Merge the servers, and kill the game in the gaming comunity.

I've been playing the game for about 22 months now... And yes I know the game has only been out for about 15 months!

I've seen the game go throw some major changes. Most of them good, some bad, and some that make me think WTF?!?

I'm still going to play the game, and see how things go. But I do think Square shot them self's in the foot by announcing vr. 2.0 and making there current player base pay for a Alpha/Beta, knowing that the REAL game isn't going to be out for another 10-12 months.

Now I know that players want Square to merge the servers, so we can play on worlds with more people and get groups to do the LV 50 missions. Now looking at this from an outside point of view. If a company merges there serviers it shows investors, Gaming websites, magazines, people that sell games at countless stores, that the game is dyeing. If you have to merge servers since you have a low player base after a little more then a year, you have a major issue.

I checked the to see how many people are on the server I play on (Melmond), and we're at 377 players. So lets say that there's 400 people on right now and times that by 18 servers. 400 X 18 = 7,200 players. I've just check a different online game (No it's not WoW, or Star Wars) and they have over 55,000 players logged in at this typing. Keep up the work Rune Scape!

I'm not going to post my wish list, on what I think needs to be done to make the game better. I normally send feedback to Square on what I think needs to be done to make the game work better. We all should. Just posting it on the forms is ok... But go to the support site and file a feedback!

Needless to say the next two - three months will show how well the game will live or die.

To be fair, the game does have issues. Server merge after more than a year is quite standard in MMO industry, most has server merge in less than a year. For instance, RIFT used to have 99 servers now they are down to 47, both Korea and Japan TERA have server merged down to 1/2 in 6 months from launch (or will be) etc. That doesn't seem to stop the investors, at least for now.

It can be quite normal to have more servers than you know you will need see how things go over the first year, then merge them after the first year it gives capacity for any unexected demand and cutting servers is easy to do.

Agree with the 2nd and 3rd post, as long as SE are clear about the reason they are merging there is no reason for people to interept it differently, of course you will get magazines and websites blowing things out of proportion thats how they get viewers.

Everyone already knows the game is trying to climb out of a pit at the moment, after the poor billing service I really can't see SE making much more of a mess of things.

At this point is more important for SE to keep the remaining customers they have, after that they can start to rebuild the image of the game for 2.0.

the game has more then 7200 players
server merge will no kill the game
can not expect the game to be free forever, they had to start charging at some point.

I believe the biggest issue is that the EN, FR, DE population per server is really low at this time. Since JP rarely bother playing with us we are left with a world that feels even emptier.

SE isn't a company like Funcom or Bioware. They don't have investors that solely invest on them maintaining a single MMO.
SE is a company similar to EA. The are a producer and publisher of games. The own several game studios and release more than just FF games, and let alone MMOs.

Merging servers won't effect their stock listings.

Merging servers in your mind is a horrible thing because it marks the downturn in a games population. Sorry to break it to you the game have been low population for a year now.

Combining servers shoudl have been done almost 6 months ago. They held out, maybe it's very difficult to do with the server structure. But it needs to be done. It will only bring good things to everyone involved.

1) Costs less upkeep for SE to merge
2) Provides a larger per server community and pool of players
3) Fosters competative economy with influx of more mats more crafters and more wares.

I'm sure there are more reasons why merging is needed and welcome to this game.

After everything that FFXIV has been through a merge is the least of its worries.

You are worried about the games reputation in the media now!? lol its already ruined and tained. A merge will do nothing, in fact it might make some relief that people can actually do stuff because servers will be crowded, rather than being a wasteland.

Game doesnt need to worry about looking bad in the gaming community, its already there due to September 23rd 2010.

everyone already knows the game is dead currently, there is nothing wrong in making the place a better place for the current players.

if there's anything i learned for the classic 90's movie Jurassic Park it's, life finds a way.

I'm going to have to agree with the general sentiment in this thread, as well as adding a bit more to it. The game's reputation in the gaming media has already been ruined. Also, nobody on the outside really cares much about what is going on in this game right now. The gaming press already has their story: Final Fantasy XIV had a failed launch and is a sub-par MMO experience at the moment, but they are releasing a new Client and building new Servers. We will be there with early previews and interviews about the new version as they are availabe, more at 11.

