Would a FFXI kickstarter be considered by the developers?

[Seiowan]

More money isn't always the solution. It's time, staff and resources that will be the deciding factor.

[Castanica]

More money isn't always the solution. It's time, staff and resources that will be the deciding factor.

It's mainly been money. If you read and watch the interviews they have given over the years, the only reason they decided to go ahead with XIV was because XI was limited to the PS2 written engine, the ps2 dev kits were a serious limiting factor. Re-writing the XI engine for PC would cost as much as making a new game so they decided to make a new game instead. They thought they could just make a new one and we would all migrate over happily, didn't work out in the same way it didn't with Lineage 1 and 2.

Most of the developers we have working on XI right now aren't really developers as you would think of them on other games, they are content creators using development engines that the first dev team made for them to make content in. That's why they are limited in what they can make for us now, best case scenario is the base engine is converted away from ps2 and they get new development suites to make content in. Sadly that will probably never happen, once the ps2 dev kits conk out there won't be anymore content at all.

[Zeldar]

More money isn't always the solution. It's time, staff and resources that will be the deciding factor.

Well, the point in collecting more money would be to hire more staff, who could take the time to pool together their resources and update the game. My point is, its money that makes all the things you mentioned happen. I'm sure there are many, many, MANY yound men and ladies looking for positions in this field. SE just needs the money to pay them! And yes, I am being prejudice against old people like me whose first foray into video games was Pac-Man !

[Castanica]

Things to keep in mind:
Severe lack of funding, with a lot of what is put into this game being funneled into other games (assets we pay to be made from out sub being given to other games for free etc..almost every update to XIV features assets from xi)
Lack of developers working on XI, most of our best devs were taken to work on other stuff.
Core engine limited to ps2 dev kit updates, a whole engine re-write is needed.
The head of the online gaming division of square (it' the same person who runs XIV) not wanting other games to steal players from xiv.
Every additional piece of content needs good gear as rewards or people won't do it, there are only so many pieces of gear you can add that people will want.
The importance of long-term retention (players getting gear faster isn't going to help with that), nor is all jobs being equal (XI and almost every mmo works on bandwagon players leveling new jobs based on current trending "best")
You can't have fully balanced classes unless you want everything the same and nobody being situationally good (also see above about bandwagon players).
That a shared sub would vastly decrease income to this game (this idea that 30k+ XIV players would come play XI in large numbers long-term is completely silly)
They won't add a cash shop for the same reason they won't add character / race changes, because they don't want to pay for programmers to make the in-game changes / cash shop integration and secure backend payment system.

The game needs a huge chunk of money to upgrade it, money that the person running the online division really doesn't want to go into XI.

[Dazusu]

but this game still has a fairly large amount of fans that would put money into a kickstarter

This is nothing but conjecture. I already contribute to the development of this game. It's called a monthly subscription.

Any type of re-imagining of this game or its engine for massive improvements has already been done and that is called Final Fantasy XIV.

FFXI being alive right now is pretty much fan service. Asking for more is looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Someone has to release the common sense in this thread. I don't expect it to be taken well, though.

[Castanica]

This is nothing but conjecture. I already contribute to the development of this game. It's called a monthly subscription.

So you're happy to pay $12, but not happy to OPTIONALLY pay more to make it better? There is nothing else like FFXI on the market and it has a fairly small budget, not like we can go play another mmo like this because it doesn't exist. I put huge amounts of my free time into this game, I can't understand how people would be unwilling to spend more (if they are able to) to make their own playtime better. This is, in your own interest.

Paying $12 means you're just going to get more of the same, you read that the main content until march 2017 is more ambuscade every month right? I don't think they are interested anyway though so the whole post was pointless anyway.

[Dazusu]

So you're happy to pay $12, but not happy to OPTIONALLY pay more to make it better? There is nothing else like FFXI on the market and it has a fairly small budget, not like we can go play another mmo like this because it doesn't exist. I put huge amounts of my free time into this game, I can't understand how people would be unwilling to spend more (if they are able to) to make their own playtime better. This is, in your own interest.

Paying $12 means you're just going to get more of the same, you read that the main content until march 2017 is more ambuscade every month right? I don't think they are interested anyway though so the whole post was pointless anyway.

SE are a corporation; a Japanese one at that. Can you imagine the shame of needing a Kick Starter to improve a "Final Fantasy" numbered title? Logically, it will *never* happen. If it was going to happen - this forum is not the place to post about it. The developers can't consider anything. They have absolutely zero control over the financing of the game. It's the suits that probably don't even know this forum exists you need to take such a proposal to.

I could sit here and wishfully exclaim "sure, I'd toss them $200/mo if it got an engine rewrite and texture overhaul" - but I know it's never going to happen. The only way this game will see new expansions and major content again is if all the people who have quit since 2010 come flooding back.

Not to mention that I've been away since 2013, and only just got back to the game - so I have a crap load of content to catch up on. If Ambuscade is all that will be released for the next 12 months, then I probably won't stick around long after I'm caught up.

[Diavolo]

I could sit here and wishfully exclaim "sure, I'd toss them $200/mo if it got an engine rewrite and texture overhaul" - but I know it's never going to happen.

Not with that attitude.

Many had resigned themselves to the same conclusion for a FFVII Remake. "That market grew out of it," "No one plays JRPGs anymore," but the demand for it kept coming. If you want it then keep pushing for it and convince others to do the same because that's the only way it's ever going to happen.

[Dazusu]

Not with that attitude.

I'm just a realist. You can't compare this to the FFVII Remake. It's a completely different situation. I would presume that Square Enix gauge the demand for Final Fantasy XI by the number of people playing it. Given they've had to reduce the development team to decrease costs - there obviously isn't that many people playing. Not many people = no more major content (and certainly no engine re-write).

TL;DR The game population is a 1:1 indicator of demand for FFXI. Same scale cannot be used for FFVII.