Final Fantasy XI Future love!

[Stompa]

You don't seem to see the elephant in the room so let me help you.

FFXIV is the flag shop mmo for Square, they are not going to boost FFXI which will 100% guarantee sub losses in XIV just to bring them to XI. Firstly it's not net gain for them because they will stop paying for one game and put the money into another, secondly they want more players on XIV and not more on XI.

Also you have to understand that many of us that still play XI do not like the XIV engine at all, I personally hate it with a passion and if they did change the graphics engine in any way other than upping the quality of the graphics maps I would bail on the game.

"updating" the graphics would the nail in the coffin of this game for many reasons.

I do agree with you that updating the FFXI graphics would run the risk of the graphics losing their doll-like charm. There is a lot of beauty in simplicity, and in my opinion FFXI hit the perfect sweet-spot with graphics, they are functional and they have an old-school charm. FFXI is populated by toy-soldiers and dolls, very much like the paper-doll 2D roleplaying games on PC, that came prior to FFXI.

The FFXI graphics are a side-salad to the main course, which is the playability of the game, the engine itself, the myriad of weaponskills and spells available, the long list of jobs with their unique play-strategies. FFXI has a masterpiece game engine, it is a sublime work of art. The actual graphics are nice, they look fine to me, and infact I do prefer the basic dolls and toy-soldiers appearance, to the more modern games where everything is realistic and shiny. "If I wanted realism, I'd go outside!"

In terms of flagships, yes FF14 is the flagship now, if we use the most common meaning of flagship ; the current major product. Some people do use flagship to describe the most successful product too, in which case FFXI is SE's flagship product, with over a decade of sales and subs, totalling far in excess of FF14.

Staying with the ships metaphor though, FFXI is an ornate wooden frigate, beautifully carved, with billowing sails, it sails gracefully and elegantly, and plays fine on a basic budget PC. FF14 is more of a gold-plated tugboat, it keeps getting more gold attached to it, but underneath all the gold it is still a tugboat, a basic vessel designed with one primary purpose, and without the grace or elegance of a frigate in full sail. (This is only my opinion!)

And this is why I don't really see the whole "they want us to go to 14" thing. SE know that FFXI and FF14 are two completely different games. They are both very good games in their own ways, and appeal to different tastes. I'm sure that SE realise this, and never intended for people who like the complexity and perplexity of FFXI, to suddenly like the ABCDEFG follow-the-arrows gaming in FF14.

I think it is good that people enjoy FF14, and I hope it is a success. But it was never intended to replace FFXI, as they are two entirely different types of game. SE must have known from the start that gamer tastes differ, and some people would love FF14 and others would prefer to stay in FFXI. And so long as people keep playing and subbing FFXI, it should be around for quite some time.

[Alhanelem]

FFXIV is the flag shop mmo for Square, they are not going to boost FFXI which will 100% guarantee sub losses in XIV just to bring them to XI.

Technically there's really no down (or up)side to this, because they get the same money (more or less) regardless of which game you play. And if they can get someone to simultaneously sub to both (as I often am), then they get MORE money.

[machini]

Technically there's really no down (or up)side to this, because they get the same money (more or less) regardless of which game you play. And if they can get someone to simultaneously sub to both (as I often am), then they get MORE money.

Yes, there is a downside: they have to commit a much, much larger amount of resources for a relatively small gain. The expenditure outweighs the potential income. This would be coming at a time when Squeenix is seeking to put as little development time and effort into both of their MMOs as they can.

How much money do you think they'd have to pay the 3-6 developers, if not more, it would take to do a graphical/client update to XI? To redo the vast majority of the art assets in a higher resolution form that could be used by the XIV engine, to recreate zones and quests, essentially to recreate the entire game all over again?

They have already spend several hundred million USD on XIV. The sheer amount of effort and work and money that it would take to do anything major to the XI client, like rewriting it to be a native windows executable far outweighs any potential revenue it would bring in.

This is like people who want a "classic" XI server: it's not going to happen. You'd need to bring in 8000 new subscribers to XI to offset the expenditure of a programmer and a 3D graphic artist, and that's an underestimate. Probably something more like 10,000. And that's for a fraction of what you'd need to do any major work in regards to new additions to the game. You could get around some of the graphical work by reusing existing assets, but then you risk another Abyssea.

As much as I love this game, it's dying, and it's because Squeenix wants it to die, for reasons that include they can't make enough money off of it to warrant putting more than the bare minimum into it. And between myself and my friends quitting XI because of design choices Squeenix has made, and another friend's entire Free Company quiting XIV for similar reasons, along with reports of others, there's even less incentive to dump money into a dying game when it's hemorrhaging subscribers. If it weren't for XIV's cash shop I doubt it'd make any money at all.

