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

**Elexia** · 09-09-2015 04:00 AM

He does have a point actually. Abyssea wasn't a 'cyanide pill' for XI, it was content always planned which got revealed during XIV's initial launch reveal. It is obvious they'd hope people move over to XIV..but they weren't trying to kill off XI.

You do not kill off something that prints hundreds of millions a month for you.

**Krystal** · 09-09-2015 04:07 AM

Originally Posted by Elexia

He does have a point actually. Abyssea wasn't a 'cyanide pill' for XI, it was content always planned which got revealed during XIV's initial launch reveal. It is obvious they'd hope people move over to XIV..but they weren't trying to kill off XI.

You do not kill off something that prints hundreds of millions a month for you.

It's a marketing tactic as old as time that companies have used over and over again. They want you to use their new product instead of the old one they don't want to keep making/managing. So they rig it to die out in one way or another so the demand for said product drops while at the same time, they release a new product claiming it to be ten times better than the other one.

**Draylo-** · 09-09-2015 04:41 AM

That would make 0 sense, especially since FFXI costs MORE than FFXIV in most cases (9.99 a mo for legacy prices in XIV.) Why would they want people to stop playing the old game when they game paid either way?

**Cowardlybabooon** · 09-09-2015 06:14 AM

I think another server merge in FFXI would drastically alleviate the feeling that the game is dying. There is plenty of content in FFXI at the moment and the graphics totally stop mattering when you stare at the game every day. I've suggested before that SE could go a long way just increasing the level of the mobs and the drops in a lot of the older content that didn't go over so well such as legion and meeble burrows, as well as the retired content such as Sky Gods and Kirin. But special attention would need to be paid to making sure that Best in Slot pieces came from all of the various content, rather than just one type. We don't know what they have in store for the final update though, and I doubt they will leave us hanging given their recent positive track record with new content and the way they have successfully incorporated Delve, Vagary, Unity and various other events into the Escha pop system.

Regarding actually attempting to get players back from FFXIV though, I think a content re-hash/level-up would make a lot more sense than a graphics overhaul, considering the entire game was written for PS2 and they've been extremely open about the fact that there simply is no more development hardware available in the world. They would have to rewrite the basic code of the entire game. If you didn't read the director's post about this, then don't assume you know more about it when replying :-)

**Skizzle** · 09-09-2015 07:59 AM

Cowardlybaboon: I've missed you brother! I'm glad to see that you are still around

**Alhanelem** · 09-09-2015 09:07 AM

It's very interesting that FFXI is going to be at TGS. Although I'm personally assuming it's something about Grandmasters (since that's not coming out here) or the mobile game. I'd be more invested in learning about the mobile version if it was actually a client for the same game, but since it is something seperate, it just won't work for me.

I want it to be clear that while I am playing FFXIV and I enjoy it, I really want XI to stay alive. I want it to always be there for me to come back to- it's been a part of my life for so long, that even though I'm not the active player I used to be, I'd be very saddened if I felt the urge to play it and went to do so only to discover it wasn't there. FFXI was actually the first true Final Fantasy game I ever played (I played Final Fantasy Adventure and Final Fantasy Legend 1 on Game Boy, but those aren't actually FF titles- They were branded with the name to sell them. FFA is actually the first title of the Mana series- it would later get a remake on Game Boy Advance called Sword of Mana; and I forget what the FFL games were known as in Japan, I just know they aren't really FF). I'm somewhat cynical about this appearance meaning anything good for NA fans, but part of me is hopeful.

It's doubtful FFXIV will ever have Puppetmaster, so FFXI is like to forever be chained to me in that respect.

---------

About abyssea:

While Abyssea in some ways was a mistake for the game, I think it's pretty absurd to argue that they deliberately created it to push people away. This argument is absurd on many levels, not the least of which is the fact that if they deliberately alienate customers, they probably won't buy or play another SE product. Their marketing team would have to have lost their marbles to think that they could push players towards FFXIV buy deliberately ruining FFXI for its current players. It wouldn't work, it obviously hasn't worked- More of my friends that quit FFXI are not playing either (or any) MMO, than are playing both or have moved to XIV. This kind of behavior would permanently lose a quitting customer, not regain them in another game.

Abyssea itself was not bad at the time. Most people I know enjoyed it, the power trip was fun, and that's essentially what it was- a power playground. The real defect with abyssea was it was basically impossible for the team to develop any content that could live up to the fun and excitement that Abyssea intiailly had- Thus, when Abyssea began to wear off, there was nothing that could adequately fill the void it left. Voidwatch (lol) made an attempt at this, but it seems like it wasn't quite enough. It's other main defect was trivializing the level-up process, which more or less killed traditional parties for leveling up. Since for some people this was their favorite part of the game, that really stung for some (while others who only cared about endgame and were done with leveling up after their first few jobs were not so bothered).
TL;DR: It's not unfair to blame Abyssea for the game's decline, but it is somewhat unfair to say abyssea itself was bad. Abyssea indirectly damaged the game through the effects it had on future content and on leveling.

