Thoughts on a shared subscription?

[Pixela]

The only reason anyone suggests this at all is because they previously did it, and they only previously did it because ff14 was a total disaster and they were desperate to try get any ff11 players to move to it. It will never be done again, on this game or any of their others because ff14 doesn't need more players and ff11 will shut down if it loses its core players.

Also, they are totally separate projects unlike wow/wowclass

This is an assumption with no basis. I play both, I love both. I know other people that do. Then there's the players that stopped playing FFXI to play FFXIV, who clearly don't think it's "awful" or they wouldn't have done that. You thinking FFXIV is awful does not mean you represent all or most FFXI players on the subject.

Obviously some do, I'm talking about in the majority of both playerbases. These games are chalk and cheese.

I wrote a big list of reasons why most 11 players do not like 14 but it will just annoy people so I edited it out. Lets just say there are real reasons most 11 players have tried 14 and come back to 11. There is almost nobody I have met that has not played 14 on 11.

This is not an untapped market, we don't like it.

[Alhanelem]

Obviously some do, I'm talking about in the majority of both playerbases. These games are chalk and cheese.

But that's just your opinion, it's not a fact, and it's not provable either. That list is also your opinion, not a fact. You obviously haven't asked FF11 players who now play 14, your sample is entirely biased. The reality is there are plenty of people in both camps. But there are both people in the 14 camp who have nostalgia for XI and people who never played it who are curious about it. And that's the whole point of this proposal. And it is prmiarly those people whom this benefits. You need to look past your own hatred and resentment to realize that not everyone feels the same way as you.

I get that you wouldn't use it, and you have friends who you know wouldn't use it. But you and your friends do not in any way represent all FFXI and FFXIV players. There absolutely IS an untapped market here.

Before FFXIV was even conceived, SE only had plans to run the game for so long. But I see you blaming FFXIV for FFXI's state, while insisting that "most XI people don't like it." If that were true, little to no one would have left the game for it. But people did. So which one is it?

Get over it and stop standing in the way of more potential players, both new and returning.

[Pixela]

I have literally never talked to a ff11 player that has not played ff14, the number of people I meet and talked to that like ff14 is very small.

They are so different it's hard to find people that like both, they do exist but they are a minority

Regardless, you and I are both well aware how little attention the developers give to this forum. What we say here is just for us, it has no greater impact on anything.

[Voidstorm]

I've played XIV beta. never played it since it went live nor have I played since it was killed and ARR was released.

[Alhanelem]

I have literally never talked to a ff11 player that has not played ff14, the number of people I meet and talked to that like ff14 is very small.

They are so different it's hard to find people that like both, they do exist but they are a minority

Regardless, you and I are both well aware how little attention the developers give to this forum. What we say here is just for us, it has no greater impact on anything.

My experience has been the exact opposite of yours. You say you've talked to almost no one that played both and like 14. Meanwhile, I have talked to many people in both games, quite a few of which actually do play both, and most are quite positive. So I entirely disagree with your notion that these people are a minority.

Meanwhile a good chunk of my main linkshell is now playing FFXIV.

I've played XIV beta. never played it since it went live nor have I played since it was killed and ARR was released.

They were two almost entirely different things. Original FFXIV was basically universally panned, even most of the people who didn't dislike it still think ARR and beyond was better.

1.0x is like taking any original field area from FFXI, multiplying its size by a factor of like 10 by copying and pasting, all the while keeping the same number of enemies / objects.

[Pixela]

The thing about our your argument is you're asking the company to take a massive risk, based off nothing but your opinion.

Mine is no risk, because we stay as we are. Profitable.

[Alhanelem]

The thing about our your argument is you're asking the company to take a massive risk, based off nothing but your opinion.

Offering a discount on a shared subscription does not have any real risk. If no one only subscribed to one game currently takes advantage of it, SE is only out the cost of implementation (which should be relatively insignificant against the current profits of both games). If people do use it but it's mostly people who are already subscribed to both anyway (admittedly possible), then they're still only out a relatively small sum and they can just end the promotion. On the other hand, if it gets some people who don't currently play both to play both (and this suggestion has come up enough that there are at least some players in this position), then it is a success and SE makes a little extra money.

The worst case scenario is no one takes advantage of it (or only the wrong people do it) and it incurs a modest cost to SE. Then it's just a failed experiment and they can end it as easily as they started it.

But frankly, I don't think it would be a failiure. They've already done this once before and it was helpful. There's no reason it couldn't help a second time.

[Pixela]

Knowing you, as I do (I've testing you so many times) and knowing how incredibly defensive you always get when anyone says anything about 14 in any way. I think your reason for suggesting this is actually that you want to try encourage 11 players play 14 (which is why they originally tried to do it in the first place, and it failed or they would not of stopped it). This isn't about helping 11 at all, because you are well aware this would be an incredibly stupid idea that would lose the developers a lot of money.

[Alhanelem]

Knowing you, as I do (I've testing you so many times) and knowing how incredibly defensive you always get when anyone says anything about 14 in any way. I think your reason for suggesting this is actually that you want to try encourage 11 players play 14 (which is why they originally tried to do it in the first place, and it failed or they would not of stopped it). This isn't about helping 11 at all, because you are well aware this would be an incredibly stupid idea that would lose the developers a lot of money.