[Alhanelem]

commit a much, much larger amount of resources for a relatively small gain.

Unless there's a substantial enough change that new servers have to be set up, there is really no change in amount of resources needed. Neither game is poised to literally go away anytime soon, so it's not like someone switching games has a significant impact on their costs.

[Stompa]

As much as I love this game, it's dying, and it's because Squeenix wants it to die, for reasons that include they can't make enough money off of it to warrant putting more than the bare minimum into it. And between myself and my friends quitting XI because of design choices Squeenix has made, and another friend's entire Free Company quiting XIV for similar reasons, along with reports of others, there's even less incentive to dump money into a dying game when it's hemorrhaging subscribers. If it weren't for XIV's cash shop I doubt it'd make any money at all.

We are all sorry that you are quitting, and we hope that one day you will return to FFXI.

On the "losing subs" point, I agree that many veterans have quit, because they feel they beat the game or because they have issues with the direction SE has taken.

BUT. I am seeing a lot more new players in FFXI these days. I see tarus with the "?" ambling around Windurst, talking to Cardians and walking into trees and stuff, and sending me tells asking for help. I see new players soloing in lots of old areas camps. This is in the last few weeks, there has been a spike in new players that I run into around Vana'diel. Many of the old areas that had zero players in them, now have a few new/returning players levelling their first job with trusts.

Many years ago, somebody famously said that FFXI was designed for new players, the excitement and fun of having all the storylines and adventures still ahead of you, is what made the game great. And the new players I've met over the last few weeks, they are *really* excited, about things that many veterans can't even remember exists lol. There is a lot of enthusiasm among new and returning players, we just don't notice this when we are in Escha or Adoulin all the time. I go fishing in some fairly obscure places, just because I enjoy it, and I keep seeing new players soloing slimes and saplings in the remote faraway camps. They /wave and chat, they are really happy and enthusiastic.

I myself am looking forward to hanging up my spurs from my 2004 character, and starting over on a new character. I'm thinking of locking some of the jobs on lvl75, and playing old areas, NMs, campaigns etc. And being able to replay the missions again from scratch. I love the mission storylines very much, and haven't seen most of them in years. Maybe forming a lvl75 linkshell for retro events. There is a lot of adventures still to be had, if a person is willing to go off the beaten track.

But what strikes me is that I am seeing a lot of new and returning players, and they really love the new easy-access FFXI, trusts and warps and ROE etc. They are really having fun, and so I think they will balance out the veterans who are quitting. I don't see the average server numbers go down now, actually goes up compared to last year.

[Pixela]

I just want to point out that the most successful and profitable mmo titles in the world are all old and look old, new is not better or more profitable. The king of the mmorpg world in terms of profits is Lineage 1, followed by wow and many other old titles. None of the new fancy titles are anywhere near in any way you want to calculate it.

Having your product be playable to more people on a far wider range of computers trump flashy graphics, mainly because the kind of people who care about that are easily lost to the next new title that comes along. I'll take a nice design over more polygons or effects anyday, which is why I prefer the amazing art design and skill that went into XI over XIV.

http://mmos.com/news/lineage-1-profi...d-gw2-combined

[Alhanelem]

It's all subjective opinion, but releasing a good game and then releasing a bunch of bombs / lesser successful titles by one company does not say much. I've never played Lineage 1, nor do I know anybody who has (although I've heard of it). It's also hilarious to include a brand new game (blade & soul) in that list and "combine" it with the others as well.

You're basing your comment on titles all owned by one company, and ignoring other well known titles.

Profits also doesn't speak to size of playerbase or quality of game, only how well it was monetized. I'm quite confident without even looking at any data that WoW's profits blow those of any one of NCsoft's games out of the water. Regardless, Whether or not the game is fun means a whole lot more to me than how many dollary-doos its publisher has taken in.

Also, FFXIV has amazing art design as well (not just visuals, but music as well), and it has its own brand of skill, its just a very different kind from that which is needed here. Subjective opinions are subjective, of course. Even if I never played FFXIV, I could listen to its soundtrack all day long. FFXI's soundtrack is of course also great, although I find it best in Chains and beyond; Zilart and the base game's music isn't quite as good.

Newer isn't always better, but older isn't always better either. (Having said that, I totally agree that no game should be judged purely on how many polygons or gigabytes of space/RAM or whatever else it uses) How about we judge games on their individual merits rather than make sweeping generalizations?