What would make you return to ffxi? (if you left and came back for the free access)

[Zumi]

SE really needs to bring back the FFXIV + FFXI discount. Should be something like if you pay for FFXIV and you want to play FFXI you should be able to for a reduced price. Maybe 1 or 2 dollars extra should get you access to FFXI because you are already paying SE a lot per month for FFXIV.

[Alhanelem]

Right now I'm trying to determine if you're trying to be snarky and sarcastic. Assuming you're not, you should know this is a discussion forum, you don't have to write your posts in the form of a letter.

The post was a reply to your post, hence why you were quoted. Perhaps I misunderstood the context of your statements? Your post is also confusing because you placed two quotes above your text. If you quote two people in a post, you should put the response to each under the respective quotes.

[Draylo-]

You don't have any idea how much work it is to design hardware do you? They'd need to spin off a whole new company division devoted to the task. It totally wouldn't be worth the investment to redesign outdated hardware from the ground up for the sole purpose of delivering a new content update to a fairly low sub MMO (I'm not speaking about now, even at FFXI's peak it wasn't setting records). The game doesn't make THAT much money.

Sorry, you can't just look at a picture of a motherboard and then design a replacement. It taes a liiiiiiiiiiiiitle more effort than that;. And you're right, you don't need a computer science degree, you need an eletronic engineering degree. This message brought to you by someone that DOES have a computer science degree. COS majors don't design computer hardware, they design software. Hardware is the job of an engineer.

The game did make that much money, its one of their most profitable games to date. Try looking it up sometime before you make ignorant statements. Low numbers doesn't stop them from creating games that flop like a few of theirs have been. I can't imagine how doing an MMO that made them so much would be a bad idea. They could even go with another company like they did with nexus but for PC.

[Selindrile]

A future or or free to play, one of the two.

[Alhanelem]

The game did make that much money, its one of their most profitable games to date. Try looking it up sometime before you make ignorant statements. Low numbers doesn't stop them from creating games that flop like a few of theirs have been. I can't imagine how doing an MMO that made them so much would be a bad idea. They could even go with another company like they did with nexus but for PC.

Profitable as a percentage, yes. Profitable in terms of total raw cash, I doubt it. That only speaks to how poorly some of their other games have sold, not how much money it made them.

Try looing it up sometime before you make ignorant statements. This game is not generating enough money (anymore) to make that kind of investment. I don't think you know how much it actually costs to develop hardware. Perhaps if they've held on to every single dollar they've collected through the game's history, yes. But that is so unlikely it isn't even funny.

The cost-benefit analysis of redesigning a PS2 development machine would be astronomically bad. Have you ever heard of a cost-benefit analysis? It is essentially asking the question, "If I spend this much money on this, how much will I get in return?" It doesn't even matter how much money the game made, if they don't see a strong enough return on investment, they're not going to do it. You're living in a fantasy land (okay, the joke's on me I guess) if you think that investing probably millions in developing obsolete hardware in order to be able to promise new content updates past next spring is going to bring enough players back / gain enough new players to be worth the cost. I'm not even sure they got enough out of the expansion for it to be worth it, considering the lack of impact it had on player numbers even in the short term.

[machini]

XI is their most profitable game of all time, the problem is that those profits went to fund garbage like XIII and XIV, money which should have been funneled back into XI.

[Draylo-]

Profitable as a percentage, yes. Profitable in terms of total raw cash, I doubt it. That only speaks to how poorly some of their other games have sold, not how much money it made them.

Try looing it up sometime before you make ignorant statements. This game is not generating enough money (anymore) to make that kind of investment. I don't think you know how much it actually costs to develop hardware. Perhaps if they've held on to every single dollar they've collected through the game's history, yes. But that is so unlikely it isn't even funny.

The cost-benefit analysis of redesigning a PS2 development machine would be astronomically bad. Have you ever heard of a cost-benefit analysis? It is essentially asking the question, "If I spend this much money on this, how much will I get in return?" It doesn't even matter how much money the game made, if they don't see a strong enough return on investment, they're not going to do it. You're living in a fantasy land (okay, the joke's on me I guess) if you think that investing probably millions in developing obsolete hardware in order to be able to promise new content updates past next spring is going to bring enough players back / gain enough new players to be worth the cost. I'm not even sure they got enough out of the expansion for it to be worth it, considering the lack of impact it had on player numbers even in the short term.

