FF11 "Classic Fresh" - WoW is rebooting classic! How would you launch XI Classic?

[Leeto]

Clickbait? Trolling? Both?

Ah yes, how wonderful it was to start a party in Cape Terrigan and zone right after into Valley of Sorrows...

Well, Cape Terrigan levelling with the Page 1 FoV book in Wings era is still a good alternative to Bhaflau Thickets!

Wings of the Goddess introduced quality of life systems and is still considered classic!

Unlike the changes Lortheron is asking for, many players only wish for SQEX to recreate a 75 cap server before Abyssea at minimum.

75 Era Vana'diel recreated and preserved is the idea behind "FF11 Classic." Properly tuning content like AV & PW would be QoL.

After XIV's major success recently and seeing WoW Classic being rebooted for 2022 with new QoL changes...? What if...?

[Lortheron]

Well, Cape Terrigan levelling with the Page 1 FoV book in Wings era is still a good alternative to Bhaflau Thickets!

Wings of the Goddess introduced quality of life systems and is still considered classic!

Unlike the changes Lortheron is asking for, many players only wish for SQEX to recreate a 75 cap server before Abyssea at minimum.

75 Era Vana'diel recreated and preserved is the idea behind "FF11 Classic." Properly tuning content like AV & PW would be QoL.

After XIV's major success recently and seeing WoW Classic being rebooted for 2022 with new QoL changes...? What if...?

That would work too.

WoG + a bit faster leveling (than the original classic, that is) but WITHOUT Raphsodies of Vana Diel and Abyssea.

I'd get behind it.

[Lortheron]

Modernization does not always just mean positives, it can also bring negatives.

Sometimes it's better to just be happy you still have the game and it's being updated.

There are many ways to modernize a game a bit respecting and preserving the original idea and feeling. Involving the original creators is one way to try and guarantee such result somewhat.

But yes, a modernization like Warcraft Reforged is something terrible. Usually involving third party companies leads to bad results.

To me, Everquest 1 does it right.

In the singleplayer spectrum, from Square Enix: FFXII Zodiac Age PC is a great remaster modernized example. FFVIII remastered is terrible.

[Alhanelem]

So WoW Classic is currently doing a fresh start classic reboot with easier levelling, harder raid difficulty and QoL changes that are completely different to how they did "Classic" the first time around...

Would you launch the official FF11 classic server with QoL changes?

I would like to see everything up to Treasures of Aht Urhgan and implement Mythic weapons with it as a Quality of Life change! However I would not be against adding Wings of the Goddess or the add-ons, but the cut-off date for updates would have to be the March 23rd, 2010 update just like Wings.

Sky, Sea, AF2, Limbus, Salvage, Einherjar, Nyzul... When endgame meant alliances and group content. When every piece of 75 gear was a long-term goal. Everything before that date is the golden 75 era!

What works for WoW isn't guaranteed to work for other games. See the other "classic server" topic we just had and all the ones before that. SE has already said "Not happening."

The WoW team has the resources and community size to launch a whole bunch of versions of the same game. the FFXI team does not. The community isn't big enough for that either.

That said, I think they would stand to gain from promoting the game to FFXIV players, if they did it right by offering a combined subscription promotion and making improvements to the UI and stuff to be easier for people used to modern MMOs. The unfortunate reality is they did have such a UI in development at one point (which a few of us got to try a VERY early version of on the test server back when we had one), but it was sadly scrapped.

[Lortheron]

What works for WoW isn't guaranteed to work for other games. See the other "classic server" topic we just had and all the ones before that. SE has already said "Not happening."

The WoW team has the resources and community size to launch a whole bunch of versions of the same game. the FFXI team does not. The community isn't big enough for that either.

That said, I think they would stand to gain from promoting the game to FFXIV players, if they did it right by offering a combined subscription promotion and making improvements to the UI and stuff to be easier for people used to modern MMOs. The unfortunate reality is they did have such a UI in development at one point (which a few of us got to try a VERY early version of on the test server back when we had one), but it was sadly scrapped.

Square Enix has only to gain from promoting both games together, I agree. Offering discounts to FFXIV players and vice versa is something I support as well.

Thing is... many WoW Classic players and FFXIV players are longing for a game just like FFXI in every single way but they just don't know, can't know, FFXI is that game. That is because of the huge barrier the graphics and specially whole interface and playonline form together.

