Final Fantasy XI 2.0

**Aikagi** · 10-17-2011 10:30 PM

According to SE, FFXI has had more than 500k players at some point in its life. Amazingly quite a few years after its initial launch.
http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...opics_all.html

I think the joke at the time was to figure out how many of those were RMT, but you can't really make that call with any game.

It's no WoW, but then again... I don't think any game will beat that one any time soon.

I understand FFXI is old at this point, but old games do get some reworks. Ultima Online just celebrated its 14th birthday, and their devs are still developing content for it. This is with Mythic also having two other MMOs running at the same time along side it.

Everquest is still running, and looks like it gets updates of some kind twice a month. They're also on their 17th expansion, soon to be 18th in November (which apparently will raise their level cap and add 12 new zones, among other things). Pretty good for a game that came out in what? 1999?

I don't think FFXI will ever see a complete overhaul, but can we stop punching it in the face with the "You're too old!" line? If SE is smart they'll run both games, and develop for both. This is the best way to gain the most overall subscribers.

As far as FF14 goes... I'll wait until 2013 to see how it all pans out. I still enjoy XI, and will continue to play it for the time being.

**Byrth** · 10-17-2011 10:44 PM

I think we would see a very substantial surge of players if they re-released FFXI. The Dev team has addressed many old problems with the game and the nostalgia value is very high. I don't think it would be a case where nostalgic players pick it up again for two weeks and go, "Oh man, now I remember why I quit!" and cancel their subscription. They'd get to level cap (99) in the new way, be able to do all the storylines with a small group of friends (2), and have fun in Abyssea. That's months of content, plus whatever new stuff they add.

Apart from the graphics re-work and stuff I mentioned above, the main thing that they need to do to make the game restart friendly is eliminate the skill up system. Just have people automatically cap skills whenever they hit the next level. XPing isn't an "event" in the game anymore really, so why should skilling up still be an event?

**Chamaan** · 10-18-2011 12:29 AM

An FFXI 2.0 overhaul would mean the decision to cut out PS2 support, which shoots down the "XI but with prettier graphics" argument. They can afford to redo the entire engine for 14 because they're not currently hampered by a console's limited hardware configuration. Dropping PS2 means they can give us new expansions completely built around level 75-99 content. New places to visit and explore that can lure people back. A new engine could give us more than 80 max inventory spaces in each sack.

I'm beating the oldest drum in the game by pointing the finger at PS2 users, but it's an old drum because it's the most obvious problem.

**MarkovChain** · 10-18-2011 01:24 AM

FFXIV is being rebuild from scratch, it's only keeping the name. All the maps are going to be changed. If you ever played FFXIV after or during beta, everything was laggy due to structural issues, from selling to NPC to using commands during a fight or just walking. They said they rebuild the UI from scratch, as well as the entire video engine and .. the server. The current storyline will also be lost from what I understand (though it was one of the coolest features : the missions and their cutscenes).

I don't think it's ok to do this to FFXI but on the other hand we all would like a less annoying macro system. We need to swap at least 16 slots per macro with a few /wait commands inbetween. I think they have already said that they have plan to revamp the interface. With all the thing they announced with FFXIV and the poll about hardware, we can expect a PC upgrade soon for the UI at least. Other than that I think the graphics are ok as is. It's not awesome but it's still very realistic and quite pretty. We would also need the ability to multibox with an official tool... and faster login obviously ... ala FFXIV.

**Alhanelem** · 10-18-2011 02:09 AM

Blizzard did it with WoW.

No they didn't. All they did was release an expansion, along with which they plopped some random steaming piles of lava and deamon around the landscape of the original world.

... Anyway, I don't think people realize what kind of an incredible task it would take to rebuild the FFXI engine, originally built for the PS2, and make it ocmpatible with all the new technology today and at the same time keep it compatible with all the user data both on their servers and our client machines. It's like rebuilding an Edsel to be a late model sports car. Rebuilding FFXIV on the other hand is just rebuilding last year's sports car to be like this year's and ironing out its defects.

