Final Fantasy XI Future love!

[Hercule]

I will continue to play to FFXI forever if servers stay up and updates continue!! (I even imagine myself still playing FFXI even in 20 or 30 years, why not...) , and if a day official server come down ill play on private server if that needed, but i will never play this game as an Off Line game. (Exept if it's a completly new game that only keep the map of FFXI with new story and NPC, so, not at all the same game)

Personnaly my only pleasure in this game is the social part and play with real life bro!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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?