"FFXIV is a bad game" is already the story. A server merge on a bad game is not news.

One thing that people aren't considering while doomsaying over pay-to-play is perceived value. A game that is free-to-play is generally considered a waste of time. Paying a pay to play game costs money, so maybe some will see it as worth their time. Human value assignment is a funny thing, and I would not be surprised if pay to play enhances the perceived value of the experience this game offers. Also, players who are paying are more likely to log in and play than those playing for free. I would not be surprised if average server populations at prime time increase as a result of the start of billing. In fact, that's what I expect to see: A modest but noticeable increase in population (pre-merge).

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Originally Posted by Doho

if there's anything i learned for the classic 90's movie Jurassic Park it's, life finds a way.

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I learned:

-You should have different software environments for dev, QA, production, etc.
-Any developer who demands prod environment access privileges to do his job should be insta-fired.

And that has helped me more than once.

That movie is full of wisdom.

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Originally Posted by MariyaShidou

To be fair, the game does have issues. Server merge after more than a year is quite standard in MMO industry, most has server merge in less than a year. For instance, RIFT used to have 99 servers now they are down to 47, both Korea and Japan TERA have server merged down to 1/2 in 6 months from launch (or will be) etc. That doesn't seem to stop the investors, at least for now.

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there is a big difference between a game like rift, from not a huge company, with a much smaller rep, and its not based on one of the worlds largest IPs, with a past game still running strong after a decade. Compare them dropping 99 to 47, to 18 to like 8.

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Originally Posted by Zanfire

there is a big difference between a game like rift, from not a huge company, with a much smaller rep, and its not based on one of the worlds largest IPs, with a past game still running strong after a decade. Compare them dropping 99 to 47, to 18 to like 8.

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It would be no problem because they are using different servers for 2.0, the PS3 version will not be on the current servers, so the population will not matter at all, infact it will only benefit from a merger and no one will see it any different except demand was not what SE expected (which is already widely known)

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Originally Posted by Delsus

It would be no problem because they are using different servers for 2.0, the PS3 version will not be on the current servers, so the population will not matter at all, infact it will only benefit from a merger and no one will see it any different except demand was not what SE expected (which is already widely known)

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actualy...ps3/pc servers will be shared with 2.0 dont know why you think they wouldnt be

and its not like they cant open new servers when ps3/2.0 hits, its not like thats imposible to do

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

actualy...ps3/pc servers will be shared with 2.0 dont know why you think they wouldnt be

and its not like they cant open new servers when ps3/2.0 hits, its not like thats imposible to do

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Never said they wouldnt be, what I said is that if they reduce server numbers it doesnt matter if they need to add more for population because the servers we are playing on will be gone come 2.0, not that they will not be shared, PS3 version will be on the 2.0 servers NOT the ones we are playing on now.

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Originally Posted by Delsus

Never said they wouldnt be, what I said is that if they reduce server numbers it doesnt matter if they need to add more for population because the servers we are playing on will be gone come 2.0, not that they will not be shared, PS3 version will be on the 2.0 servers NOT the ones we are playing on now.

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they wont eliminate the servers we are on....i dont think you understand how its going to work

they will upgrade them to the new version yes, but they wont just get rid of servers and create new ones

We are not playing 2.0 beta.

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Originally Posted by Picoman

We are not playing 2.0 beta.

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we pretty much are...... things will slowly be added that will make it more like 2.0 till the full revamp at said version update.

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

we pretty much are...... things will slowly be added that will make it more like 2.0 till the full revamp at said version update.

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adding and changing core systems, knowing a whole new graphics engine, world, story, UI and server functions are not going to be available until 2.0, not getting our real "free trial" until 2.0, knowing even basic functions can not happen until 2.0, having to deal with lesser versions of those functions and not getting others.

sounds like a beta to me. They just spice it up with some content and small bits of story.

SE has made some bad decisions regarding this game, and the gaming press already knows that. I'm sure that anything they do know pre-2.0 can't make things worse.

Look it like this: merge the servers now and make your current customers happy, or keep the servers the way they are and take a gamble on losing your customers and another one on 2.0 being a good game in the eyes on the press.

Well, at least that's how I see it.

