What's With the No Future Expansion or Addons?

[Karbuncle]

If you can tell me the difference between fighting a crawler in Sarutabaruta, Tahrongi, Buburimu, Shakhrami, Crawler's Nest, and so on beyond level/stats and TP move variance with some sub-families, I'll stop being a "whiny snot" about where a fight takes place actually mattering. I'd rather not sit here and waste potentially limited development resources on yet more busts when (long-time) needed fixes could be made to current areas. Sadly, the FFXI scale tends to hinge on whether or not something is the best or not. If a new zone or set of them is not good for EXP, gear, or gil, people will not want much to do with it after the newness passes. This was true before Abyssea, and it will remain so after.

Each expansion to date (boxed anyway) has brought about new content, and old fixes! Any Expansion will bring its share of new Enemies to take down, New areas to Explore, New monster Families to Defeat, New Armors to Obtain, and new Endgame Activities. Let me name a few!

RoTZ: New jobs, Added Multiple Brand-new Zones, Sky, Gods, Hecatomb/Shura/koenig, Sky gear (Kirin's Osode Set). Antica, Gigas. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL areas like Zi'tah. Expansive zones still in our memories today.

CoP: Added Multiple Brand-new Zones, Sea, Torques, Luminians, Absolute Virtue, Corses, Antlions, Sea-Capes. Added (AV) one of the most infamous monsters to date.

ToAU: New jobs, Added another Continent, Mamool Ja, Wamoura/Campa, Trolls, Lamia, Qutrub, Imps(Merit mobs!), Colibri, Salvage, Einherjar, Revolutionized Exp parties. the ZNM System with another Infamous Monster (PW).

WoTG: New jobs, Added 3 New Zones, Reused most, Slugs, Campaign, Ixion/SandwormBattlefields, Ruszor, Amphiter's(w/e!), Campaign-Armor, Sandworm-BF-Armor, Walk of Echoes. It was lesser of the expansion, But still managed to add a lot of content.

Every expansion too date has completely changed certain Aspects of the game rather it be Exp, How we play(New jobs), or certain NMs, and all while these were released, Old Problems were still fixed. This game has still come a VERY long way. There might be some old problems (I can't name any?), but as history has shown us, They can release expansions and Fix bugs, Problems, and still release meaningful and Enjoyable Content.

As Gwyn Said, We've all been Teased with talk about all these Wonderful worlds, "The Far East", the "Mithran Homeworld", etc, "The Western World". We're continually teased about these places. Players want to explore more. The above areas could very well have contained the Voidwatch System, instead of re-using places like Ranguemount Pass, Dangruf Wadi, and i can assume Horutoto Ruins.

We all want new exciting Content, but we want new exciting places to explore that content. Even if that thrill only lasts a short period, it would be worth it. I still haven't explored some places of ToAU.

We all also want fixes to old content as well, But again, As history has proven to us, They can release Grand expansions with new zones and still give us meaningful content and much needed fixes. Even the "old dev team" who usually fell on "PS2 Limitation" or "I can't do let you do that Starfox" managed to Release New expansions, and fix a lot of problems.

I'm sorry If i come off as greedy when i say, I want new Challenges yes, But i also want new places to Explore and experience these challenges. History has shown us it can be done, and that regardless of rather an expansion is coming out or not, Old problems will be fixed, and some will be overlooked. It happens.

I feel if we truly let the dev team know we will all fully support a new expansion, new zones, New areas, new mobs, new challenges... that maybe, just maybe, Some day down the line We'll be standing next to Tenzen in the Far East.

Or meeting with a Mithran Tribe leader.

Edit: Made it nicer
Edit2: Clearereded my points. I Hope you understand what I'm trying to convey.
Edit3: Fixed Spelling Errors, I'm 99% positive my Keyboard is Fking with me <________<

[Rambus]

I'm having a hard time being inspired looking at what's in store for FFXI up until 2012. The planned content looks all right, but not interesting enough to justify a full year of subscription. And so I expect I'll probably be dipping in and out; subscribing to check out new stuff for updates, and then unsubscribing during the in-between. 2011 feels to me like it's preparing to be another 2009 (read: dull and drawn-out).

I guess what I'm mostly wondering is why Square is so steadfastly resistant to giving players what they so obviously want, a regular expansion or series of add-ons in a new region of Vana'diel. The lore within the game itself fuels frustration by dropping teasing lines about how interesting foreign continents are. And then instead of following some kind of logical routine that logically extends after Aht Urghan we keep getting this bewildering content based upon other times and dimensions.

I mean, I guess I don't really know where I'm going with this. I think to most long-time players it feels like the most obvious thing, but nonetheless one that simply aint happening year after year. I could tell you that many players, such as myself, are virtually waving their dollars in the air asking to be spent on something like this. So why so resistant? Most people (or at least I) would probably speculate that:

-FFXI is too old and doesn't generate enough profit to justify a legit new expansion. (However if this were true wouldn't you want to give players what they're demanding to make more profit?)