To be perfectly honest: I'd love to see a rebuilt FFXI as much as anyone here. Even if they did choose to cancel FFXIV, however, that doesn't suddenly mean they'd start working on an FFXIV rebuild.

**Atomic_Skull** · 10-18-2011 04:08 AM

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

... Anyway, I don't think people realize what kind of an incredible task it would take to rebuild the FFXI engine, originally built for the PS2, and make it ocmpatible with all the new technology today and at the same time keep it compatible with all the user data both on their servers and our client machines.

Not as much as you think if they licensed a third party graphics engine such as Gambryo Lightspeed or whatever. You save a huge amount of time and money by using middleware instead of developing everything in house. SE has already done this before with The Last Remnant, it was developed on the Unreal 3 engine using a team that was smaller than the current FFXI team.

Models and textures are just models and textures, you can convert between formats fairly easily (3D modeling is something I have personal experience with) Also many creature models are duplicated in FFXIV and could be taken from there and zone textures could be reused as well. All of the concept art for FFXI's zones exist already, so it's not like you are creating zones completely from scratch either. Duplicating something that already exists is less work than having to design and build it from the ground up.

**svengalis** · 10-18-2011 05:30 AM

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

No they didn't. All they did was release an expansion, along with which they plopped some random steaming piles of lava and deamon around the landscape of the original world.

... Anyway, I don't think people realize what kind of an incredible task it would take to rebuild the FFXI engine, originally built for the PS2, and make it ocmpatible with all the new technology today and at the same time keep it compatible with all the user data both on their servers and our client machines. It's like rebuilding an Edsel to be a late model sports car. Rebuilding FFXIV on the other hand is just rebuilding last year's sports car to be like this year's and ironing out its defects.

To be perfectly honest: I'd love to see a rebuilt FFXI as much as anyone here. Even if they did choose to cancel FFXIV, however, that doesn't suddenly mean they'd start working on an FFXIV rebuild.

Going off topic but in Cataclysm all of Azeroth maps were almost completely redesigned like what they are doing in XIV. It was alot like Rift where they streamlined the quest, you get the quest and can go do it right in the same area instead of walking across the zone to the other side to do it. They also update the graphics engine for higher end PCs.

**Atomic_Skull** · 10-18-2011 08:17 AM

Originally Posted by Jackstin

FF11 will always be a pretty rubbish game, designed for those not brave enough to give it up.

Obvious troll is obvious.

**Saefinn** · 10-18-2011 02:48 AM

Blizzard didn't remake WoW, they've gradually improved the game as they've updated it and as part of an expansion pack they went out reshaped some areas of the game, what they didn't do was go out and completely re-do everything. Plus Blizzard didn't have PS2 limitations to deal with and when people say PS2 limitations they don't JUST mean the fact they still support the PS2 but because of how they've fundamentally built the engine, its built around the PS2 hardware and the XBox 360 and PC versions are ports and pretty bad ones at that - just look at how poorly it performs on the 360. WoW vs FFXI on my laptop has some major differences, WoW performs loads better, although I get 20-30 fps it's a consistent 20-30fps and they've really only had to focus on the PC hardware.

If SE were suddenly to drop PS2 support and improve upon the engine, it would be noble for 360 and PC users and probably would take less work but would hardly constitute as a FFXI 2.0 and wouldn't be a remake. A remake would mean remaking every piece of media in the game and improve upon it and would mean spending more money on 3D modellers and animators, they could probably recycle some stuff from FFXIV like some of the textures, scenery models (like trees) and the models used for character races, but you're still looking at a massive overhaul in terms of media. It would pretty much mean remaking a whole game with all the expansions...in the space of a year. It'd be a bigger (and more expensive) job than FFXIV 2.0.

FFXIV 2.0 could be a major flop like FFXIV 1.0 was, but at least as a FFXIV 2.0 it can be remarketed and rereviewed and be given a second opinion. But it had better be damn good to get people playing it.

**Twille** · 10-18-2011 02:49 AM

You can debate it all you want, but 14 is still crap and will remain crap. They can only manage a meager 30k players when its FREE....
(besides, no self-respecting person wants to play an elvaan that glistens like a gay vampire)

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