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Originally Posted by Kaizlu

SE has made some bad decisions regarding this game, and the gaming press already knows that. I'm sure that anything they do know pre-2.0 can't make things worse.

Look it like this: merge the servers now and make your current customers happy, or keep the servers the way they are and take a gamble on losing your customers and another one on 2.0 being a good game in the eyes on the press.

Well, at least that's how I see it.

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all the bad press, to the guys at the top and any investors they have, just make this game less appealing for them to want to continue funding. It might be a good idea for the current players, but it just adds to the bad taste everyone else has of the game. The more negative storys, the more people see them, get turned off by it, and completely disregard anything the game does, even the big 2.0 overhual. First impressions are everything, its just how the world works.

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Originally Posted by Katt

I've been playing the game for about 22 months now... And yes I know the game has only been out for about 15 months!

I've seen the game go throw some major changes. Most of them good, some bad, and some that make me think WTF?!?

I'm still going to play the game, and see how things go. But I do think Square shot them self's in the foot by announcing vr. 2.0 and making there current player base pay for a Alpha/Beta, knowing that the REAL game isn't going to be out for another 10-12 months.

Now I know that players want Square to merge the servers, so we can play on worlds with more people and get groups to do the LV 50 missions. Now looking at this from an outside point of view. If a company merges there serviers it shows investors, Gaming websites, magazines, people that sell games at countless stores, that the game is dyeing. If you have to merge servers since you have a low player base after a little more then a year, you have a major issue.

I checked the to see how many people are on the server I play on (Melmond), and we're at 377 players. So lets say that there's 400 people on right now and times that by 18 servers. 400 X 18 = 7,200 players. I've just check a different online game (No it's not WoW, or Star Wars) and they have over 55,000 players logged in at this typing. Keep up the work Rune Scape!

I'm not going to post my wish list, on what I think needs to be done to make the game better. I normally send feedback to Square on what I think needs to be done to make the game work better. We all should. Just posting it on the forms is ok... But go to the support site and file a feedback!

Needless to say the next two - three months will show how well the game will live or die.

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Wow. No one has written a OP like this before.

They should just make a HUGE massive world with like 50 different starting towns, and 3 huge towns, and move everyone onto one server. That would be so awesome :D

Reading some of the comments from the post and I wanted to post a few replys

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Originally Posted by Kailea_Nagisa

the game has more then 7200 players server merge will no kill the game can not expect the game to be free forever, they had to start charging at some point.

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I know the game has more then 7,200 players. (Active players could be questioned but lets move on) I was using the quick math and comparing it to another online game that had almost 8 times the players online at the game time.

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Originally Posted by viion

You are worried about the games reputation in the media now!? lol its already ruined and tained. A merge will do nothing, in fact it might make some relief that people can actually do stuff because servers will be crowded, rather than being a wasteland.

Game doesnt need to worry about looking bad in the gaming community, its already there due to September 23rd 2010.

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If the company cares and IF the PR department is doing there job, they should care what the reputation is at all times. I fully agree that merging the servers will help the players that stayed, but when you only have 18 servers at the start for you new MMORPG, and you're cutting back... Gaming websites and magazines will see the blood and go for it, and vr 2.0 won't save them.

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Originally Posted by Zanfire

all the bad press, to the guys at the top and any investors they have, just make this game less appealing for them to want to continue funding. It might be a good idea for the current players, but it just adds to the bad taste everyone else has of the game. The more negative storys, the more people see them, get turned off by it, and completely disregard anything the game does, even the big 2.0 overhual. First impressions are everything, its just how the world works.

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I FULLY AGREE!

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Originally Posted by Katt

Reading some of the comments from the post and I wanted to post a few replys



I know the game has more then 7,200 players. (Active players could be questioned but lets move on) I was using the quick math and comparing it to another online game that had almost 8 times the players online at the game time.



If the company cares and IF the PR department is doing there job, they should care what the reputation is at all times. I fully agree that merging the servers will help the players that stayed, but when you only have 18 servers at the start for you new MMORPG, and you're cutting back... Gaming websites and magazines will see the blood and go for it, and vr 2.0 won't save them.



I FULLY AGREE!

