Square-enix, I beg you.

[FrankReynolds]

oh yes. please drop your loyal paying ps2 costumers to make a few ppl happier. Just ditch em'

We're talking about a company who can't be bothered to hire even 1 guy in their Japanese support center who speaks anything besides Japanese, and has thereby screwed all the people who bought the game before NA release. They don't care. Hell, they may even hate you.

[Godofgods]

PS2 = Horse & Carriage on the freeway...

It wont be long till your saying the same thign about xbox 360. Hell even pong was once considered the greatest game in the world!

[Arcon]

It wont be long till your saying the same thign about xbox 360.

The game's evolution doesn't have that much planned, at all. The Xbox can easily store twice the game, both in disk space as well as RAM. That will do for at least 10 more years of FFXI. By which time it will be perfectly legit to complain about the 360 as well.

[Dsherman]

The PS2 HDD is no where near full when the only thing on it is FFXI. The HDD is made with 40Gig of capacity. It probably has 37 or 38Gig of free space available right after a reformat with NOTHING installed.

And with a full copy of FFXI installed, it still has WELL OVER HALF of that free space still available. Like 24gig of free space on my PS2.

The problem is that FFXI apparently has to be confined to an allocated block of space that is only 8 gig in size. And that 8 gig block is what got full for some customers last December due to an error made by someone at SE in the preliminary update that was made available on November 30, 2010 to prepare for the main update on December 6, 2010.

There was no server downtime on November 30. Anyone that just left themselves connected to the game over the entire span from November 30 to December 6, as well as anyone that never made an attempt to start the game in that time frame did not get the November 30 update.

It is my belief that anyone that did not get the November 30 update before the December 6 update did not have a problem with the December 6 update. Anyone who did get that November 30 update had a problem with HDD being reported full when they attempted to do the December 6 update. For people that got this error, the only way to get rid of the error that had been downloaded in that November 30 update was a clean install of the entire game.

I do believe there is still plenty of space available in that 8gig block of space for new things. Plus they changed the download process a bit so that there is even more room for new things to download successfully.

I believe there is a separate block of space on the HDD for the PlayOnline Viewer (and also for Tetra Master). If you use the PS2 Browser function to delete any of those things on the page used to start the PlayOnline Viewer from the HDD, you are deleting that block of space. That way the PS2 itself does not need to track any other files used for FFXI. They are all stored in that block.

I also believe that SE can not just simply increase the maximum size of that block without help from Sony. And Sony may not be willing to do it any more since the PS2 is nearing the end of its life as far as Sony is concerned. And even worse, Sony hasn't made a unit that could install and run FFXI on HDD in over 4 years. (the last PS3 with PS2 backward compatibility)

Even so, I am still under the impression that there is still quite enough space in that 8gig for SE to add expansion data and so on if they wanted to. But with the PS2 nearing the end of its life as far as Sony is concerned, issuing a new title for PS2 (an expansion disc) is probably being blocked or very strongly discouraged by Sony.

It's probably more the lack of support from Sony for a new title (an expansion disc) than it is the lack of support from Sony to make that 8gig block bigger that keeps SE from doing a full expansion. However, they can do it with downloads of add-on data such as they did with the Abyssea areas.

I really do believe that FFXIV is the path that SE chose to satisfy the demands to get rid of PS2 limitations. It would take enough work to almost write an entirely new game to re-make FFXI without all those limitations done for the PS2 on just about everything on the servers. And that is what FFXIV is... an entirely new game.

Yes, they blew it badly on the initial release of FFXIV, but they are trying to fix it to make a really terrific game for everyone without all those limits that are all over the place in FFXI because of FFXI being written for the PS2. Dropping support for the PS2 will not remove those limits. But it would remove a noticeable count of customers from the game (mostly Japanese, but there are others). So I can't say I blame them for going this course with FFXIV.

[Lumiya]

Thank you Dsherman, extremely well put and to the best of my knowledge accurate as well. You do PS2 players a great service.

[Ritsuka]

I've tryed honestly to update my ps2's hard drive but i dontk now how too. Please let us know how cuz everything you place a HDD that isnt from sony the ps2 doesnt see it. So how do you make a ps2 see another hard drive that isnt form sony? I know the HD loader see's other hard drives and I've used it but you put in the disk that suppose to format the hard drive it says there's no hdd. Sony did something so the ps2 wouldnt use any hard drive gotta use there's So its not SE's fault its sony's realy.

[Glacont]

Dear SE, please ignore this thread, for some us actually do still play FFXI on the PS2, like myself. I understand your issue HealingWind93, but I honestly think dropping some of their customers for the sake of a few would be a bad thing. If you and your friends are wanting to quit the game or go find a new game simply due to a lack of expansions, why should loyal PS2 customers who plan to stay and play regardless of additional content suffer for it?

We're talking about a game over a decade old now, that has been repeatedly talked about just being cycled out, and that HAS slowly been condensing and has shown obvious signs of mellowing. This is not the time to try and drop PS2 support. What's left of the fan base are people who have mostly been playing for years, and the game is not and hasn't been trying to really bring in a new crowd. I could understand if this game was still in the early years, but it is quite far from that.

I suggest if you want new content that bad to try out FFXIV, a lot of effort is being put into that game and it isn't as limited due to only having a PC release as it stands and a PS3 release that is constantly pushed back. SE has given you an option to play a FF MMO without having to 'suffer' us PS2 users, so I would appreciate it if you don't try to prevent myself and others from being able to play a game we enjoy.

You are so On Point. Thank You

[Arcon]

You are so On Point. Thank You

On point of his own opinion? Kudos to them. I still disagree, and so do most people on here.

[Spiritreaver]

Oh, I know that. This game has terrible coding. I just wish they would drop ps2 so the can add new content like an new expansion or something. The PS2 HDD has been an issue for so long and if they dropped it then they could add some "New" stuff and not just changes to old content.

From a pretty logical standpoint(and with the knowledge that i have FFXI on 3 platforms), i have a question and maybe can you answer it for me OP: What effect would dropping PS2 support actually have?

I just been meaning to ask this question again for a while now and you get the duty of answering.

From what i remember of FFXI's history, the game was originally coded for both PS2 and PC with PS2 getting the game first. So even if the PS2 was dropped, wouldn't SE essentially have to rewrite a bunch of code for anything to actually change? Just wondering here.

I mean do you really think that right now SE would even consider essentially remaking XI while they are still pulling an Ahab chasing a way to salvage XIV?

[Glacont]

On point of his own opinion? Kudos to them. I still disagree, and so do most people on here.

Does not matter if you're against. The situation that we're in, PS2 Gamers still playing, remains unchange. No need to reply. Our conversation is closed.