Thread: To the Dev team Please don't let this game die out! Is FFXI 2.0 Possible?

Without going into the whole discussion at hand, I'm pretty sure a "2.0" version of FFXI isn't even close to being considered.
As it stands the whole genre MMORPG is a dying breed, most, if not all MMORPG are hemorrhaging subscribed players and there simply isn't enough fresh blood coming in to compensate for the loss of players.
The novelty of MMORPGs is gone, the novelty of FFXI is gone and a (one time) (fund raised) cash injection is not going to save it, maybe delay its inevitable demise for a few months, but save it? Nah.

It's been a good decade and some, and sure, if enough friends keep playing I might even add a couple more years to that if they keep the servers alive for that long, but all in all, good things come to an end at some point and all that remain are the memories of some of the best and worst years I've had in my life up to now.

Originally Posted by Shirai

As it stands the whole genre MMORPG is a dying breed, most, if not all MMORPG are hemorrhaging subscribed players and there simply isn't enough fresh blood coming in to compensate for the loss of players.

Tbh, one of the main reasons why they're dying is because no one wants to take risks anymore (yeah, money etc), so they all play it safe and either go for the stale and overused WoW formula or go for a MOBA. No one wants to be unique or innovative anymore, it's all just a game of who can copy WoW / MOBA and last the longest on overused formulas.

Sure, older mmos copied parts of EQ and everything, but they also made some things unique to themselves, rather than trying to do a 100% copy with a different skin. That's essentially all XIV is, a watered down WoW with prettier graphics.



I do enjoy how on the XI forums, you can make a suggestions and what not and people actually have a discussion, but on the XIV forums, you make a suggestion that'd improve the game and out come the pitchforks and torches and people telling you to "gtfo and quit" and suddenly it's a witch hunt lol And they call the XI community "bad" XD Sure, theres some bad apples here and there, but XIV feels like it's just a bad apple grove with a few good ones here and there.

FFXI only exists because SE have always continued to sail uncharted seas, to experiment and to leave things behind.

The "problem" with FFXI is that they created a much-loved cybernetic ecology, a virtual world, which was so atmospheric and immersive that many people stopped playing anything except FFXI. Some FFXI players stopped being interested in new games, even new games by SE, because those players had found that they were happy in Vanadiel, and also the sheer enormity of the challenges in FFXI were designed to take many years to complete.

This is not a criticism of SE at all, I am one of their Fangirls, complete with scars from haters who keep bringing it, as haters will do. SE have an organic development process (their words) and often travel with no maps for this largely uncharted videogaming sphere. Players are not simply beating a last boss and restarting the game, or simply going on hollow short-term MMORPG dungeon-burns to obtain a finished power-weapon in a convenient time, but in this case we see players who placed their loyalty into extremely long-term projects, and became very attached to their characters and the surrounding virtual world during those long years. This is a totally new undiscovered island in the wide ocean of videogame development.

It is something of a dilemma to create the perfect game, a world that some people don't ever want to leave! Or worse still to have fans who are too busy building five-year weapons in game "W" to even glance at the new games "XYZ" that the same company is selling. It is a fascinating picture, and will no doubt prove to be a case-study for future generations of game devs around the world.

Originally Posted by Draylo-

You do realize everything you are saying goes against what SE did with XIV? They had all their data warehouses, sales numbers and business forecasting showing that XIV was a complete and utter flop. They took the risk and decided to revamp it and see how it went. You can't mean to tell me they had indications that it would be a success at all? They went out on a leap of faith and tried to restore their image after that horrible initial release. Just because sales data doesn't point to immediate profit, doesn't mean they can't and won't take a risk. I know its obviously pointless right now because they already made their decision.

^. And XI was and still is and will always be far more successful than XIV 1.x. I liked where XIV 1.x was heading, but XI not only has a solid 13 years behind it...but it's already one of SE's most successful titles and technically, most profitable FF title to date when you really extrapolate it. The market is there. The problem is, XI is an older MMO, if they revamped it then it would come with more modern features. They did XI with the risk of it failing because:

1. Final Fantasy is not an online franchise.
2. It was their First MMORPG ever.

The only reason, as said, that it isn't feasible to do a '2.0' of XI, is the fact XIV is currently running. If they left XIV in the dirt and focused on XI..we'd be playing FFXI Recollection or whatever right now.

Also:

they wouldn't go in the exact opposite direction of ceasing development.

There are no more kits to continue development. which means they would indeed have to overhaul the game and once again: With FFXIV running, it would be senseless to compete the two, let alone spend that much money revamping it when they're in active development for FFXIV. A market is a market, look at DQX..Dragon Quest is significantly more popular in Japan than Final Fantasy yet they continued to run the originally WII BASED MMORPG despite being an extremely niche market.

The fate of FFXIV was still kinda up in the air when they decided to revamp it though. They hadn't already made a big announcement saying "NO MORE UPDATES EVER!"

Actual Announcement:
"Novembers version update will the last major update however quality of life and balancing patches will continue."

Even then, they never gave a definite to FFXI - Just when november comes is when we actually find out what's what. Also, FFXIV had an even more major announcement: It was shutting down and a new version will take its place.

FFXI is a modified Playstation 2 game that is 13 years old.

Even Maplestory went through an overhaul, relaunch and getting a sequel..it far from failed. Age doesn't matter, if they want to they will. Like I've said, the main reason to not do it is because XIV is currently their developmental focus in terms of FF MMOs, if they relaunched XI it'd just be trying to compete two FF MMOs against each other for no reason.

Otherwise in terms of possibility? More than possible. There's a market for it (you just think otherwise) and they wouldn't be making a mobile client to XI if they really did want to get rid of the IP. It all comes down to November.

I'm not really getting why so many people would want development to continue. I know some people have been very current on the game and devour new content as soon as it comes out. But I see an awful lot more people who missed the boat on earlier content updates and would now have a chance to catch up. I for one would kind of like to live in a world without perpetual fear of missing out.

And this is why MMOs like FFXIV, for the lack of a better phrase, are boring as hell in the long run because everything is homogenized and technically goes against everything an MMO was. It's fine to have that preference..but you miss out you can still catch up, but the major difference is, newest MMOs tend to invalidate content and prior accomplishments - this is why it'd be tricky for an XI revamp, because a lot of XI's content felt like accomplishments.

In XIV..even beating Alexander Savage 3 didn't feel like an accomplishment because I know it's going to be meaningless come the next update. If you join FFXI now..you have plenty of content you can do mostly just to see the content or experience the story (what a lot does in XIV) but at the same time in any MMO, the most current content is what you'll want to focus on. A revamp to XI also means a revamp of all content which means theoretically, XI "2.0" could launch with the most content of any MMORPG in existence if it truly wanted.

All in all..until we see how successful or not XIV remains, they may or may not revisit XI. I personally hope they do because quite honestly, XI is the better of the FF MMOs, but XIV is the most "mainstream friendly" one.