You don't know me at all, and no, that's not my motivation. But what does it matter, SE makes more money either way. Resorting to personal attacks to respond to my argument just proves that you have no argument yourself. This would not "lose the developers lots of money." You clearly have no idea what a promotion is or how they work. I just explained to you how it MAKES them money, and it really isn't rocket science.


X) You have some people who subscribe only to game A.
Y) You have some people who subscribe only to game B.
Z) You have some people who subscribe to both A and B.


With a promotion like this, some portion of people in group X and group Y are now subscribed to both games, gaining SE whatever that discounted price is (let's just say 9.99 for example purposes). This is extra money in SE's pocket that they would not have had if they didn't do the promotion.
The only way this loses money for the game company is if more than 3/4 of the people taking advantage of the promotion are people in group Z (because these subs aren't extra subs and they are price reduced). And that's really not very likely to be the case at all. Even th en, they aren't losing that much money. If the promotion later ends and they retain any of these players afterward, then the promotion is a success.

And no, the original dual sub promotion was not a failure, it was planned to be temporary from the get go. That only makes it more of a success as long as any of the people who used it remained dual subscribers after the end of the promotion.

Seriously. I play both of these games and I love them both. You have no evidence and know nothing about me to suggest that my motivation in pushing an idea like this is to pull people away from FFXI. It's pretty incredible and stupid considering how much you all accuse me of white knighting the FFXI devs. Ultimately you created this response because you have no other actual counterargument.


Why would I waste 8000+ posts of my existence talking about this game over the last 15+ years this forum has been around if I wanted people to not play it? Your accusation has no basis in logic or reality. And I don't "get incredibly defensive" if anyone says anything bat about 14. All I do is state the reality of things. You are free to like or not like whatever you want. The only reason I have any problem with your comments is becuase you're using weasel words to imply the group of people you believe share your opinion is larger than it actually is. It's entirely true that some people who play XI hate XIV and/or resent its existence. It's also true that some XIV players hate XI. But there are also people who aren't in either camp, and you're trying to pretend that these people don't exist. You can say whatever bad about any game you want, as long as it's a factually true statement, you won't get any argument from me.

I've spent hours in the FFXIV Novice Network talking about FFXI, defending *it* against people who think it's "bad game design" for different fights to require different team comps (among many other things). Why would I defend FFXI if I want to take players away from it?

Want me to say something bad about FFXIV? here we go! I hate summoner in it. It was my main from the start, and despite that it was butchered from the start compared to XI, I found it fun in its own way. Then each expansion, they kept changing it and making it "easier" but at the same time making it worse for veterans. Now in the current expansion, pets are basically gone from the game, just floating damage bonuses. And in PvP, Summoner doesn't summon anything at all (imagine that). I ended up switching to dancer after so many years, and even that isn't anything like FFXI's dancer (but still fun in a different way).

Just because I have positive things to say about either game doesn't mean I don't have gripes. You all treat me as some shining white knight that will defend anything but the reality is I have just as many problems with the games as you do. and I am absolutely sick of your baseless accusations and assumptions.

[Pixela]

I don't think some people understand how Square Enix funds these games.

FFXI and FFXIV both have budgets allocated to them 1-3 years in advance, all the money these games bring in go directly to the mother company and the developers never see any of it, outside of the +-50% of the projected revenue in advance. If 14 creates a certain mount, and it goes viral and sells 50k copies on the cash shop...they don't get that money directly and in-fact could see zero benefit from it at all unless at the next budget allocation meeting 2 years from now they can guarantee they can replicate it.

FFXI and FFXIV both relish stability.

If they dropped the amount of money people pay for their services, the revenue would instantly drop and show up on the revenue reports the finance dept use to allocate budgets. This is suicidal, because these games are not run in long-term mindsets and are actually run with short term mindsets (1-3 years) because the game only lives if they can convince the finance dept the game is still viable and to allocate another budget lump sum at these meetings.

This is like demanding you get paid twice as much so you work twice as hard over the next year to increase revenue for the company, unless the boss has a long-term outlook they will just see you cost twice as much now and fire you.

The reason FF14 cannot add new servers and ceased sales of digital copies for a while after the streamer thing, was to stop the game growing intentionally. The reason for this is, they don't have the money to add new servers to meet increased demand above and beyond projections. If they did pay for new servers, you would get less content patches becaause they have a set budget that is supposed to last of the next 2-3 years.

The same would happen to FFXI too. If 1 million people bought FFXI today and tried to play they would be screwed, they would not be able to pay for all the new servers. They do not have the money, they would literally have to refund most of these people or cease sales of digital copies.

Now you could say, just ask the finance dept for a cash boost. The issue is, a) this is a Japanese company with a strict finance dept that have been burned before and b) MMORPG players are incredibly fickle and all these new players could quit a few months later and then they would of spent all this money and see little revenue (then having to perform merges after). As such, the finance dept is incredibly unwilling to give them money to promote mass growth.

They will not be doing this, and I'm glad they won't.

The game needs stability, not stupid ideas that are a massive gamble.