Is there a future?

[Secondplanet]

Simple enough question.

With this new director coming in like a storm announcing a new age to the game and yet fails as hard as the one before him, how long will this game last. I've seen countless posts about people wanting to quit or cancel for a duration in hopes things will get better.

My main point of this post is, Are you trying to make this game so unappealing to new players and current players in a hope to cut down subscriptions so you can pull the plug on it?

You claim balance must be kept but this is selective in choosing. Ex. Astral parties are considered RMT activities and where banned, but FC parties are ok to do when its the same thing but able to be done longer.

You go on about stopping RMT by changing values of items to NPC yes you don't actually go after the RMT itself to stop the damage before its done. Ex. Chocobo blinkers where cut down in value to NPC's yet trumpet rings which fishing bots farm the materials for are still being made by the 1000's.

You say that the now out of date roadmap which most looked forward things were delayed cause the team is divided between XI and the new expansion. If our fee's are going into making the new expansion then we should get it for FREE. You will be charging i'm guessing the normal $30+ for this expansion since its a full one so you will be making a large amount of money off of that, The current team of XI should be for the game in its current state not something we have to pay for again.

I know this won't change anything nor will it be heard but it is nice to vent this frustration I'm feeling currently towards the game's bleak future.

[Llana_Virren]

The one thing I won't miss when FFXI is done: All these "OH NOES FFXI IS DEAD!!!" posts who constantly try to sound journalistic by asking if the game is doomed just because of some disagreeable decisions.

To be honest, Choco. Blinkers HAD to change; there is no bleak future except for players who can no longer manipulate a system oversight which allowed the direct "creation" of currency. And of all the things to be upset about, that? Really?

[Vold]

To be honest, Choco. Blinkers HAD to change; there is no bleak future except for players who can no longer manipulate a system oversight which allowed the direct "creation" of currency. And of all the things to be upset about, that? Really?

The problem wasn't the gil, it was the more or less "free" cruor being generated which then could be converted into gil. It took out the whole "stop what you're doing and farm gil to work for nice things" aspect of the game which SE has always put a high value on. Nothing more or less. We're meant to create gil by selling junk to NPCs, and whether we like it or not SE reserves the right to say, yeah that's okay to do or whoa whoa whoa we didn't intend for people to fund relics via cruor. Better to nerf the gil than the cruor.

Thing is, cruor did what SE couldn't for many years: Kill off RMT. Oh sure they still exist but really, who's still buying gil? The level 52-99 casual RDM that plays a hour a week struggling to catch up? Insignificant.

[Arcon]

You claim balance must be kept but this is selective in choosing. Ex. Astral parties are considered RMT activities and where banned, but FC parties are ok to do when its the same thing but able to be done longer.

Astral Flow parties were never considered RMT activities and no one was banned for them.

You go on about stopping RMT by changing values of items to NPC yes you don't actually go after the RMT itself to stop the damage before its done. Ex. Chocobo blinkers where cut down in value to NPC's yet trumpet rings which fishing bots farm the materials for are still being made by the 1000's.

Where do they go on about that? I haven't heard SE even mention RMT in years. Legit players were the ones that abused Blinkers, not RMT. RMT are pretty much dead.

I know this won't change anything nor will it be heard but it is nice to vent this frustration I'm feeling currently towards the game's bleak future.

The "bleak future" thing has been spewed by various doomsayers for longer than the game was around.

[Secondplanet]

Astral Flow parties were never considered RMT activities and no one was banned for them.

My friend got a 2week suspension on his account for being in these parties, At the time the GM stated that by gathering all the mobs of the zone and killing in one big blast was considered RMT activity by using the drops for gil.

Where do they go on about that? I haven't heard SE even mention RMT in years. Legit players were the ones that abused Blinkers, not RMT. RMT are pretty much dead.

And thats why i see trains of characters with names like asdfg running through towns and receiving 2-3 /tells a week from them offering me gil at amazingly low prices. Yeah really sounds dead to me.

The "bleak future" thing has been spewed by various doomsayers for longer than the game was around.

I'm not saying it as a "doomsayer" i wish to know why SE keeps working against themselves lately and even more so with these boards that were made to listen to us on a better field being ignored now more then ever.

To be honest, Choco. Blinkers HAD to change; there is no bleak future except for players who can no longer manipulate a system oversight which allowed the direct "creation" of currency. And of all the things to be upset about, that? Really?

Then they should change more then just that then, trumpet rings still NPC for a fair amount and i always see the same few people crafting them for hours nonstop by a NPC and that has been abused more then chocoblinkers by use of fishing bots, So if i'm right your saying legit selling of items to NPC's shouldn't be allowed but using 3rd party programs to make money is ok then?

[Mirage]

Yeah, seriously. There have been some nerfs after the new director stepped up, sure. However, Embrava is really a bit overpowered, so a nerf was appropriate, even if the currently planned nerf is too big. This could still change before the final implementation on the real servers. The perfect defence change isn't nearly as big as the embrava change, and you can use it twice as often in return. While this isn't any good for legion, it is for ADL, where you have two hours, and therefore have time for the ability to cool down and be used again before you get kicked out. Bringing two summoners to dynamis before gave you two 90 second PDs, now it gives you 4 ~50-second PDs.