If FFXI got even a fifth the recourses and attention from Square Enix, FFXIV gets, it would be something much bigger, guaranteed.

No other company treats active MMOs this bad. Now I know it could be worse and they could bring the game down and simply stop supporting it all together, sure (in which case everyone would migrate to private servers and stop giving them money). But from the companies with have kept any old school MMO alive, Square Enix had to be worst, that is ever since 2016... really.

Runnescape and Everquest 1 fare much better in terms of updates and development from their respective current developers.

FFXI has a paid monthly subscription and one whole full crowded server plus two almost full servers. Square Enix really has no excuse to treat it THIS BAD, trully. It's shameful the way they've been ignoring the game since 2016, really, a lucrative game at that.

You can't just keep game servers alive for the sake of it and wait for the players to literally die. Some actual support and publicity is expected from any game company that's keeping any MMORPG alive, and Square Enix is simply doing nothing, zero, for FFXI.

[Immortal]

The thing is, FFXIV is really NOTHING quite like FFXI, nothing at all. Zero similarities in the experience for the player.

I know many people that hate the way FFXIV took but still play it because they feel like there is nowhere else to go. Many people would LOVE FFXI but the interface and graphics are a HUGE problem, even the installation and account creation are barriers. I do believe a remaster of any kind of FFXI would drawn many frustrated players from FFXIV and they would really prefer the FFXI experience a lot more.

Most people don't even know how much FFXI is all they are looking for in an MMO but keep away from it because of how much of a huge starting barrier it got and how old it's graphics and interface look.

Yes this is very true. It is honestly extremely sad, most of the 11 players back in the day HATED the WoW gameplay and concept. Yet now the majority of them all went to XIV because its supported by its actual DEV team and company, and it has pretty graphics and FF related nostalgia bombs. They would all come back to XI if the graphics were remastered and the UI and clunkiness overhauled. The global cooldown in XI is pretty horrible, I find myself spamming macros or actions for them to go off, feels very clunky. I am almost 100% positive they could have two very successful MMOs that cater to different crowds, if only they would put more life and money into XI...

[Lortheron]

Yes this is very true. It is honestly extremely sad, most of the 11 players back in the day HATED the WoW gameplay and concept. Yet now the majority of them all went to XIV because its supported by its actual DEV team and company, and it has pretty graphics and FF related nostalgia bombs. They would all come back to XI if the graphics were remastered and the UI and clunkiness overhauled. The global cooldown in XI is pretty horrible, I find myself spamming macros or actions for them to go off, feels very clunky. I am almost 100% positive they could have two very successful MMOs that cater to different crowds, if only they would put more life and money into XI...

I 100% agree with you. Classic 3D MMORPG players are orphaned with no where to go... Just FFXI, EQ1 and DAoC still have retail servers up, from the true classics.

[Alhanelem]

Yes this is very true. It is honestly extremely sad, most of the 11 players back in the day HATED the WoW gameplay and concept. Yet now the majority of them all went to XIV because its supported by its actual DEV team and company, and it has pretty graphics and FF related nostalgia bombs. They would all come back to XI if the graphics were remastered and the UI and clunkiness overhauled. The global cooldown in XI is pretty horrible, I find myself spamming macros or actions for them to go off, feels very clunky. I am almost 100% positive they could have two very successful MMOs that cater to different crowds, if only they would put more life and money into XI...

Personally, I picked up FFXI while waiting for WoW to come out. At the time I was a big fan of Blizzard's other games, like Warcraft II and III and Diablo II. But a friend invited me to play this game and it's been hell ever since lol. I did play for a time, but I just didn't quite fall in love with it the way I did FFXI. I didn't hate it by any stretch of the imagination. But FFXI just had a certain charm to it that WoW couldn't replicate. Probably the biggest reason for this was its lack of a real story at the time.

[Pixela]

It's depressing to me that the future of FF mmorpgs is going to be like ff14 now, because that userbase simply is more happy to be higher monetized.

Very casual, very easy, very care bear community, very monetized (and happy to be), very moderated, very flashy and over the top.

[Alhanelem]

It's depressing to me that the future of FF mmorpgs is going to be like ff14 now, because that userbase simply is more happy to be higher monetized.

Very casual, very easy, very care bear community, very monetized (and happy to be), very moderated, very flashy and over the top.

I mean, it isn't. things are constantly changing in the MMO universe. Many long time players of FFXIV feel the same way about where things are going since they started as you do at this point.