Thread: Free to play plans?

If you think it's not worth anymore then you should cancel your subscription.
Make many other people follow your lead and then, just then, SE maybe will think about moving FFXI into FTP.
Until people continue to play regularly why should they bother?

Originally Posted by Castanica

FFXI is old now and honestly the level and quality of the updates we get no longer mean it's worth the subscription fee, the game has also lost a lot of players.

Ehh... that was more true this time last year than today. Today we (finally) have a new expansion pack to look forward to. Even if the updates nowadays do feel underwhelming, there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel.

Also, the new update schedule might be contributing to the ennui; monthly updates can't be as big an exciting as the old quarterly updates were, since there are only so many man-hours in a month and generally don't have weeks to hype an upcoming release.

Does Square have any plans to let FFXI go free to play with a cash shop anytime soon?

FFXI is still profitable enough to pay for both itself and for fixing XIV. Don't expect them to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs any time soon.

Originally Posted by Castanica

I already have canceled my sub months ago as has everyone I knew, this is why I'm asking.

FFXI is still a great game, it's just not worth the money they are asking anymore. With free to play the population will be boosted again and they can make money from optionals.

$12:95 a month is not really alot. SE is not going ftp anytime soon and i dont see how ftp in FFXI would work. i dont wanna be playing for a stack a meat for $1 in AH. or any others gear etc o.o.

some games it work well because it was build for that but just changing it on the fly would mess up lot of things because iam sure 90% of the gear/weapons/events gonna have to keep spamming real money and not gils anymore and it gonna be more then the $12 we paying every month or just be gimp as hell with the free gear.

Originally Posted by Economizer

14 Day Free Trial.

Honestly the free trial is so limited that SE might as well make it not be time limited to be honest, you can't have any of the expansions, which means beating the Shadow Lord somehow at level 30 is the only real thing you can do, and only on a budget of 100k that you can't have gotten from other players or the Auction House.

That said, if I had to give one suggestion to improving the current free trial system, it would be a method to trade a Linkshell to them one way. Easiest way to get free trial players hooked in my opinion.

This I could go for. The more opportunity for linkshells to sink their claws into free trial players and coax them into something more, the better.

Beyond that, I'm not sure S-E is doing enough to publicize the program, even among existing players. Hardly anybody seems to know what that green-and-yellow icon means.

Hell, the lack of linkshells for them means there's hardly anybody around to explain the overly complicated process of becoming a paying player to them to begin with...

Would the anti-RMT measures still be broken if free trial players are able to trade everything but gil?

EDIT: ZOMG, players on an unlimited free trial, with the AH/Bazaar restrictions, would be the perfect pool of players to supply the guild salesrooms with non-restocked items! Now there's a mechanic that's been dead and abandoned since forever...

While I have no problem with a freemium based access for new players. You know stuff like basic areas only, access to the first 6 jobs, lvl 30 cap, and possibly a few trade-able items (like a linkshell, honestly this is a must).

I hope that FFXI never goes FTP with a cash shop. Not because I see it as a fail of a game but because I can't stand that sort of business model and avoid the majority of games that use it. And the ones I do play, I play for a month at most before I decide its not worth it.

One of the things that keep me coming back to FFXI (even after vowing not to many times now lol) is that I don't feel like I'm far behind those with RL money to burn and that I have just as much of a chance to earn what other players have, if I put the time and effort in. Of course a few exceptions to this like the tidal talisman.