Other than that, there's been the cruor nerf, which seriously was needed anyway, and probably saved the game more than it doomed it.

In my opinion, there's one really big nerf, one moderate nerf, and one thing that was absolutely needed anyway. Not really enough to brand the new director as the spawn of satan.

[Rezeak]

I think the question is can FFXI survive 6 months it takes to release SoA.

I've stopped automatically renewing my account simply cause there isn't enough content so at the end of every month i don't play for 1-3 weeks saving me a few £.

My issues are these....

payed for 3 months (£30) then got new content that was for 15 min every 20 hours (RIP OFF!)
SE now wants to fix the game it broke in and in a quick half assed way when it should either commit to fixing it completely or just make content easier and focus on the social and fun side of the game instead.
SE wants to add small pieces of 18+ pple content when most of the game is 3-12 pple making organizing such content a huge pain.
Finally, they treat everyone one the EN forums like we played content for 10 mins half drunk and they know better (at least this is how i feel)

Just wanna say this doesn't include the community team since i know they try there best and i'm sure have to follow a strict set of rules it's the producer/devs which are annoying me.

FFXI - 2012 has felt like the year of "lets make a little content as possible so we can make money from the subscribers".

All of above is just how i feel nothing more.

While i hope for SoA i do know all it is an idea they had "why make content from just what people pay every month, when we could call new content a expansion and charge more money for it."

As for the blinker thing, it should of been done ages ago when the commuity were making topics telling SE about not some ninja nerf which hurts they paying customers in the crusade against RMT.

[Luvbunny]

I think the question is can FFXI survive 6 months it takes to release SoA.

Six months? lol I think it is more like a year minimum. They will release a content with 10% activities to do with barely any quests or story missions implemented. WoTG, which is their last expansion lasted over 6 years, where you actually able to finish the last missions and get your reward. SIX whole years to finish a mission. They really cannot operate like it is still 2004 anymore, otherwise just make the game free to play and let players buy any new add ons that they see fit. I can guarantee you that the majority will buy Abyssea, Neo Dyna, and Voidwatch only. The rest of these so called new contents will be dropped in a heartbeat and will be considered failure at launch.

[Arcon]

My friend got a 2week suspension on his account for being in these parties, At the time the GM stated that by gathering all the mobs of the zone and killing in one big blast was considered RMT activity by using the drops for gil.

Either your friend or you are lying, I suspect the latter.

And thats why i see trains of characters with names like asdfg running through towns and receiving 2-3 /tells a week from them offering me gil at amazingly low prices. Yeah really sounds dead to me.

Whether they're dead or not is not measured by the fact that they're playing, but by the fact how much gil they're actually selling. Evidence I have supporting my statement is reason for one, because I find it hard to believe that anyone is dumb enough to buy gil anymore with so many easy and quick ways available, and especially on a game at this late stage. Also, I don't know about Asura, but I didn't get a single tell in years. Also, character names mean shit.

I'm not saying it as a "doomsayer" i wish to know why SE keeps working against themselves lately and even more so with these boards that were made to listen to us on a better field being ignored now more then ever.

Only they never did anything else. SE have been pushing idiotic moves, one after another, ever since the game was released, and they never listened to anyone at all before these forums (although I agree that it seems like they still don't, I think I'd attribute their "listening" to players' requests to coincidence at this point). Hence, you proclaiming that suddenly everything got worse and they're evil or stupid or whatever, is nothing more than doomsaying.

Then they should change more then just that then, trumpet rings still NPC for a fair amount and i always see the same few people crafting them for hours nonstop by a NPC and that has been abused more then chocoblinkers by use of fishing bots, So if i'm right your saying legit selling of items to NPC's shouldn't be allowed but using 3rd party programs to make money is ok then?

While I hope they adjust that as well, nothing was even nearly as bad as cruor in that respect, not by a long shot. This needed to be addressed asap.

WoTG, which is their last expansion lasted over 6 years, where you actually able to finish the last missions and get your reward. SIX whole years to finish a mission.

It was three years (November 2007 to December 2010). Which is still very bad, and one of the two reasons WotG failed as an expansion in my eyes (the other being lack of rewarding endgame content).

[Luvbunny]

It was three years (November 2007 to December 2010). Which is still very bad, and one of the two reasons WotG failed as an expansion in my eyes (the other being lack of rewarding endgame content).

WoTG has many great ideas that lift invisible walls and offer players events that can be joined by many. Unfortunately, SE did a real poor implementation on WoTG ideas, and still yet refuse to adjust it and acknowledge many great ideas that players have contributed in the forum. Zilart has relic, ToAU has mythic, Abyssea has empyrean, and yet WoTG was given a lackluster downgrade of Empyrean. A lot of things they did make absolutely no sense...