Development Team Downsizing and Justification Makes no Sense

[Alhanelem]

But I also think that XI has been hamstrung since 2015 out of fear of impacting XIV's success

No, just no. Don't even go there. FFXI was never anywhere near big enough to "hamstring FFXIV's success." They could spend a million or two on an advertising campaign or something else to boost the game and it wouldn't affect FFXIV at all. This is an absolutely absurd proposition.

S-E need to bite the damned bullet and outsource this game to a software house with drive and ambition to make it a success.

Maybe you forgot that you alreaday covered it in your post, but they already tried that, and it didn't pan out, for reasons unknown.

The reality is that people want a different kind of game today than FFXI was in the beginning. Even if you cancelled FFXIV today and announced a remaster of FFXI, it wouldn't suddenly bring FFXIV"s millions of players over to FFXI. They would mostly play WoW or some other similar MMO instead. FFXI had several years to drum up the kind of demand that WoW eventually created, and it didn't. That's not to say FFXI was a failiure, because it wasn't, but FFXI's player count at its peak was small compared to the biggest MMOs. Your post comes off as blatant fanboyism rather than an accurate analysis of the facts/situation.

There was and is plenty of room for both games to exist. Any player of either game is making them money, and they both have rather different audiences. The bulk of players currently playing FFXI are interested in what it has to offer and the bulk of people who play FFXIV are looking for games that offer what it offers. There is SOME overlap, I personally hold a subscription to both, and I know some people in the same boat. but it's absolutely ridiculous to imply that FFXI had to suffer for FFXIV to succeed.

I can't fathom that how when hobbyists create entire servers, HD graphics overhauls, UI overlays, etc. for the joy of it, that at the very least S-E doesn't take inspiration and do the same.

There's a big difference between doing something as a hoby / for the fun of it and doing it as a job. SE's employees by and large probably want to be there, but they're doing a job and need to be paid. Thus doing this kind of thing costs SE money, and SE has to do a Cost benefit analysis to determine if the likely result is worth the cost. Whereas a hobbyist doesn't have to.

But it might take the collapse of XIV before Producers give some serious consideration to an FFXIR or FFXI-2.

FFXIV isn't going to "collapse" anytime soon. Becuase it is and always has been more successful than FFXI ever was, it actually is getting a graphical update. FFXI honestly should have gotten one, but "PS2 LIMITATIONS." FFXI's biggest mistakes have nothing to do with FFXIV whatsoever, and chief among them was not cutting the PS2 loose. They could have done so when the PS3 came out. If they had done this sooner when they were still putting any resources into FFXI, then they probably could and would have done a graphical update.

[Immortal]

No, just no. Don't even go there. FFXI was never anywhere near big enough to "hamstring FFXIV's success." They could spend a million or two on an advertising campaign or something else to boost the game and it wouldn't affect FFXIV at all. This is an absolutely absurd proposition.

False, especially considering they are practically considered the same entity under business reports. XI spending 2 million on advertising would have 0 affect on XIV? You can't be serious

Maybe you forgot that you alreaday covered it in your post, but they already tried that, and it didn't pan out, for reasons unknown.

So why bring it up? One example shouldn't be enough to stop suggesting they try it if they don't give a F about the game. I personally would hope they continue it but its increasingly obvious to me they don't care (Square Enix)

but it's absolutely ridiculous to imply that FFXI had to suffer for FFXIV to succeed.

No it isn't, and its a fact.

[Sp1cyryan]

No it isn't, and its a fact.

So does your dad work at SE or something?

You do realize this game be this way without FF14 ever existing, right? At this point it is likely helping.

[Alhanelem]

No it isn't, and its a fact.

This isn't a fact in any way shape or form, and you don't have any ability to prove it. There is nothing in your post whatsoever other than opinion, and a heavily biased opinion at that.

If you use the word "fact," you need to cite your sources.

So why bring it up?

You brought it up yourself, so ask yourself that question, I guess? The point was, there is a reason it got cancelled, and while we don't know the exact reason, the most likely ones are either disagreements between SE and Nexon over development or the business side of things, or simply that cost-benefit analyses were not favorable to continuing with the project.

False, especially considering they are practically considered the same entity under business reports.

Are you Pixela's second account or something? We've been through this a million times already. The fact that the individual games aren't listed on financial reports means nothing. They're grouped together because they are run by the same business unit at SE under the same director and for no other reason. FFXIV does not need FFXI's player numbers, which are absolutely insignificant against FFXIV's, nor its income, to post favorable financial reports- FFXIV gains absolutely nothing from this statement of yours. If anything, this "arrangement" (it's not really fair to even call it that, because as I said, it's as simple as "the same business division runs both") is beneficial to FFXI as it means it doesn't really need to even meet any financial goals. And SE has stated its intention to keep the game running for the forseeable future so a mainline FF title remains playable. This absolutely facilitates that.

There is literally nothing more to your post than "I hate FFXIV and resent its existence so I'm blaming everything on it." (And just like Pixela, you're suspiciously unable or unwilling to cite your sources)

FFXI was already declining before FFXIV even came out, and no, it wasn't simply because people knew it was coming. If that was the case, when XIV 1.0 flopped hardcore, why didn't FFXI see a player influx? It was in every way the better game at the time.

