What's taking so long??

[madmartin]

English translation is now up. In a nutshell, native app will be the same game but on ios/android but not same servers, character content not transferable. Will start with cop content and eventually have the rhapsodies content, and probably exclusive content as well. No plans to reduce sub fee yet, no plans to merge servers until november, but probably after that. Windows version of ffxi will continue as long as people log in. No plans for offline version. updates after november will make the game more accessible, restrictions on content lifted, more alter ego summons at once etc, but nothing like dynamis 2 probably.

About what i expected really. The Windows game isnt shutting down anytime soon, but FFXI might be quite cool on a tablet to be fair.

[Draylo-]

Terrible but I expected as much. It's what you gotta live with when you like things that are unpopular. All the WOW kiddies, FPS meatheads and phone casuals get all the attention.

[Muras]

So, I have some questions that I hope to have answered. The following is more of a train of thought in text form more than anything I guess...

From what I understand, the reasons SE is stopping major updates to FF11 isn't entirely due to a declining userbase, but also because the core of the game is based off PS2 development and it's become increasingly difficult to obtain development tools. From what I can also tell, the mobile version of the game will essentially be the same game but will take time as things are ported over to the new client.

So essentially, the game is actually being remade slowly so that it becomes easier to maintain and grow? You say that the mobile version may have some exclusive content eventually, so if the mobile version of the game has it's own code, development shouldn't be hindered anymore by the PS2 issues, correct? So future expansions and stuff aren't entirely out of the question, but they'd be limited to the mobile version. Does this mean once the mobile client catches up to the current client, we could see the continuation of major version updates, but on the new client?

So with that in mind, since it IS an Android/iOS app, the code shouldn't be too difficult to port over to PC since I assume it'll be using something like OpenGL ES (I haven't worked with ES, but from what I understand moving from ES to OpenGL 2.0 is pretty simple, but not vise versa), so is there a possibility that once the new client catches up with the current client, we could see a transition over to the new one? Matsui didn't really say it was impossible, but rather everyone would need to agree to having their data transferred, and if the new client is essentially the same game down the road I don't see any reason why people would be against this as long as they were able to continue playing on PC. I know I can't speak for everyone, but I can't imagine PC players would want to go from the comfort of gamepad/keyboard and mouse and a nice big screen to an awkward mobile device.

I can see this new client as a good thing if it eventually replaces the current client, since we will finally be rid of all these PS2 limitations (Or so one would assume). Whether it comes to PC though is a whole different story. I could get on board with all these changes if it means the game will eventually be able to be worked on again and if it comes to PC in some form, my preferred place to play a game of this type.

So, the questions I have in point form would be:

- Since the new client will be the same game EVENTUALLY, will we see the continuation of new content on it in the future after it catches up?
- While you mentioned the PS Vita and possibly porting to it if there was demand for it, is there any chance of it coming to PC or perhaps even SteamOS/Linux? (I'm a major Linux user so obviously I'd love this. Lots of companies are starting to support it, maybe SE should too~ *nudge nudge*)

And a suggestion:

Since the new client is in early development, it may be good to keep in mind that perhaps someday it might be ported to PC/other consoles. Even now Google is making it so that Android apps can be run through the Chrome/Chromium browser, so perhaps someday down the road the game will be automatically supported on Windows/Linux anyways with no effort on SE's side. While you build the new client, it'd probably be a good idea to include gamepad/keyboard/mouse features even if they're not entirely used right away.