[Gratitude] PS2 Limitations

[Dragoy]

The only thing I would change, is adding another section to RoE after “Beginner” and “Intermediate” to direct people to learn about more content.

There is Help Desk / Adventuring Primer, which I believe Zenion was referring to as well, and which does indeed have heaps of directions to content and more... but I'm not sure how many people will even find it there, and it's of course not the same as Records of Eminence objectives.

I forgot it exists myself, until I saw someone on a live stream look up things there that I was talking about in chat (looks like it was initially added in the May 14, 2015 (JST) Version Update already).

[Alhanelem]

I always wondered what would happen if SE did this.

I don’t see why they don’t add about 3 or so brand new servers, and prevent transfers to those servers for a few years.

It would be a cheap, and easy way to bring in a wave of new players.

The problem is SE doesn’t seem to like making money, or being creative, or listening to their fanbase.

It’s almost as if they are purposefully doing the opposite of what makes sense.

You guys are really living in a fantasy lol

an "advertising push" for a 22 year old game with 22 year old graphics with mechanics that, while we know and love them, aren't at all friendly to today's gamers? It would not produce any results.

While you and I and the rest of us love the game, the demand for an MMO as hardcore as FFXI is low. The game needs significant other investment before I would say promoting it is a good idea. And advertising costs more than you clearly seem to think in the first place. What would they advertise, anyway? If they released some big update with a notable new content, I could see doing some promotion for it. But Like I just said, FFXi's issues extend well beyond lack of promotion. If you were a marketing manager at SE, you'd see all the other projects you have, and how promoting literally any of them would likely generate more income than an ad campaign for FFXI.

[Alhanelem]

There is Help Desk / Adventuring Primer, which I believe Zenion was referring to as well, and which does indeed have heaps of directions to content and more... but I'm not sure how many people will even find it there, and it's of course not the same as Records of Eminence objectives.

I forgot it exists myself, until I saw someone on a live stream look up things there that I was talking about in chat (looks like it was initially added in the May 14, 2015 (JST) Version Update already).

People don't read instruction manuals and stuff. And in order for people to read these primers, they have to know about them first. If the game itself linked to them, sure, it would probably work. But the game basically doesn't link to any outside-of-game help. Probably in part because under normal full screen mode, you can't view external links without closing the game.

[Dragoy]

People don't read instruction manuals and stuff. And in order for people to read these primers, they have to know about them first. If the game itself linked to them, sure, it would probably work. But the game basically doesn't link to any outside-of-game help. Probably in part because under normal full screen mode, you can't view external links without closing the game.

The thing I'm referring to is inside-of-game though, under the Help Desk menu item, but yeah, don't think anything in-game actually tells the user about it.

[Dihlyte]

There is Help Desk / Adventuring Primer, which I believe Zenion was referring to as well, and which does indeed have heaps of directions to content and more... but I'm not sure how many people will even find it there, and it's of course not the same as Records of Eminence objectives.

I forgot it exists myself, until I saw someone on a live stream look up things there that I was talking about in chat (looks like it was initially added in the May 14, 2015 (JST) Version Update already).

Yeah I love this little thing.

The problem is I didn’t even know it existed until I already knew, and was clearing this content myself.

It’s great, but no one knows it exists, and the people who do know, already know everything about the content it covers.

[Zenion]

You guys are really living in a fantasy lol

an "advertising push" for a 22 year old game with 22 year old graphics with mechanics that, while we know and love them, aren't at all friendly to today's gamers? It would not produce any results.

While you and I and the rest of us love the game, the demand for an MMO as hardcore as FFXI is low. The game needs significant other investment before I would say promoting it is a good idea. And advertising costs more than you clearly seem to think in the first place. What would they advertise, anyway? If they released some big update with a notable new content, I could see doing some promotion for it. But Like I just said, FFXi's issues extend well beyond lack of promotion. If you were a marketing manager at SE, you'd see all the other projects you have, and how promoting literally any of them would likely generate more income than an ad campaign for FFXI.

Yes. Of course. You're right. Literally anything is too expensive to try to keep this money pit of a game going, time to just shut the servers down and move on to the next Final Fantasy VII spinoff.

Thank you for reminding me that not even FFXI players think FFXI is a good game.

[Alhanelem]

The thing I'm referring to is inside-of-game though, under the Help Desk menu item, but yeah, don't think anything in-game actually tells the user about it.

The help desk menu leaves a lot to be desired. And it's real primary purpose is customer support rather than game tips.

[Alhanelem]

Yes. Of course. You're right. Literally anything is too expensive to try to keep this money pit of a game going, time to just shut the servers down and move on to the next Final Fantasy VII spinoff.

Thank you for reminding me that not even FFXI players think FFXI is a good game.

I never said FFXI was a bad game. But it's a product of a different era, and gamers today are very different from 20+ years ago. An ad campaign for a 20 year old game just really isn't going to have a lot of impact.

Ultimately SE is going to put its money where it thinks it will get the most return. And as much as I wish it weren't so, that isn't nor will it ever likely be FFXI unless and until they decide to remake/remaster it.