**Vold** · 09-09-2015 12:46 PM

Originally Posted by Krystal

Okay, Live in denial. Your the idiot who can't see what really happened while everyone else can.

I tend to think of Abyssea as more of an attempt at keeping FFXI subs subbed to FFXI while those people subbed to FFXIV, too. Anyone in their right mind would assume that all FXI players would at least give XIV a shot. In the event they liked it, Abyssea was their way to lure them into paying for both because as far as SE was concerned, the release of XIV would totally terminate XI's existence unless they did something about it. It's the reason we're where we're at today in this game. The question is, were they right? Would the playerbase abandon pre-abyssea FFXI in favor of a much more time forgiving XIV? Well, we got us all here still. Our pops got hit hard when 2.0 was released. We got hit not so hard when 1.0 released but our pops never recovered after that version failed, so obviously people went elsewhere because they were tired of FF, period.

Anyway I don't see Abyssea as an attempt to sway people toward FFXIV, at all. It was obviously designed to turn the game on it's head and peak the interests of players with a mind blown cap raise, exp rates on steroids, an enjoyable buffing system to experience what we never have before, an end game designed to put those buffs to use, and a new method of earning loot by using procs to increase drop rates and made use of all jobs in the game that tied everything nicely together. Overall Abyssea was incredibly well done and very enjoyable as a result. If their goal was to push people over to XIV, they failed miserably. What they did do, however, was fail to make Abyssea perfect because it had armies of bored people waiting for a proc to go off. I lost quite a few casual friends in game when they got tired of Abyssea and quit. The only thing worse than low drop rates is low tolerance levels.

As I suggested before, a better method(and only method) would have been to increase drop rates based on your alliance's diversity of jobs. It would have spared us the proc system which clearly was designed to motivate playing nice with different jobs. Didn't nobody take 18 BLMs or 18 RNGs to Abyssea, that's for sure. It also would have solved half of the voidwatch headache, not that we ever nazi'd that as badly as we did with Abyssea farming, but still. If you wanted to max your time investment, you took as much diversity as you could manage.

Sorry, but I look at Abyssea and procs and ever since as their way of improving the status quo of XI as it was to keep interest in the game. Who's to say if it worked or not. We can speculate, but we'll never know. Don't get me wrong, I have preached here time and again I believe that SE would love nothing more than to be rid of supporting this old PS2 game. But at the same time, money is money and that's why they do what they do, for money. I'm sure they love making games, but let's face it...they wouldn't if they weren't getting paid. They have no reason not to try to keep XI going, but the day it dies they will not shed a tear. They'll probably throw a party and look to the future.

If not for the apparent problems of PS2 dev kits, they may very well have kept going. If I understand things correctly...what is happening with this game is the result of a lack of PS2 dev kits. If one dies on them, it's gone forever. I don't know why they can't work something out with Sony. Maybe they choose not to or Sony threw away everything in regards to PS2 years ago. Whatever the case may be, if FFXI is to continue, it needs to be......................REBORN. Har. Har. Har. Roll credits!

.....but not into that mobile crap. Like I said before, they have an updated game engine that uses much of FFXI's models, already built. I'm not a dev, but to the untrained mind, it seems to be a simple task of remaking Vana'diel with the XIV engine. Of course it's not that simple, but...it's got to make the process that much easier to say YES to doing it. It's better than starting from scratch. It seems like a no brainer to make the most out of your investment on creating the XIV engine. You just throw some people at getting it done and whenever it's done you're practically guaranteed to have people waiting in line to buy it and log in and experience Vana'diel all over again. Your one job is to decide what's best: Do a do over and erase the expansions, kind of like a EQ2 thing where it's the same world but different time period, OR include some expansions, like up to ToAU, which was the last serious expansion they did before they stopped major support of the game to work on XIV.

It's up to them. Expand it, or disband it. Personally, after FFXIV, I rather them expand it.

**hakrev** · 09-09-2015 02:50 PM

Honestly I don't get the entire "abyssea ruined ffxi" sentiment that ppl seem to have. The subscriptions were highest during abbysea. I've played since NA pc release and I have never once seen more ppl log in or more accounts created than I did during the time abyssea was going on. It was fun working as a team to get seals and fight huge bosses and FINALLY we were doing some damage. Before abyssea we dealt crap damage and were made to feel weak and pathetic no matter how amazing our gear was or how well we played. Don't believe me? Pandimonium Warden, look it up from when it came out. Disgusting elitist content that was clearly out of control. Beyond that we were forced to be a part of slave-like linkshells to get our relic gear. You had to sometimes spend MONTHS to save up "points" to get a chance to lot on gear for your main job that you came as and forget about making a relic, only Dyna ls leaders had a chance at that. So, Finally they made content achievable and attainable that was actually not elitist and BOOM, we had a huge amount of players.