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You were comparing it to another mmo that has 8 times more players and? alone this fragment means nothing except we need a server merge, SE WILL NOT get more players paying or atleast not enough to warrent the extensive cost of running 18 servers 24/7.

The reputation will not get better if they keep the server number and people have trouble finding groups what will the websites and magazines say "SQUARE ENIX DO NOT CARE THAT PEOPLE HAVE NOTHING TO DO IN FFXIV BECAUSE THE SERVERS ARE SO UNDER POPULATED" yeah reall good for PR.

What would look better is "SQUARE ENIX MERGE SERVERS." Square enix have noticed that until the V2.0 rerelease that thier servers are under populated, therefore by the request of the players, have decided to merge thier 18 servers into 10 servers to ensure the players remaining loyal have something to do ingame while they eagerly await the V2.0 patch."

Ignorance or caring about players, choose which is best.

If they do not merge the servers more players WILL leave, which will bring no money in and there is one thing thier investers hate more than bad press and that is no money.

It not only helps current players have a larger player base to interact with, it also costs SE less time/money on upkeep of these servers.

There is 0 need even PR wise to keep the other servers open at this point, doubly so that when 2.0 comes out we will be running on NEW SERVERS anyways.

I didn't even see that many sites report on the FFXIV 2.0 announcement. Something makes me think that they could not care less if there was a server merge. In fact, I am sure they were even expecting a server merge quite a long, long time ago.

From where we are now, this game can only go up. Don't get me wrong, this game has improved dramatically since when it first launched. However, I don't think they should screw over the player base they managed to keep for the sake of keeping a few sites from reporting on server merges for a game that most assumed was already dead.

E3 this year will be their miraculous rebirth in the eyes of of the media, until then, I think they should do their best to keep their paying player base happy.

@ Kat and Zanfire,

Who are these Investors you keep siting?

Final Fantasies are created and funded soley by SE. SE didn't lobby people with deep pockets to fund this game. They paid for it themselves.

A single games failure won;t make or break SE. They are a HUGE HUGE HUGE company.

This might be a bad analogy but SE is like Toyota.

If Toyota made only 1 type of car and that car was a bust, it's over for toyota.
But Toyota makes many different types of cars. Sedans, sports cars, Luxuray cars, Minivans, coupes, ect ect.

If SE made soley MMO games, XIV would have been a nail in the coffin.
But SE makes a lot of games, and owns a lot of game studios.

Toyota has put out some crappy cars they are still making cars.

SE has put out some crappy games, they are still making games.

Now, to focus on XIV. This MMO is created and funded by SE exclusively. This dev team only answers to the chairmen of SE they don't have to have quarterly meetings with vested interests. I read all over the internet, especially with MMO games about stock values and investors. It's a bunch of hyperbole. SE is a publicly traded company their stock will fluctuate over time. You will see a small surge in value before a huge game is released, and then a decline after. But it's no indication of how 1 paticular game is doing. Unless said compnay exclusively creates MMOs. Which SE doesn't.

So a long story short:

SE is investing in themselves. There are no outside vestors who are dictating the funding of the game. Find yourself a different avenue to approach when you state merges are bad financially for this game.

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Originally Posted by ChiefCurrahee

@ Kat and Zanfire,

Who are these Investors you keep siting?

Final Fantasies are created and funded soley by SE. SE didn't lobby people with deep pockets to fund this game. They paid for it themselves.

A single games failure won;t make or break SE. They are a HUGE HUGE HUGE company.

This might be a bad analogy but SE is like Toyota.

If Toyota made only 1 type of car and that care was a bust, it's over for toyota.
But Toyota makes many different types of cars. Sedans, sports cars, Luxuray cars, Minivans, coupes, ect ect.

If SE made soley MMO games, XIV would have been a nail in the coffin.
But SE makes a lot of games, and owns a lot of game studios.

Toyota has put out some crappy cars they are still making cars.

SE has put out some crappy games, they are still making games.

Now, to focus on XIV. This MMO is created and funded by SE exclusively. This dev team only answers to the chairmen of SE they don't have to have quarterly meetings with vested interests. I read all over the internet, especially with MMO games about stock values and investors. It's a bunch of hyperbole. SE is a publicly traded company their stock will fluctuate over time. You will see a small surge in value before a huge game is released, and then a decline after. But it's no indication of how 1 paticular game is doing. Unless said compnay exclusively creates MMOs. Which SE doesn't.

