SoA or any future boxed collections

[Arcon]

As you have stated, this does assume they've shifted distribution to a third party.

That's what my argument was about. I was comparing an updated version of the game on physical media vs. digitally distributed. Of course it sucks as it is now, but it wouldn't be much better on discs, because most people wouldn't buy it again just for the shorter installation time, whereas on Steam it would immediately become available for everyone who already has it.

That is true, but the initial update after installation could be cut from the current 3-5 hours (using Afaina's anecdotal time instead of my own) down to theoretically less than an hour. Even if they change 2000 files immediately, that's still significantly fewer than the 50k+ files that make up the entire game.

Fewer yes, noticeable, also. And they won't bring out a new boxed collection every year.

If you know any players from Australia, I'm sure they'd be more than willing to tell you about their bandwidth limits.

They did, but that was years ago. I figured it got better by now, and looking through random offers I found after a 2min Google search I was right.

Desiring to own a physical copy of they game one purchases shouldn't be so rudely depreciated to a term such as "fetish". I prefer not to rely on a third party, with their own questionable licensing and agreements, to obtain the game that I've already purchased from SE. It's inane that you'd be willing to discard your, and all other players', ownership rights just to satisfy your digital distribution "fetish".

It's not rude or depreciating, it's what it is, a desire for something with no obvious advantages for the sake of satisfying a personal obsession (in this case, collection). Which is also why mine isn't a fetish, because I don't want it just for the sake of it, I want it for practical reasons.

You do not own FFXI. Not now, not on Steam, not anywhere. You own copies of POL and licenses to some of its content. You pay for licensing, and that's something Steam can't take away. Even if your Steam account does get banned, you can still play the game (even with the same installation). It's true that you will have lost your copy of the game (one you can get for free from various sources), but I don't know why you think that's an issue. Right now SE is holding your account hostage. Do you trust them with it? Personally I'd trust Valve more, even if they have almost no effect on it, but I guess that's where your personal preference and paranoia comes in.

Unless you're doing something with your Steam account that you shouldn't be doing, that will never become an issue. It's much more likely to lose or damage your physical discs than to have anything happen to them on there (as evidenced by the several threads about damaged/lost/missing discs on here and various other FFXI forums already). For that matter, statistically it's also much more likely that SE will ban you for botting than having your Steam account suspended. And if you're still not convinced, just get a separate Steam account for FFXI. Since playing FFXI doesn't register as activity on Steam (it doesn't go through Steam at all), they won't even know your account is active at all.

Having an updated version of the game available on a decent online distribution platform is a significant advantage for speed and convenience, losing the rights to your games is paranoia, as it does not and will never affect you in any way (again, not counting your own shady doings). On the other hand a new boxed collection would do nothing for many people, because they don't wanna rebuy a collection just for a quicker installation, and for the ones who do, they won't notice much of a difference regardless, because of the reasons stated above. A slightly faster installation process, at first. That's it.

Edit:

Windows® PC (Digital Download), Only?

Websites with automatically starting sound should get banned from the internet and the people responsible fired and blacklisted from whatever job they were doing.

[Catmato]

no obvious advantages for the sake of satisfying a personal obsession (in this case, collection).

Except I have given multiple advantages over the current system. If you can't acknowledge that there are advantages to updated physical media, this is the last I will comment on the matter.

Websites with automatically starting sound should get banned from the internet and the people responsible fired and blacklisted from whatever job they were doing.

I can't agree with this more.

[Alhanelem]

i buy almost all PC games digitally now. Other than the collectability of a physical object, I don't see much value to physical distribution on a personal level. You could never really resell PC games anyway, much less this game. A disc copy is only of value to me when its resellable.

[Afania]

That was SE's fault, and it's one of the things that would be remedied by shifting the uploading responsibilities to a third party with decent servers. It's simple math, 11GB with a 1MB/s downspeed connection will take you three hours. Considering some people have 100Mbit/s connections, the entire updated game could be downloaded in minutes if the server output is right.



Yes, you would, precisely because of what you said before. Some people simply like collecting them. That coupled with the fact that these discs aren't produced anymore, and those prices are perfectly understandable. It's not because discs are better or even good, but simply because some people like collecting.

Your fetish aside, objectively speaking discs are bad, there is only one upside and many downsides to them, the one advantage being that they're available offline or with a slow internet connection. The first point is irrelevant, since the game can't be played offline anyway, so the only reason to cling to it is for people with slow internet connections. And as I explained above, even with a slow connection it's just a couple of hours of downloading, and it's a one-time deal. And even those three hours you won't be sitting in front of it, waiting for the download to finish, but you'll spend them doing other things, or do it overnight, or while at work, etc. There's many ways around it, for the few people for whom it's actually relevant. That, on the other hand, does not apply to local installation. You will need to be present every now and again to swap discs, because the game doesn't fit on even two standard DVDs, so you always have to be ready to swap the discs when needed.