Your entire post is contradicted by XIV's very existence. That game failed MISERABLY, and is still recovering the losses. They rebuilt that game from scratch yet you are saying because something has low numbers (XIV 1.0 did) it can't ever get a large amount of subs due to a rehaul, that is completely false by this own company's history. If the price to be paid was starting over, I'm sure a lot wouldn't mind if it meant XI still got updates and life. They could also outsource the project, just like they are doing with the mobile XI they are trying to make. You think they just make that to appease people? They probably have the silly thought it will be a huge hit, maybe in Japan but nobody really wants to play a MMO on a phone.

[Alhanelem]

Your entire post is contradicted by XIV's very existence. That game failed MISERABLY, and is still recovering the losses.

There's no contradiction here. Maybe your own facts should clue you in on just how much it costs to make and maintain an MMO. Your facts are also out of date because that game is no longer failing miserably, and last I checked, is profitable. But this is all totally beside the point and has nothing to do with the thread anymore. You know nothing about designing hardware. It is in no way feasible for SE to invest time and money into recreating an antiquated piece of hardware (What they should have done years ago and now probably cant since it would be a multi-year undertaking most likely, is port their code to be native on PC so that they could continue updating it) in order to continue.

We can argue all day about exactly how successful FFXI has been, how successful or not any other game has been, but that has absolutely zero to do with the original topic. To tie it in, porting the code to PC or doing something to enable updates to continue would certainly bring me back. However, that is not realistic, no matter how much you think it is. It might have been practical had they started doing it years ago- but it would take them a long time if they started it now. How long do you think the game can maintain a playerbase with no content updates while they redevelop the dev hardware? it is not realistic in any way shape or form today. If we were having this debate 2-3 years ago, I'd be more inclined to support your notion that it would be possible. Of course, if they did that, we probably wouldn't have gotten the SOA expansion when we did, since resources would have had to be diverted from that.
(I agree with you on one point: The phone version is a silly waste of time and while its outsourced, it's a waste of whatever resources were spent to make it happen, that could have been put to better use in just about any other way)

[Vanfrano]

It has been said by others, FFXI was the game that brought them more money out of all the FF.

They had a steady cash flow but they didn't know nor want to keep it going and that is their mistake. They would never have created FFXIV if FFXI was not proof enough for them that the concept works but they failed terribly, and it seems like they are ending up failing again with 3.0. They have been creating beautiful empty shells since FFXIII with FFXI money instead of focusing on XI which could have been, to this day, their main source of money. Instead, they make people believe that FFXIV is a huge success and sent the "godlike" Yoshida to manipulate the whole fanbase. Even remaking FFVII is a desperate move. All they want now is to hit big, but they don't know how to do this. They are only looking for big fast income instead of a steady one but they will end up without FFXI and with a dead FFXIV sooner than they expect.

If they wanted to refresh FFXI they would have done it and they would still do it no matter the cost. They keep pouring games left and right looking for easy money.

[Draylo-]

That's my point, if they wanted to do it they CAN. Money is hardly an excuse with this company when they pump out a lot of lackluster games that I'm sure cost a lot of money and effort in total.

There's no contradiction here. Maybe your own facts should clue you in on just how much it costs to make and maintain an MMO. Your facts are also out of date because that game is no longer failing miserably, and last I checked, is profitable

My information isn't out of date, I never said it is failing now but that it failed originally. Hence my next point where I used it as an example of how people (mostly sheep from WoW flocking to a game thats "popular") still subbed to XIV despite its terrible release and initial tiny playerbase when they charged for it. By your logic SE would have NEVER spend the money to redesign the game from the bottom up, instead they would continue servicing it like XI but that didn't happen.

How long do you think the game can maintain a playerbase with no content updates while they redevelop the dev hardware?

Just as long as the XIV players had to wait during 1.0? I was one of those players, hoping the game would change for the better and supporting SE. What differences does it make if people are waiting for something to come with no content updates or nothing to come with no content updates, there's still no updates.

Yeah I'll agree that the discussion is pointless, but then again so is practically any on this forum and many like it. Hopefully one of their guys sees it and passing the disdain the community has for their choice along to the DEVs, wishful thinking.