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SE isnt ran by people who want to lose money, its run by big business men that will look over each project and see if its worth putting that much more time and money and people into. All companys, funded in or out have games scrapped, even close to done because the big guys dont think its worth it. Do you think they will keep this game going with a tiny playerbase and constant bad press?

noone does this purely for the sake of doing it, they do it to make money, and right now FF14 is not making them jack shit (even with these payments now) and has a good chance of not making it when 2.0 hits (like i said, first impressions are the biggest, many people wont even take a second glance at this game ever again)

and its also been a "shit stain" on the FF name, which this is their bread and butter, they dont want to hurt it.

in the end they cant win. Merge servers...more bad press, leave them up, tick off more players and waste more money. If they kept it free until 2.0, they could have avoided this very likely, but we all know someone on the top wanted to make some sort of money off this game, so Yoshi was stuck doing it. I can bet you its the last thing he wanted to do until 2.0 was ready.

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Originally Posted by Nikita

I didn't even see that many sites report on the FFXIV 2.0 announcement. Something makes me think that they could not care less if there was a server merge.

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This isn't how gaming media works -- If they can slander a bad project even further, why would they report something positive about it unless it was already overhyped? XIV 2.0 announcement and PDFs is a very positive change for a product with a negative image -- If SE merges, you can guarantee sites will report that over the 2.0 information.

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Originally Posted by Zanfire

there is a big difference between a game like rift, from not a huge company, with a much smaller rep, and its not based on one of the worlds largest IPs, with a past game still running strong after a decade. Compare them dropping 99 to 47, to 18 to like 8.

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RIFT isn't cheap to make, I would guess around 50m. APB wasn't cheap either, RTW was in the red of about 100m when they went burst. FFXIV on the other hand, I doubt the figures would be that high because SE develop many games sharing same assets like the graphic engine (at the very least FFXIII, XIII-2, XIV and XIII vs). Like someone said before, there's a difference between SE and Trion. SE produce many games of different genres on many platforms, Trion pretty much produce only MMORPG (3 for now). And don't you forget that RIFT used to boast they are the 2nd most popular Western MMORPG.

I've read a few entries and I can't believe people are still whining about it going pay-to-play now! I'm sorry but if you didn't want this you shouldn't have paid for your access to the game already. Just cancel your subscription and quit playing already, please. I'm sorry, I'm simply tired of seeing this stupid crap come up constantly. It's done and over with, let it be. But on topic of the server merges, I don't think it'd destroy the game or do any further harm than what's already done. But what I am concerned with is how naming might be handled for servers that are merged. It's true our names are far more unique these days seeing how we can set a first and last name, yet you see people who use names from video games, anime, moves, tv shows or even real life celebrities. Personally, it wouldn't bother me there... Yet there's still that rare off-chance that somebody else has an identical name to your own but on another server. If they do a server merge you risk losing that name to somebody else if they exist on your server they merge.

More than how the game might be perceived after a merger I'd be more concerned on just how SE intends on handling this issue. It reminds me of the problem that ZAM.com's own Pikko had to face. When her server had a merge in FFXI she logged in after it to discover there had already been a "Pikko" on a world she was merging to. The sad fate of it is she had to replace her name with a brand new one, all because either an inactive player or mule had her name.

EDIT: There's also the question about linkshells, upon merging servers will these be removed or will they still exist? In the event a linkshell exists with the same name as yours it could mean renaming your LS, or you might even have to repearl everybody should they all be destroyed.

@Currahee You said that the market isn't focased on one game that might be crap. And from the feel I get from you read this was one time miss-hap.

The Final Fantasy franchise has been hurting for some time. X-2 was beyound help. XIII had good graphics, and a good story line.... But as for game play, it was lacking majorly. So this isn't the first time a Final Fantasy game missed the mark.

As for what Zanfire pointed out.