And it still won't be much faster from CD, because if it's even one update behind, chances are you'll have to download many older files again as well. It's not just new content being added, but if one thing in an older file is changed (such as an erroneous item description, or new NPCs are added to older zones), the entire DAT needs to be downloaded again. And the more updates pass, the more outdated content from the CD has to be replaced, so the required updating time will approach the full download time as time passes.

Like I said, if you like it, that's perfectly valid, but don't try to make it more than it is, because that's the only argument for it. It has no advantages to anyone and it would be very expensive for SE. Of course they could release it for a certain price on order as a special collection (they may actually do that), but that's as far as reason goes on this subject.

Except I'm NOT comparing the pros and cons of digital download v.s getting disks, I'm saying it'd be nice if both options exist for 2 different groups, while you're like "Disks are bad, they shouldn't exist, SE shouldn't ship boxed expansion, because ppl gonna come up and complain when they can't find it in stores etc etc" (Ppl complain about everything, you seriously think it's a valid arguement against something?), basically just shut off 1 of the option because you don't like another option.

I did not ever ask you to install from disks instead of steam, if you like digital download better, by all means do it, but it'd be nice to provide alternative options for those with slower connections and just hate to spend 3hr to download that many files. I don't have 100M connections, I use wifi and share my internet with like 10 ppl in same house. My internet sucked and I hate download.

[Alhanelem]

Except I'm NOT comparing the pros and cons of digital download v.s getting disks, I'm saying it'd be nice if both options exist for 2 different groups, while you're like "Disks are bad, they shouldn't exist,

It costs more to make disks and boxes. If most people will get a digital download, making a boxed copy wont be worth the investment, It's not a matter of good/bad, it's a matter of 'not worth the expense.'

[Spiritreaver]

Hmmm. This thread seems really familiar. All you have to do is replace 'boxed set' with 'PS2' and 'digital download' with 'get a PC noob!'

[Toadie-Odie]

Also some ppl like physical discs, I'm one of them. I have a huge collections of console/PC game/handheld games with over 150titles, like how ppl collect old music CDs. I liked physical content when I pay for a game, including box art, CD, manual etc. Hey I still keep some of the NES games even!

We still have a working Atari system and games to go with it, even though only my mother ever plays it now.

[SpankWustler]

I just want to chime in and say that I hope that whoever made the Seekers of Adoulin site automatically make noise is suffering the most difficult bowel movement of his or her life right now.

[Afania]

It costs more to make disks and boxes. If most people will get a digital download, making a boxed copy wont be worth the investment, It's not a matter of good/bad, it's a matter of 'not worth the expense.'

Do you sell games? Do you have marketing analyze regarding selling games? A lot of times selling a product is more than just "Nobody is going to buy disks, they're just going to download it, thus is not worth the investment", because there's more to that when it comes to selling a product and not as simple as it seems.

I'd say it depend on how they want to release it. A few days ago I saw stores selling Command and Conquer collection, the box says there are no disks just digital download, but the physical copy of the game still in store! If everyone's going to download the game, why bother to sell them in store? But the fact is, because I saw it in store, so I was semi-interested in the product. Otherwise I will never bother.

A few days ago I also saw Rift expansion in store, so why put it in store when we can just download it? But when I see rift in store, I was like "Oh, Rift new expansion is out, I gonna check it out on internet when I go home", I don't follow gaming news, if I don't see Rift expansion pack in store I will never know it's expansion is out. Same for Guildwars 2, when it's out for a few days, it was out of stock in every store near my house, so I was like "Omg is GW2 that good? Maybe I need to check it out!"

Safe to say if those games are not in store, I will never notice them, let alone go to Steam and download them. If I see them in store, maybe I will pay attention, and maybe go try it out, that's the additional marketing value it generates.

There are many ways to release SoA, that can get more ppl to know that FFXI just released new expansion, come back and try it out, not just put them on steam for sale silently. Selling on Steam is one way, but there are many more. There are also players from different region that doesn't use Steam, nor even heard of it nor bother to study about them, there's no need to go "Steam or gtfo"(Yes, players from Singapore, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Korea, any many other countries also plays this game, and many of them don't know wtf Steam is and don't use Paypal)

[Toadie-Odie]

Hi all,
I purchased a digital copy of FFXI about a year ago possibly longer. It's no longer on my PC because of a reformat. I am trying to reinstall it on this laptop. All searches and FAQ I've seen have redirected me to purchasing a copy as if I'm a new player.

What do I do? Where do I go?

Thx,
Cap

Okay, seeing posts like these in the technical support thread is the reason I want a disk. Most online stores have a limited time frame in which you can download and redownload your digital product. I don't want to lose my copy of the game just because of some deadline to download it.