In NA, FFXI released one year after it did in JP

50k isnt even a good number for a free to play MMO. Even if it remains free it needs way more players to keep the game running if they plan on to switching to microtransaction model. Needs probably a million if there ever would be a hope for an expansion.

Just wanted to add something to the "this game was far worse when it was released" thing.

WoW had a terrible start on release, it wasn't untill they released Burning Crusade that it started to become popular.

Come to think of it, I can't think of a single MMO that did well within their first year of release. They always improved with age... or died off swiftly.

Oh and Cichy, EVE Online only has at most about 500,000 players, and the most people usually see online at any given time is between 30,000 to 60,000, and that's been running successfully since 2003 with numerous expansion packs. ;)

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Originally Posted by Konachibi

Just wanted to add something to the "this game was far worse when it was released" thing.

WoW had a terrible start on release, it wasn't untill they released Burning Crusade that it started to become popular.

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Dude, what? WOW had 6 million players when BC released. The only major problems WOW had for the first 5 or 6 months was not enough servers and notoriously long queue times.

If people are paying for monthly fees and expansions offcourse it will run.
Here's a video many may want to take a look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns-II...layer_embedded

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Dude, what? WOW had 6 million players when BC released. The only major problems WOW had for the first 5 or 6 months was not enough servers and notoriously long queue times.

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Oh.

In Europe it didn't do well at all at first, from what I was told by someone who played it from beta. I don't really know how it went for other countries/areas. Just going by what I was told. My bad ^.^

Still, I did hear it had a lot of trouble in terms of gameplay.

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Originally Posted by Cichy

If people are paying for monthly fees and expansions offcourse it will run.
Here's a video many may want to take a look at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ns-II...layer_embedded

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This is where people underestimate Arenanet's ability to grab players with it's B2P/microtransactions that are only for cosmetic purposes. GW1/factions ran on the same model and still has a strong amount of players (including myself) because their transactions are done "right" and had no effect on gameplay AKA buy to win. GW2 is following the same B2p/cosmetic model, and if there is nothing "game-breaking" with the model being used, then I believe it will be a success just like it's predecessors..

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Originally Posted by AsterBarnivere

This is where people underestimate Arenanet's ability to grab players with it's B2P/microtransactions that are only for cosmetic purposes. GW1/factions ran on the same model and still has a strong amount of players (including myself) because their transactions are done "right" and had no effect on gameplay AKA buy to win. GW2 is following the same B2p/cosmetic model, and if there is nothing "game-breaking" with the model being used, then I believe it will be a success just like it's predecessors..

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Forsaken World operates on the same model but caters to a more 'anime fan' gamer. Some of the outfits are absolutely wild, but people love it. When Age Of Conan went free2play thousands of players screamed at Funcom telling them not to make 'character enhancing' items available in the market. Funcom did that, AoC hit the 2 million player mark about a month after going f2p.

FFXIV could easily operate using a similar cosmetic market based model along with selling expansion packs.

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Originally Posted by Konachibi

Just wanted to add something to the "this game was far worse when it was released" thing.

WoW had a terrible start on release, it wasn't untill they released Burning Crusade that it started to become popular.

Come to think of it, I can't think of a single MMO that did well within their first year of release. They always improved with age... or died off swiftly.

Oh and Cichy, EVE Online only has at most about 500,000 players, and the most people usually see online at any given time is between 30,000 to 60,000, and that's been running successfully since 2003 with numerous expansion packs. ;)

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Nah they had around 4-6 million players by the time Burning crusade came out, and by the end of it they had 10 Million, they did have a rough start, with server stability, long queue's and lag, oh the lag in pvp was horrible(World pvp back then)

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Originally Posted by XxOstiaxX

Nah they had around 4-6 million players by the time Burning crusade came out, and by the end of it they had 10 Million, they did have a rough start, with server stability, long queue's and lag, oh the lag in pvp was horrible(World pvp back then)

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It still is. With the amount of AoE abilities every class waves around now, the new PvP zone is just an easy-way to melt your computer. Once everyone piles together and starts nuking the whole screen turns multi-colour and runs at about 1 frame a millenia.

