How long do we have left?

[Dreimar]

That's true indeed Wade, ive got tells from ppl who left the game years ago.
tells like " Hi drei ! I've bough 1 abyssea expansion ! what i have to do now" ... 1 hour of chat later the guy was a little less
entusiasthic :P

[Runespider]

Only thing that will kill off FFXI is the Square themselves, lots of players are coming back lately and if they build on tha t it couldand should last at the very least a few more years. It will probably outlive FFXIV but I probably shouldn't say that on here.

[Wade]

That's true indeed Wade, ive got tells from ppl who left the game years ago.
tells like " Hi drei ! I've bough 1 abyssea expansion ! what i have to do now" ... 1 hour of chat later the guy was a little less
entusiasthic :P

Lol, yea well, at least there is new stuff for them to do now, which is nice. The grass is always greener right

[Wint]

We've had a ton of people come back, so many that the new linkshell we started had to shut down recruiting so we could take some time to get to know the new people. Most of us came from XIV who had come from XI, and we spend a lot of time chatting in IRC already so we knew each other fairly well. If anything, at least on Asura, the mood feels upbeat, and things are definitely still busy here.

[Wade]

I kind of feel sorry for SE. they are in a real pickle. XIV did not come anywhere near to be what they wanted and so now they have to decide what to do. Do you sink resources back into XI, or try to do both or just push everything into making XIV and hope it's not too late? Whatever the case, I think XI will be around a while just because even if there are only a few servers, I don't think they would completely shut it down. The only downside now, is that they have made it so easy to get to 90, I think a lot of people are coming in, capping out and finishing all missions and are now getting bored and just waiting on new expansions. So I hope, the next 2 level cap increases prove to be a little slower or harder to achieve, just to help keep interest alive.

[lathos]

lets face it ff 14 is the future and when they fix it sure im gonna play it that being said ff11 has been fun for me for over 7 years although im no endgame player i havent done all the quest,i dont know everything there is to know and i just came back from a year and a half break due to the death of my old playstation its ok,ff11 has been fun since they launched it,its not plagued by slow interface or need of a super computer to play,and its easy to jump right in and get lost in the megatons of content,that said ff14 is the future and its more like ff11 everyday,yoshi p has done a phenomonal job revamping and continues to make the changes the players want so that it can be a more pleasing experience,but ff11 will not die theres too many people who have spent long years on it to leave it on a whim,but ff14 is more like it than u think and getting closer to being playable by the hardcore ff base everyday,but whether u choose that or ff11 it doesnt matter they are sisters and we can love them both

[Yopop]

As of April of 2009 FFXI had over 2 million subscribers.

I would put money on it if the subscribers have not increased that it's floating somewhere in the 1.5 million range

Just because you guys don't see people on the servers doesn't mean there are no subscribers. It's a reoccurring fee based game.

[Savanah]

If a weekend late prime-time PST is any indication on Leviathan, FFXI is still going strong. I've seen in excess of 3700 players on at times. That's a really good number.

[Dreimar]

3700 ?!? Eekk too many! You shoulda toss some thousand down from airship into the sea
Seriously, i didnt see any lack of players on Sylph , over 1.5k on working days , 2.5k on weekends

[HFX7686]

I don't think that SE would trot out the Abyssea expansions and then this nice shiny forum only to shut the game down in a few months. People truly underestimate the finances of a pay-to-play game online. There are still pay-to-play games from the late 80s (old text based MUDs) that are still running today as pay-to-play. The costs of running a couple of servers and maintenance on those servers without expansions/development/updates is only a few hundred subscribers. As long as people pay, they will keep it running.

Personally, I think the game deserves a complete graphics overhaul like I think Ultima Online did a few years ago. Hopefully they'll finally ditch PS2 support (or just not do the graphics overhaul for the PS2) and really spruce up this game a bunch. It'd be nice.