BYE TANAKA!

[Vold]

The game is not shrinking over RME's, not remotely. It's shrinking because SE isn't attracting new players while older players leave due to RL time shortages and other, more competitive MMO products being available.

Just getting in my 2 cents before this thread bites it.

I'm not sure what "more competitive MMO products being available" means. Let's take a trip through memory lane. When did FFXI's pop start to seriously decline? I imagine it was around the time just after ToAU release. Some people left because the game turned into zerg for exp groups and jobs started getting left out making it nigh impossible to level up without a ton of invested wait time until someone only took you as a last resort. Not such a bad hit to pop but it left a small dent.

THEN, SE started to dismantle their FFXI dev crew to slap people on other projects because of the "disappointing" subscriber performance of FFXI, which anyone who has been around long enough and did just slight research would know that while it's not a known fact straight from their mouths, it's pretty much the truth with how quickly they started work on concepts of FFXIV not 2 years after XI release.

THEN, the ever increasingly smaller FFXI team released WotG. It was a copy/paste job most of the way and took them three years to finish the main story missions, otherwise known as "we finished two years ago but we're stretching it all out because we ain't got shit for you after it's done" There goes alot of subscribers. It became obvious where the game was headed and people decided to bail out of boredom. If I recall we were down 150,000 players by this time through my best guesstimates.

THEN, we got the three- whatever.

THEN, FFXIV was about to be released. DOOM WAS COMING! Thousands quit FFXI in preparation for FFXIV: The Second Coming. Then the rest of us caught wind of it sucking. Minimal losses in the end BECAUSE of....

THEN, FFXI got a level cap raise and Abyssea as a possible last hurrah at same time as 14 release. Plan backfired as everyone stuck around and SE was suddenly like oh shit we shouldn't have done this. As time passed many got pissed and quit, and even quit before ever touching the new era of FFXI. We took big losses. Pop down to half of what it once was. Not because of age but because of content and direction decisions, and an overall lack of content due to smaller dev crews working on the game. SE was giving up on the game and so was the players as a result.

THEN, Tanaka was fi.. Tanaka left. Everyone was like omg finally FFXI will see the light now.

THEN, finally, Adoulin makes it's long awaited arrival. 6 long years of no expansions and finally... due to directional decisions for end game content and that content being repetitive, and with FFXIV ARR having been released which is enjoying at the least short term success, FFXI took massive blows to it's population. Servers that averaged 2000 to 3000 during prime time and 1200-1500 during off peak hours suddenly have 6-800 on during prime time and 4-500 during off peak hours. Bazaar spots are ghost towns. Trillions of NPC lives have been lost due to the lack of adventurers to protect them.

Long story short: Age typically gets blamed as always for a MMO's downfall. But it that really the case for FFXI? Perhaps it's not the fault of age. Perhaps it's SE's fault. I said it 8 years ago. I said it a lot since. And I'll say it again today. Nothing can kill this game off except for SE. And pushing away your most loyal paying customers is how you do it. And how do you manage to do that? By choosing to go the route they did since 2005 up to today with adoulin and not having a clue in the world what it means for a player to wield relics and mythics. Apparently the latest dev crew figures obtaining this stuff is nothing special and that 100 million + gil does grow on trees and not a chore whatsoever to make. And those people are just the minority. What hurt them so much was the casual players with their emps. Oh you doing this to me after allllllll that work I did for my 90 emp? Well screw you, I quit. I ain't going through the trouble of replacing my gear every 3 months. What is this? WoW? I quit!

See what I mean?

They took a gamble to make FFXI into a more friendly solo experience and a more friendly casual gamer experience. And it was an okay idea, and frankly the right idea after Abyssea as people who stuck around wanted a new, more forgiving direction like Abyssea. But they started fiddling with a new system of end game and totally messing up it's implementation, too. You can slap AGE tag on this game if you so desire, but it's obvious why it has taken such a huge hit on gamer support. FFXIV ARR merely finished the unfinished deed, and even though I have recently said that I believe people will return once they quickly get bored in ARR, I do understand there's a chance they give up for good here once they realize there isn't much point in returning to a system of gameplay they don't particularly enjoy anymore because they had been doing it for 5-10 years. Right now, for many, all they got to entice them to play FFXI anymore is 'the good ole days' it's like your virtual home and where you feel the most comfortable at. That can only last for so long.

[FrankReynolds]

SE have not been trying to attract new players for about half a decade, after a certain point in an MMO's life "retention" becomes more important than attracting new players to an archaic system. The biggest problem with this game, and this has been said again and again, is lack of fresh content coming in at a consistent and acceptable rate.

In its simplest form: We get new decent end-game (even casual end-game) content once every 6-9 months; the problem is people on forums like this complaining/petitioning for it to be made easier or more accessible or more immediately rewarding. People cap out on said content within 3 months; then we have a gap of 6 months while we wait for the next iteration; and during those 6 months we stand in town bored, or cry on the forums about how people are quitting and there's nothing to do.

For those of you struggling to keep up: We complete content much quicker than SE add content.

We all know this to be true, yet each time new content is released, within a week we have people asking for it to be nerfed or become more rewarding immediately (with less effort or grind)... knowing full well that nothing else new is coming for at least 6 months. Each time this happens, a chunk of people quit -- and most of the time, they don't come back. The majority will hold on until the next iteration, but each time this happens, the people willing to wait reduces.

I've not played since August, do we have more than 3 Delve bosses yet? I'm going to guess no. So glad I didn't stick around to kill Tojil for the 4,734th time.

As much as we like to complain that we don't want "Relic grinds" or "Mythics grinds" - the truth is that there would be nothing to do in the game if these things were trivialised; because its not like SoA content is going to keep you busy for long... is it?

So TLDR version: SE doesn't put out enough content.

[MeohmymeandI]

F*CK YEAH!!!

When are we throwing the wheels up party?

Saevel go buy some more gil and stop using speed scripts. Emomost emo conformative noob ever!

[Arkitan]

Figures he would retire after he ruined the game! O.o Health reasons is just an alternate excuse!