Dungeon queues take about 30 minutes, sometimes longer, unless you're a tank or healer.

And honestly the amount of ACTUAL players is probably back to 4-6 million, most of the numbers they added were trial accounts or multi-accounts.

Sooooo glad I don't play it anymore XD

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Originally Posted by AsterBarnivere

This is where people underestimate Arenanet's ability to grab players with it's B2P/microtransactions that are only for cosmetic purposes. GW1/factions ran on the same model and still has a strong amount of players (including myself) because their transactions are done "right" and had no effect on gameplay AKA buy to win. GW2 is following the same B2p/cosmetic model, and if there is nothing "game-breaking" with the model being used, then I believe it will be a success just like it's predecessors..

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The one thing I hate about micro transactions is it focuses on freebie cosmetics that should be gotten in game via accomplishments to promote individuality (ie if you have a certain badass look its because you defeated that hardmode raid encounter, not because you went to E-Macy's and bought it).

Still, GW2 is looking better than anything out there for the foreseeable future.

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Originally Posted by Neptune

FFXI was a much better game in beta than this game is right now a year after release. But anyway, I think you're just trying to say "maybe it's not so bad after all". I think it is so bad, but it will work out. I hope some of us can argue successfully here in favor of this game being a lot more fun than it will be if it merely copies and pastes FFXI.

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You say this but I have talked to several players who played Japanese beta and Japanese launch and told me the state of FFXI was worse than the state of FFXIV at launch. They said not until the first expansion Rise of Zilart was the game really in a playable state.

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Originally Posted by Dargoth_Draconia

You say this but I have talked to several players who played Japanese beta and Japanese launch and told me the state of FFXI was worse than the state of FFXIV at launch. They said not until the first expansion Rise of Zilart was the game really in a playable state.

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Does it really matter? FFXI is a decade old. There is absolutely no reason to use FFXI's launch state as an excuse for FFXIV's launch state.

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Originally Posted by Konachibi

It still is. With the amount of AoE abilities every class waves around now, the new PvP zone is just an easy-way to melt your computer. Once everyone piles together and starts nuking the whole screen turns multi-colour and runs at about 1 frame a millenia.

Dungeon queues take about 30 minutes, sometimes longer, unless you're a tank or healer.

And honestly the amount of ACTUAL players is probably back to 4-6 million, most of the numbers they added were trial accounts or multi-accounts.

Sooooo glad I don't play it anymore XD

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Eh... Yeah they still lag in PVP, but it cant be compared to the old day's, old day's the server and zone would crash, now you get a lag here and there, you get long dungeon timers, if you are not a healer or tank, and erm they never used trial accounts to account for their numbers

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Originally Posted by Wolfie

Does it really matter? FFXI is a decade old. There is absolutely no reason to use FFXI's launch state as an excuse for FFXIV's launch state.

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The point is, in both games they made a similar decision. If you think it was a bad idea, releasing FFXI early; then you would think they had learned nothing from that "mistake," and made the same decision in regards to FFXIV.

BUT, if you think the early release of FFXI helped contribute to FFXI becoming a better game, then SE would have done the same thing for FFXIV.


Remember FFXI Lasted for years and will last for more years to come. What the initial reactions are and what the state of the initial release pales in comparison to what the game WILL be in 2-3 years. In both FFXI and FFXIV they released each game at the same critical stage, where they needed actual player feedback. Because the actual state of the game 2-3 years from now is immensely more important than what the initial reaction is, SE released both games early for the same reasons.

My point has been and still is; NOONE can argue that THE ACTUAL STATE OF THE GAME TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE would have been better if FFXIV remained in SE's hands completely. If it hadn't been for the player feedback at such a critical time, many features would not have been changed, many plans would not have been made, and there would not be as much pressure as there is now. Plus we wouldn't have Yoshi either.