-The team that works on FFXI is too small and not capable of creating an entire new expansion.

-Square is putting all their focus right now on saving their years of work put into FFXIV.

-PS2 limitations. Maybe there really is something to it we don't know about, but actually PS2 limitations are mostly imagined or overstated by players. I really don't want to go there yet again.

-Paying programmers to work on the clunky old PS2 spaghetti code is difficult and painful to subject a human being to and could potentially be raised as cruel and inhumane. (Just kidding... I hope)

This is what many players are thinking and wondering about. It feels a little like Square is just sick and tired of FFXI and just quietly pampering it as it declines. But we don't have any real info to go on except that every year brings renewed hopes, followed by disappointment. But if the team at Square would want to supply us with any, even vague, info then that'd be interesting for sure.

TL;DR Wtf y no espansion?

PS2 limitations, no one said this yet?

We all also want fixes to old content as well, But again, As history has proven to us, They can release Grand expansions with new zones and still give us meaningful content and much needed fixes. Even the "old dev team" who usually fell on "PS2 Limitation" or "I can't do let you do that Starfox" managed to Release New expansions, and fix a lot of problems.

I can not let you do that starfox?, I dont remeber that line lol

[Karbuncle]

PS2 limitations, no one said this yet?



I can not let you do that starfox?, I dont remeber that line lol

Lol. It was a joke on the fact that during interviews back in the day, we often got responses like "No, We can't do that" and "We can't tell you that", or "Impossible" rather than positive things about what they can do.

Where as now it feels completely different.

[Rambus]

Lol. It was a joke on the fact that during interviews back in the day, we often got responses like "No, We can't do that" and "We can't tell you that", or "Impossible" rather than positive things about what they can do.

Where as now it feels completely different.

Yeah i remember those just not sure where the reference is from, i mean i played the game, I just don't remember that

[Karbuncle]

Yeah i remember those just not sure where the reference is from, i mean i played the game, I just don't remember that

Pretty sure its more of an Internet Meme, not from the actually game. If anything it'd be from S.F64 of the "Adventures" one. I haven't completed Adventures.

[Runespider]

I hope this thread doesn't get ignored, this is a really big issue for a lot of players. I fully intend to play FFXI long term and with a statment that they will build on the world (expansions/addons) to cement my faith in it I and I'm sure many others will gladly stick with it as we all did with all the other MMO's that have come out over the years.

Not like they would make no profit from them either, makes no sense. FFXI has over 200k players, if only half of those bought a new expansion thats a nice amount of money..they could even sell it through playonline as they did with the keyfobs.

[Eeek]

Don't ya'll worry your pretty little heads off. I guarantee that there will be more downloadable addons and/or small expansions in the future (I see Abyssea as a small expansion in 3 parts).

I would not hold out hope for a boxed expansion, though. Digital distribution seemed to work just fine for the 2009 Addons-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named and the Abyssea addons. The production and distribution costs for a boxed expansion seem unnecessary for a legacy MMO, and let's not even start on the problem of getting the PS2 copies into stores (or even knowing how many PS2 copies to make in the first place!).

[Karbuncle]

Don't ya'll worry your pretty little heads off. I guarantee that there will be more downloadable addons and/or small expansions in the future (I see Abyssea as a small expansion in 3 parts).

I would not hold out hope for a boxed expansion, though. Digital distribution seemed to work just fine for the 2009 Addons-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named and the Abyssea addons. The production and distribution costs for a boxed expansion seem unnecessary for a legacy MMO, and let's not even start on the problem of getting the PS2 copies into stores (or even knowing how many PS2 copies to make in the first place!).

I mentioned this earlier, and i'll remention it for fun

I only use the expression "box Expansion" because when people think of the past BOx expansions, they think, New areas, New jobs, basically Epic Additions and Improvements.

When they think "Add-ons" they think. Rehashed areas, Rehashed Mobs, no new jobs, No new areas, etc etc.

If they offered a Digital Download with the amount of Content offered in ToAU, WoTG, ETC. I'd be okay with that. It doesn't need to be in a box, We only want the content that comes with a Box-Expansion.

thats what we're asking for

[Eeek]

I think it'll happen, too. The last Timeline had a definitive content endpoint in Heroes of Abyssea. I can't be the only one who did not see a 'definitive' endpoint in the most recent timeline. This current one feels like a short outline of an intermission. I don't believe that SE will usher in the (likely) final level cap increase with a whimper. They'll probably do it with a bang: something like a new expansion. It'll probably be split into several pieces as in the Abyssea 'expansion' model, though.

[Elexia]

Pretty sure they'll give us Conquest Point Brews for 20 points.