I'm curious

[Mirage]

Well correct me if I'm wrong, but I was of the impression that the allocated disk space per game could be chnaged by using one of those few servers Sony still keeps online. It would probably require a reinstall of the game, though.

[Tagrineth]

I suspect SE might have a little surprise in store for us when DX8 support falls, since they know they can't leave the PC version in Legacy Limbo for long before the playerbase starts vanishing.

With regard to dropping PS2 support, in general, what I'd expect to see if PS2 support was discontinued would be some new gear models, a radical expansion of the auto-translator (even the 360 has 16 times the RAM of the PS2), probably higher-resolution versions of most 2D graphics (some spell and JA animations are 2D objects, for example, and of course buff icons).

Also seems possible that a redone DX9+ engine might introduce other graphical benefits, like a better frame rate, but the above seems most likely.

[MojoJojo]

Maybe i'm just a negative nancy, but i think people are fooling themselves about things happening if SE ever decided to drop the ps2. Things will stay the same, only the "skeleton crew dev team" will have one less thing to screw around with.

[Vold]

Only way we'd ever see our dreams for this game to come true would be for the PS2 to be dropped or put on it's own server, code reworked from the ground up, and a much larger dev crew. Chances of all three of those miracles happening are slim. Not impossible, just improbable. At this point in the game's life the chances of that are even less. Shrug. I stay hopeful because the day I stop being hopeful is the day I might as well hang up the boots. But deep down I know the deal. I knew the deal the moment SE announced Rapture FFXIV, and then the interviews that followed where they admit to choosing a new game over upgrading FFXI graphics and such. SE is content with how things are. It's a travesty for this game but that's just how it is, I guess.

[Arkant]

I would like to see this game last longer, i don't wanna see it run into a wall cause SE is too lazy or cheap to hire a full dev team to keep the game going, I couldn't care less if they are pinning all their hopes on FFXIV, it ain't FFXI and it never will be... I have yet to see one person oppose the idea of dropping ps2 support...

[Mirage]

You can't have looked too hard, then.

[Atomic_Skull]

I knew the deal the moment SE announced Rapture FFXIV, and then the interviews that followed where they admit to choosing a new game over upgrading FFXI graphics and such. SE is content with how things are. It's a travesty for this game but that's just how it is, I guess.

Yep SE has basically taken an "all or nothing" approach with FFXIV. There is no Plan B for what happens if they can't get FFXI players to switch. They'd rather burn down the whole MMO division trying to make FFXIV work.

[CrAZYVIC]

What is possible for this game if they removed PS2 Support... Is it only the PS2 holding it back, or is there out dated code doing it? Could we see better graphics or whole new continents? Does anyone really know?

I lose my hopes with this, because FFXI have a very short dev team at the moment. I dont think they can make a graphic update with the actual number of people working in FFXI

Read this

riginally Posted by Hiromichi_Tanaka
Hello!

All I can say is that this is simply a difference in operational policies.

For FFXI, forum operation policy wise, we arranged it so that basically the community team answers and posts.

Compared to FFXIV, FFXI is currently being developed by an extremely small amount of people and because of this each team member’s work load is extremely high. Due to this, in order to prevent imbalances in responses on the forum due to individual developer answers, the community team looks over every thread and picks up on the high priority topics to report to the development team.

Actually, internally we operate a closed forum in exactly the same format as the forum you use and community reps create threads for us internally with the topics they have picked up on. The developers, QA team, community team, and other related personnel are then able to check it out and we can discuss the issues internally. Following this, after getting confirmation from the lead developer, a draft is put together and is then checked by the producer, director, and assistant director, then once the green light is given, the community team makes the response after a consensus has been reached.

Due to this kind of operational structure, depending on the development conditions, sometimes responses can be delayed a bit. However, we are currently operating so that we can relay information to you from the whole team.

Nonetheless, I think we are holding back a little bit too much, myself included, so in the future we will all try our best to unabashedly make some posts. Of course, these responses will reflect the consensus of the entire team as well.

P.S. Everyone makes sure to check Mocchi’s jokes.

[Economizer]

What is possible for this game if they removed PS2 Support... Is it only the PS2 holding it back, or is there out dated code doing it? Could we see better graphics or whole new continents? Does anyone really know?

While the PS2 isn't the main thing holding FFXI back (SE's stubbornness in not updating FFXI gradually over time for example), it is the major thing holding FFXI back, in both hardware and more importantly, symbolism.