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Originally Posted by Zanfire

SE isnt ran by people who want to lose money, its run by big business men that will look over each project and see if its worth putting that much more time and money and people into. All companys, funded in or out have games scrapped, even close to done because the big guys dont think its worth it. Do you think they will keep this game going with a tiny playerbase and constant bad press?

noone does this purely for the sake of doing it, they do it to make money, and right now FF14 is not making them jack shit (even with these payments now) and has a good chance of not making it when 2.0 hits (like i said, first impressions are the biggest, many people wont even take a second glance at this game ever again)

and its also been a "shit stain" on the FF name, which this is their bread and butter, they dont want to hurt it.

in the end they cant win. Merge servers...more bad press, leave them up, tick off more players and waste more money. If they kept it free until 2.0, they could have avoided this very likely, but we all know someone on the top wanted to make some sort of money off this game, so Yoshi was stuck doing it. I can bet you its the last thing he wanted to do until 2.0 was ready.

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The game as it stands in the puplic eye, the game failed BIG TIME. To quote Zanfire "First impressions are the biggest"

Let role-play a little;

Lets forget that we've ever played the game, and we see the Title Final Fantasy-14 for sale at our local game store. We look at the game box, and then ask the store staff about the game. They tell us everything bad thing about the game in there view. Even looking online at IGN.com and there view on the game. the score they gave the game is 5.5 of 10 and they even posted this on Dec 6, 2010

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Square Enix will finally start charging players a subscription fee to continue adventuring in Eorzea. It's pretty well established at this point that Final Fantasy XIV launched well before it should have, and as a result the game has been in an extended free trial period for over one year. In the time since launch Square Enix made drastic moves, completely restructuring the development team and setting out to address player complaints with the Version 2.0 plan, outlined in detail on the Final Fantasy XIV official site

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Reading this would turn me off of the game compleatly. If anything it would be an after thought next year. As for the players that are here and will play vr 2.0. Of course will all think its great. We've been eating cat food for so long, a fried liver with onions will look like a AAA grade stake.

I do agree with Ranfire more so as he pointed out, that Square Enix is in trouble no matter what they do.

A: Merge the servers, and everyone will see that they don't have the player base and the title failed.

B: Leave the servers alone and make the current players upset since there's very few people to play with now. and the only way to keep them happy is to merge the servers (See A for info)

C: Start charging for the game to recoup. some of the loss money and hope there's enough to pay for the lights and pay for coffee afterwords. But since this will cause players to leave the game and play other Online games, see B & A on what will happen.

Like I said before, I've paid for the game. Heck I'm logged in right now. I mostly wanted to see what the drop was going to be like once billing started. But I do agree with a lot of people out there, that think and say. "Square Enix is charging to soon for the game" The best thing that they could have done is kept the game free to play until vr. 2.0, instead of losing 80% of the player base.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

This isn't how gaming media works -- If they can slander a bad project even further, why would they report something positive about it unless it was already overhyped? XIV 2.0 announcement and PDFs is a very positive change for a product with a negative image -- If SE merges, you can guarantee sites will report that over the 2.0 information.

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I agree. I looked at four different gaming websites, and none of them even touch what's been shown for vr 2.0. All the sites bring it up and have a link to the Final Fantasy site that covers it, but nothing else. And I do agree with Jennestia's last remark. All the sites and magazines will comment on the merge servers before the press release of 2.0 since it's something we can all see.

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Originally Posted by Katt

@Currahee You said that the market isn't focased on one game that might be crap. And from the feel I get from you read this was one time miss-hap.

The Final Fantasy franchise has been hurting for some time. X-2 was beyound help. XIII had good graphics, and a good story line.... But as for game play, it was lacking majorly. So this isn't the first time a Final Fantasy game missed the mark.

As for what Zanfire pointed out.



The game as it stands in the puplic eye, the game failed BIG TIME. To quote Zanfire "First impressions are the biggest"

Let role-play a little;

Lets forget that we've ever played the game, and we see the Title Final Fantasy-14 for sale at our local game store. We look at the game box, and then ask the store staff about the game. They tell us everything bad thing about the game in there view. Even looking online at IGN.com and there view on the game. the score they gave the game is 5.5 of 10 and they even posted this on Dec 6, 2010

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Square Enix will finally start charging players a subscription fee to continue adventuring in Eorzea. It's pretty well established at this point that Final Fantasy XIV launched well before it should have, and as a result the game has been in an extended free trial period for over one year. In the time since launch Square Enix made drastic moves, completely restructuring the development team and setting out to address player complaints with the Version 2.0 plan, outlined in detail on the Final Fantasy XIV official site

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Reading this would turn me off of the game compleatly. If anything it would be an after thought next year. As for the players that are here and will play vr 2.0. Of course will all think its great. We've been eating cat food for so long, a fried liver with onions will look like a AAA grade stake.