[Zenion]

I never said FFXI was a bad game. But it's a product of a different era, and gamers today are very different from 20+ years ago. An ad campaign for a 20 year old game just really isn't going to have a lot of impact.

Ultimately SE is going to put its money where it thinks it will get the most return. And as much as I wish it weren't so, that isn't nor will it ever likely be FFXI unless and until they decide to remake/remaster it.

The thing is, people seem to love games from twenty or more years ago. They even love Final Fantasy games from that long ago for some reason. You seem to think there's just no market left for this game, that only people who are currently playing it will ever want to, but I'm pretty confident that's not the case.

Now, yes, Final Fantasy XI expects a little more focus and a little more strategy than newer MMOs. It's not going to have the broad appeal of FFXIV, with its easy-to-read fights, its flashy graphics, its refusal to miss any opportunity to pander to Final Fantasy nostalgia. If you did a big billboard and ad-roll campaign you'd be throwing away money, for sure.

But that doesn't mean there isn't an untapped audience. The FFXI niche is a very specific one which isn't super oversaturated; it's a little bit into that Dark Souls unforgiving difficulty territory but not quite, it's something where you can plan and strategize which might tap into the strategy games corner of the market, it's an easy pick for gamers running low specs, there are a lot of people this game could appeal to. (Crafting, fishing, mog house decorating, and the general vibe of Vana'diel's environments might even be enough of a draw to catch the sort of cozy/casual players who don't love building in Minecraft but play for the mood.)

Problem is, you say "Final Fantasy XI", people either answer "huh?" or "oh yeah, when did that shut down?" You don't need to sell them the game, you need to remind them that it exists.

Advertising with that goal in mind would be more along the lines of finding gaming content creators who tend to produce technical and skill showcase videos and streams, and approach them with a sponsorship deal, point them at the content in FFXI that needs some level of planning to approach, and set them up with whatever levels and gear are appropriate to it (if any are interested in doing the level-grinding and gear-collecting stuff themselves, even better, that's probably going to turn into extra content and more exposure.) Hype up the player base a week before the videos/streams are set to drop, try to get #FFXI trending - probably not possible even if former players got noisy on social media too, but worth the effort. You get broad exposure for the sort of people who are most likely to want to give the game a try and stick around long enough to make it worthwhile.

Yes, I know, there are already people who do that (without even needing ti be paid to!), there's a bunch of FFXI streamers and a few of them specialize in the high-end battle stuff... but they're stuffed into the FFXI silo, getting an audience of pretty much just people who already play or used to and don't really want to come back. It's nice that there's community engagement but it's not being seen by prospective new customers, so it may as well not be happening as far as marketing is concerned.

But I mean, hey, what do I know. Maybe that's a multi-million dollar plan right there, maybe it really is too expensive. But an investment of zero seems to be yielding a playerbase growth rate of even less.

[Alhanelem]

The thing is, people seem to love games from twenty or more years ago.

Yes, sometimes this is true. But it's mostly limited to games in certain categories that have aged especially well and are still approachable by gamers used to the current gen of games today. FFXI is, for all of its good points, not a very approachable game. You kind of have to be in the hardcore gamer category to truly appreciate it today. Back in the day, the virtual world concept was still in its early stages and had a lot of mystique to it. Today, there are tons of such games to choose from. I've asked many, many people in FFXIV about FFXI. Quite a few people think it's dead (in the unplayable sense, not the popularity sense) and even when you let them know it's not, they don't want to play an unpopular game. Others are aware of FFXI, but they're too invested in the game they're playing now to get into another MMO. Still others are curious, but then get put off by how difficult it is to create an account, subscribe, and get started (something SE can and should still fix...) Others are more casual players and think FFXI looks too intimidating.


I've maybe convinced one person they should "eventually" try it- after I did some streaming of me going through nyzul isle solo and comparing it to deep dungeons in FFXIV (they are avid solo runners of it and cleared on many jobs). And they may do it, but its clearly still not a priority. So yes- I actively do promote FFXI when the oppertunity arises, but I'm batting near zero when it comes to getting people to actually try it.


Secondly- Outside of fans of the game, FFXI does not have the "classic" status that would attract more of the general population that gets into retro games like you suggested. I'm also not sure FFXI is really old enough to be retro just yet. Retro mostly and usually means 2D pixel art games.

Ultimately, FFXI is going to be a pretty hard sell to all but the right people for a variety of reasons- even though in many cases, those reasons are the reasons why we posting here love the game.

Before there can be any hope of successful promotion of the game, there really has to be some more investment in the game itself. And at the present time, I'm not convinced that's likely to happen. Now if they promoted the game while they were still making TVR or RoV, it might have had more of an impact. We really need something new that we can leverage for any sort of promotional campaign.


(Not to mention how hard it is to convince people to subscribe to multiple MMOs- SE should really bring back the dual subscription discount, or, dare I suggest it, simply have it be an add-on to the FFXIV subscription for a few extra dollars and BAM, you have a whole another game's playerbase who has easy access to play this game that, in our eyes, IS classic. Considering how much of FFXI is actually in FFXIV, it could be to FFXIV like WoW Classic is to the current WoW. But I guess that would make too much sense.)