Adoulin is what killed FFXI playerbase, from it's extremely elitist content at launch (99 R/E/M only or come as bard) to it's out of touch with reality wildkeeper reives that required stupid amounts of players to challenge it. Adoulin is the nail in ffxi that allienated the players who were just finally getting to the point where they felt like they were good players only be reminded of how polarizing the ffxi community can be when difficult content releases. Most ppl log in a game to have fun, there is no fun in being told your job is worthless that you love to play. You didn't get that very much in abyssea (besides pld, which was clearly suffering at the time).

Also before the release of abyssea we had very few ppl logging on (hence server merges that occurred right before the release of abyssea). Honestly I want another abyssea to be released with 22 new sets of af type gear (maybe 130 ilvl or something cool) and 17 new empyrean type weapons (obviously stronger than the current junk that empyrean weapons are). That's what brings us together. When we can all get something and see our characters improve every night even when we just go help random ppl with some random nm. That is not what adoulin is or anything since. Escha is not like that either. The gear is simply side-grades for already over-bloated amounts of side-graded gear to the point that players are generally kind of confused what to focus on. You know what saved ffxiv? You know what made ffxi better? When the game was focused and we could see a goal and achieve it. Nobody wants another set of side-graded ilvl 119 gear, it just makes our eyes roll up in the back of our heads and facepalm.

We want weapons that are new, and look cool and have new ws's, we want new af-type sets of gear (adoulin has 0 af-type content, and that's really strange) and we want to party together, heck alliance together for experience/capacity points like we could in abyssea. Yes it breeds leeches, but who cares, boot them out of your party if you don't want them. Honestly I could see a large interest in ffxi even now if they put the time in and made a new system for us to take on that was actually accessable to returning players and new players and actually gave them a way to get up to speed. Argue what you will, but I believe that that is the ONLY way the game will ever see more players.

I for one loved pre-abyssea and actually quit for a while during abyssea. But the numbers are there and it's clear it was madly successful in getting more subs, even if 1/3 of those were dual-boxers/multi-boxers. They tapped into something with that content. And I think it's exactly right to describe abyssea as the power-playground where we finally could deal amazing damage. That's the high-note I want the game to end on. Not this weird black/white colored zones of escha with the stupid status ailments the nms have here, making all but bsts/smns/geo completely useless. And the accuracy-apocolypse we've had for several years now. Honestly they could double or triple accuracy and it would drastically make the end-game more attractive. And I also hate my r/e/m-gear progression being tied to weird events like vagary that is obviously going to fade into the distance and has almost no real appeal to most ppl.

I know it's a bit off-topic, but that's how I feel.

On topic, I love the idea of a ffxi 2.0, or a new mmo that was geared towards hardcore players, but there is like none out there even remotely intriguing enough to try. FFXIV is far too wow-ez for me to enjoy (max level, awesome gear in less than 3 months and every job capped...come on, pathetic). So I think there is a market for ffxi and I think the idea of a kick-starter type program would be great as we hardcore ffxi players could rally behind our favorite game. Shoot, I'd love for a whole new generation to explore vana'diel like I did or at least have a chance at a truly challenging mmorpg that wasn't a wow clone. That alone is worth the price. I just wish there was somewhere to go after they get tired of ffxi and shut down the servers and I really wish they would do either ffxi 2.0 or something ffxi-like in it's challenge. Heck I'd love to see ffxiv become a challange at the high levels but it just isn't and honestly I don't have much love for ffxiv right now. I know it's probably going to get alot of TL/DR's but I think abyssea needed to be defended a bit because it drew my linkshell together in a way we couldn't before or since and I think there were others that enjoyed it too.

**Alhanelem** · 09-09-2015 05:24 PM

Adoulin is what killed FFXI playerbase,

Not really accurate, players on the servers were low before audolin and not really changed after it for better or worse (for some time at least).

Like I said in my post: Abyssea itself didn't directly damage the game upon its release, it was actually well recieved at the time of its release. The real problem lied in the implications it would have on content post abyssea, as well as the impact it had on leveling. It trivialized something that was a major source of community in the game (Most of us met eachother in EXP parties, especially in the early days) and also highly encouraged leeching and laziness. People leveled up all their jobs real fast and then lost their drive.

**Zarchery** · 09-09-2015 07:47 PM

Abyssea and Adoulin didn't kill FFXI!!!!! It's obviously [INSERT THING I PERSONALLY DISLIKE] that did it!

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

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