Quote Originally Posted by Afania View Post
Maybe I should fix it for all FFXI haters
I'm a FFXI hater? Cool.

Only the game I like can be a success, if I don't like the game, it's not a success.
Not at all, I've never played WoW, Diablo 3, or most MMOs at all, in fact the list of MMOs I have played is restricted to this, Phantasy Star Universe, and The Old Republic, I can think of no other MMO I have played in all honesty. That being said I do think WoW is a success if there ever was one, Diablo 3 seems fairly successful, The Old Republic originally flopped and tried to recover but I wouldn't say it was a success despite the fact I do actually enjoy the game when playing it with friends.

Define "success" if you want to make such ridiculous claim. Plenty of games, including many AAA titles, and countless B- titles, couldn't live for more than 3~5 years. Now you're claiming a 12 year old MMORPG with more than 2 servers "is not a success".
I guess you didn't read, or at least understand, what I said. Just like I said before...
Quote Originally Posted by Demonjustin View Post
Just because the game is still running does not mean it's a success.
What this means is that the time it stays running doesn't determine it's success. In retaliation to such a claim how did you respond? By saying a bunch of other games only live for 3~5 years while this has lived for 12, yay, you provided the exact numbers I just said we're irrelevant and ended up proving nothing by it. Yes other games have had shorter lifespans, they've also had larger amounts of money to keep things running or to create new content I'm sure, and the amount of money being made by people playing may not have been high enough to warrant the game being kept alive. There are also games that are shut down because of a new one coming out, Phantasy Star Universe would be an example of that. This game can likely be kept up for a fraction of some of the newer games you're pointing out died so quickly. One reason I can think of off the top of my head is this game never upgrades to the new look of gaming, it has stayed as poorly graphiced as it was at the start and I think that's a blessing because it means the game has less work or time to be put in by the Devs for updates and such I would think. In either case, age is not a proof of success, it's as though you're saying an 80 year old who's highlight moment in life was working as a manager in a burger joint was a success, I would argue they didn't fail, but they aren't really a success.

If FFXI isn't a success, then no other game beside WoW is. That's not a very good way to define "success" IMO
I would say a successful MMO is one that has a successful release without needing to rebuild the game, is well advertised to draw in more players, and can keep up at least a moderate amount of players playing the game whilst at the same time adding new content on a regular basis.

-FFXI from what I know did the first of these things but only due to the FF name as many people have told me the original version was terrible, and I have to assume by that the FF namesake is what kept this game from crashing, but I could be wrong as I never played and have no personal experience.

-So far as the second thing, advertisements, goes that is a complete and utter failure on this game's part as I have still to this day never seen a single ad on TV nor have I see any online besides on FFXI related sites, the only one I have seen even on them that comes to mind is one for SoA, which I saw, once... This game's real advertisements are the players playing it, we're the ads, if we don't draw in new people this game dies because hardly anyone is ever going to find this game without us.

-The third is to keep up a moderate amount of players while releasing new content, the first half is a failure as the population of this game declines even more to the lowest point I have ever seen(@719 people on Phoenix, yay...) and SE still does nothing effective to change that such as ads, enticements for old players to return, or anything of the sort. You would think with their want for FFXIV to be a different kind of game that they would advertise one another in their games so people who don't like one can try the other, it would be a great marketing strategy but nope, not happening.

-So far as pushing out content though they are getting that right finally, if the content were better done in some cases they could really make it great but for now I give this part a success.

So out of basically 4 criteria they failed 3 so far as I know, but if I abstain from even answering the first due to lack of personal experience you still get a 1/3, with a failure to advertise and maintain a playerbase. Their only success in my opinion is something fairly new and that's a consistent stream of content flowing into the game for us to do, before it was an update once every 3 months or so and I wouldn't actually call that much a success when a large amount of players were standing around with their thumbs misplaced and nothing to do. Now we finally have moderate content updates monthly, which is a success, but the failed in other ways that make the game itself fail. So, 12 years of being alive, a ton of mistakes, a few successes, but the game overall is not one I could actually consider a true success, it's alive, but not a success.