a very limited amount of past performance information (essentially "it's guaranteed to work because three other games did not really the same thing and one of them wasn't even developed by them, it was just allowed to exist!"), basically just saying because a couple other games did it, it's guaranteed to work for this game and SE is stupid not to see it.

Also, the mobile game (NOT grandmasters, the other thing) IS going to be close to the same thing. It will be seperate with an interface adapted for mobile but the content more or less the same.

This is also rubbish, except maybe the item stats and descriptions bit.

Your branding something "rubbish" doesn't make it somehow false.

Unfortunately I think the FFXI ship sailed, and honestly I blame the lack of marketing and innovation.

While I disagree about the innovation part, I completely agree that FFXI's biggest failiure was poor marketing.

[Alhanelem]

If Alhanelem agrees with a post, it is very rare you'll see a comment. Only when he disagrees with someone's opinion, he'll post....which is 99% of the time lmao.

The same is true of almost everyone, so why are you name dropping me? If people like a post, they generally click the "Like" button and that's it. Because that's what it's for. There is no dislike button, so if you dislike something the only way is to say so in the thread. When people agree, there isn't a lot of discussion, because well, nobody needs to be convinced of anything, everyone's on the same page agreeing, so what is there to talk about?

I have liked and supported many ideas and suggestions over the years- Ordinarily this means a simple "I support this and think it's a great idea' and that's it, or simply liking the post and moving on. Only noticing the disagreements I make does not make that less true. I'm getting really sick of being picked on just because I post a lot.

[Isal]

If this thread was meant to be a plea, it was poorly titled. It begs a question, and regardless of how well or which side they're on, people are answering. This thread is getting what its title asked for, spot on. The title doesn't say "Classic server, what's the argument against it (that I'd agree/be satisfied with) now? So naturally, the thread's going to draw in arguments from both sides, likely most from the "against" side, given that's also a part of the angle of the thread's title. Complaining that people are trying to shoot down your plea in this thread is like saying "Come at me, bro!" and then whining that people are approaching you in a less than friendly manner.

Personally, I agree with the assessment Bluestar2kx has made about MMOs in general. It made me realize that I would rather see SE put time into a new MMO (naturally, after XIV has had its heyday, I highly doubt SE considers their "flagship" to have completely "sailed" just yet) that revisits Vana'diel. Something built from the ground up on a new engine with no issues of PS2 dev kits or dated graphics, and hopefully with a gameplay formula that finds a middle-ground between today's (and XIV's) WoW clones and the more involved, indepth gameplay of "yore". More emphasis on the open world, instances only where necessary rather than the theme-park standard. Dying means spending 3-5 minutes to run back from the nearest homepoint (assuming you didn't forget to tag said homepoint first!)

Yeah, I play Final Fantasy XIV as well, but I've found that I'm only interested in the main story, and that once I'm caught up with that, all the side quests and dungeon grinds to get stronger gear for running those same dungeons a few seconds quicker can take a hike (personally). I could go on but it'd be a bit off topic.

I guess my argument against a classic server is simply that I'd personally rather see effort and time go into a spruced up, new iteration of Final Fantasy XI with the aim to recapture the better parts of what it used to be.