[BobbinT]

The housing destruction is the single worst thing I've seen in an mmo, they designed the housing system to be limited in a subscription based game and knew full well that if someone ceases their sub they will lose it. This would be annoying enough on its own, but when the lead developer tells you to just go play other games if you're bored with the lack of content, knowing full well your house gets demolished if you ubsub is terrible.

On one hand it's predatory behavior to blackmail players this way, on the other hand I know people who haven't played for years and retain the sub to keep a fake house so it obviously works. Smart buisnessman.

This would be like if the developers made prime weapons have an afterglow, but limited it to 50 per server and to retain it you had to talk to an npc once a month in the game. If you unsub you lose the glow and all the gil / time you spent to get it in the first place.

Well... FF14 now has Island Sanctuary, FF11's equivalent for Mog Garden/Island, & next week's patch 6.4 will let players decor using outdoor housing items up to 90 furnitures. Think that would ease up alot of problems regarding housing needs.


Do personally admit having housing mostly for cheaper tele access, but only in long run since I do play there since start. Also, there's apartments which doesn't have destruction/eviction times, at least for indoor furnish needs. And it might not hurt joining free companies since one can rent rooms there as well which provides up to 500+ per FC.

[Immortal]

FFXI was already declining before FFXIV even came out, and no, it wasn't simply because people knew it was coming. If that was the case, when XIV 1.0 flopped hardcore, why didn't FFXI see a player influx? It was in every way the better game at the time.

It was declining, as a direct result of all resources being pulled so they could work on XIV. XI went literally 8 months+ without an update during WOTG, that whole time period was a huge crawl in terms of content/updates due to XIV. As a direct result (they also stopped advertising during this crunch to get XIV out) the game suffered, can see that easily before 1.0 came out. This caused a decline, which did turn around once Abyssea came out. This is because 1.0 flopped.

Final Fantasy XIV 1.0 released in September 2010

Service for Heroes of Abyssea commenced on December 7, 2010

This saw an increase in XIs population and the devs decided to focus on the game as a result of the horrible 1.0 release/reception to tide them over until realm reborn.

[Sirmarki]

well the cost of running the servers has also decreased quite significantly, you are right, some costs have gone up, others have gone down. Inflation is only part of the story...

I would pay an increased sub, as it just falls in line with what generally happens overtime anyway, and if it offered new content.

I mean a wardrobe costs £1.40GBP, to put it into perspective, I don't even think that buys a bottle of cola now.

[Pixela]

To be clear, they have literally stated that the money that was going to upgrade XI to a ps3 and later possibly ps4 game instead went to make XIV. They just assumed everyone from 11 would play 14, which is why they made the races identical (even the hairs are similar). Quite why they chose to change the names though makes zero sense to me.

Whether what happened is for the better or worse is unknown, if they had updated 11 into a ps3-4 game it's entirely possible they would of re-imagined it into a travesty and completely ruined it long ago to the point none of us would even care about it now.

For better or worse, at least 11 is true to what it was made as and what we like it for.

I frankly don't trust Square to do a remake of 11 then or now.

[Pixela]

As FFXI nears its 20th anniversary, gaming technology has quickly come a long way over the years, and I imagine many concerns came up as the game grew older in comparison. How long did you originally expect the game’s operations to last?

Tanaka: When we chose to make the game for the PlayStation 2 (PS2), we assumed the game was fated to end with the PS2’s lifespan. However, the Windows version extended FFXI’s lifespan beyond that of the PS2.

Tanaka: Back then, household gaming consoles lasted about five years before they were succeeded by the next generation. The PS2 was succeeded by the PlayStation 3 (PS3), which had drastically better graphical capabilities, and we felt that a simple port wouldn’t cut it. Of course, we received many requests for a PS3 port, but we had a massive amount of development resources, of which the graphics data in particular would have to be remade from scratch. Rather than pouring manpower and budget into reconstructing a world that players had already thoroughly experienced, we felt that those resources would be better spent creating a new game with its own world and adventures. With that said, we surmised that FFXI players would be emotionally attached to their player characters, so development of FINAL FANTASY XIV (FFXIV) began with design options for characters which resembled the player characters in FFXI.

Tanaka: It was like a parallel development period between FFXI and FFXIV. On one hand, the FFXIV team was working to the bone to establish their project, while FFXI was lacking staff members for development of Seekers of Adoulin and ended up getting help from an external development company.

https://we-are-vanadiel.finalfantasyxi.com/post/?id=120

[Sp1cyryan]

To be clear, they have literally stated that the money that was going to upgrade XI to a ps3 and later possibly ps4 game instead went to make XIV. They just assumed everyone from 11 would play 14, which is why they made the races identical (even the hairs are similar). Quite why they chose to change the names though makes zero sense to me.

No, they literally stated that the cost to remake the world was not worth it, and they expected the game to end with the end of PS2. That is different than "money for 11 went to 14." Massive amount of development resources isn't about the resources of the team, but the work they have to do in this context.

They used the similar looking races because they were building on their success and prior work and had a connection to XI. Come on, this isn't hard.