The PS2 is currently more of a symbol of what SE desires for this game. When SE desires for this game to have long term survival over focusing on a probably unsavable game like FFXIV, the PS2 will be the first thing to go, even if it is gradually with a well thought out depreciation plan.

Personally, I think SE should announce that FFXIV will be made into a single player game, and develop it. Players who paid for FFXIV will get the game's single player version, and a year subscription or something like that for FFXI. Then they should announce that FFXI will be updated, mainly in content over a long period. This would happen over the course of a few expansions, and the first one would not be available for the PS2, but the game would still support the PS2 for a while. After a year or two of transition, the next expansion would come out, and the PS2 would be out the door.

On the hardware side, the PS2 holds the game back in two major ways, and a third lesser way.

1. Hard Drive space.
2. RAM
3. Graphical Processing Power

If we had more hard drive space, we could definitely have a new expansion with a new continent. At the current time, doing this would take a lot of work, but with more hard drive space, this would be more possible. On the hard drive front, the Xbox 360 version and possibly the PC version also have risks in this regard, since some 360 users may be on a 20GB hard drive (and would either need to upgrade or lose the hard drive to FFXI only, and even then this would only be temporary), and some PC users may have limited space (easier to upgrade however).

On the RAM front, eliminating the PS2 would bring definite gains, but unless we plan on upgrading the graphics (which would require a bigger revamp of code and definitely more hard drive space) universally, it would mainly be a way to add more gear, items, have more NPCs and objects in zones, and have more auto translate phrases. On the graphics front however, SE could just release a high definition pack for PC users only if they really wanted to, but even this might require some major coding work.

On the graphical front, unless improved graphics were optional, this might alienate some lower end PCs and make the game harder to run so smoothly on older hardware. Personally, I think that graphics are the least important part of moving this game forward, but it is an option some people may want. Still, this would require the most coding work - I'm not looking for a new game, just new expansions, and maybe for PC users, a high resolution texture pack.

[Arkant]

While the PS2 isn't the main thing holding FFXI back (SE's stubbornness in not updating FFXI gradually over time for example), it is the major thing holding FFXI back, in both hardware and more importantly, symbolism.

The PS2 is currently more of a symbol of what SE desires for this game. When SE desires for this game to have long term survival over focusing on a probably unsavable game like FFXIV, the PS2 will be the first thing to go, even if it is gradually with a well thought out depreciation plan.

Personally, I think SE should announce that FFXIV will be made into a single player game, and develop it. Players who paid for FFXIV will get the game's single player version, and a year subscription or something like that for FFXI. Then they should announce that FFXI will be updated, mainly in content over a long period. This would happen over the course of a few expansions, and the first one would not be available for the PS2, but the game would still support the PS2 for a while. After a year or two of transition, the next expansion would come out, and the PS2 would be out the door.

On the hardware side, the PS2 holds the game back in two major ways, and a third lesser way.

1. Hard Drive space.
2. RAM
3. Graphical Processing Power

If we had more hard drive space, we could definitely have a new expansion with a new continent. At the current time, doing this would take a lot of work, but with more hard drive space, this would be more possible. On the hard drive front, the Xbox 360 version and possibly the PC version also have risks in this regard, since some 360 users may be on a 20GB hard drive (and would either need to upgrade or lose the hard drive to FFXI only, and even then this would only be temporary), and some PC users may have limited space (easier to upgrade however).

On the RAM front, eliminating the PS2 would bring definite gains, but unless we plan on upgrading the graphics (which would require a bigger revamp of code and definitely more hard drive space) universally, it would mainly be a way to add more gear, items, have more NPCs and objects in zones, and have more auto translate phrases. On the graphics front however, SE could just release a high definition pack for PC users only if they really wanted to, but even this might require some major coding work.

On the graphical front, unless improved graphics were optional, this might alienate some lower end PCs and make the game harder to run so smoothly on older hardware. Personally, I think that graphics are the least important part of moving this game forward, but it is an option some people may want. Still, this would require the most coding work - I'm not looking for a new game, just new expansions, and maybe for PC users, a high resolution texture pack.

That is very detailed

...

I'm not overly fussed about a graphical upgrade to the game, i just want more content that isn't rehashed zones. I wanna keep playing FFXI, I have loved the game since i started in 2004 and i don't wanna give it up...