I do agree with Ranfire more so as he pointed out, that Square Enix is in trouble no matter what they do.

A: Merge the servers, and everyone will see that they don't have the player base and the title failed.

B: Leave the servers alone and make the current players upset since there's very few people to play with now. and the only way to keep them happy is to merge the servers (See A for info)

C: Start charging for the game to recoup. some of the loss money and hope there's enough to pay for the lights and pay for coffee afterwords. But since this will cause players to leave the game and play other Online games, see B & A on what will happen.

Like I said before, I've paid for the game. Heck I'm logged in right now. I mostly wanted to see what the drop was going to be like once billing started. But I do agree with a lot of people out there, that think and say. "Square Enix is charging to soon for the game" The best thing that they could have done is kept the game free to play until vr. 2.0, instead of losing 80% of the player base.

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If I was in this position I would probably buy the game for the bargain basement price play for the 1 month free trial and if I didnt like what I saw I would quit but keep upto date with news, forums and patches and maybe pay 1 month here and there to see what it is like.

Infact thats what I did when I started playing at release, I bought the CE played through sept, then was off the game for 1 month, came back, off for a few months came back etc etc until 1.18 when I started playing alot more with the improvements.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

This isn't how gaming media works -- If they can slander a bad project even further, why would they report something positive about it unless it was already overhyped? XIV 2.0 announcement and PDFs is a very positive change for a product with a negative image -- If SE merges, you can guarantee sites will report that over the 2.0 information.

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Honestly, I doubt it. And as I said before, I think people were expecting mergers quite a long time ago with all of these media sites reporting on the state of the game's release. If sites wanted to report on anything they could say "even despite the lack of subscribers, SquareEnix refuses to merge servers, stranding players on sometimes desolate servers with hardly anyone to play with". What kind of message does that send to people? SE isn't even willing to improve the play experience of paying players in a game everyone already knows has an incredibly small population? It's almost as if some of you don't realize that the majority of the gaming community already knows that this game had the launch that it did.

And as someone pointed out before, server merges are completely normal, given that game companies have to overcompensate for the influx of players at the launch of their MMOs that eventually lead to a decrease in population after the "shiny new game" feeling wears off.

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Originally Posted by Mihana

But what I am concerned with is how naming might be handled for servers that are merged. It's true our names are far more unique these days seeing how we can set a first and last name, yet you see people who use names from video games, anime, moves, tv shows or even real life celebrities. Personally, it wouldn't bother me there... Yet there's still that rare off-chance that somebody else has an identical name to your own but on another server. If they do a server merge you risk losing that name to somebody else if they exist on your server they merge.

More than how the game might be perceived after a merger I'd be more concerned on just how SE intends on handling this issue.

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I'll tell you how Square handles this because we called SE this week about it. Unbelievably, there is another character with my husband's name on another server. This person is just a fisher (probably an rmt). Their entire history is just fishing and reaching a few crystals and doing related fishing quests. That's it. According to their history, their first achievement was 10/11, whereas my husband has been playing since the beginning and our last names match. It's not even a common last name and not chosen after any person/character we are aware of. How they chose that exact name is unknown, unless they truly are an RMT and just stealing names.

So SE says that the server that we merge to gets to keep their names and he would have to change his. Now, if our server were the one they merge to, they'd lose.

I do remember this happening to Pikko. I don't understand why they can't see who's been with them the longest.

This is my greatest complaint about SE--their miserable, poorly handled customer service in all regards.

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Originally Posted by Katt

Now looking at this from an outside point of view. If a company merges there serviers it shows investors, Gaming websites, magazines, people that sell games at countless stores, that the game is dyeing.

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two points:

1: No, not really, it shows sites/magazines/etc... that the company is merging servers, for one, current reasons not withstanding, there are plenty of causes for a company to merge servers, hell, everquest merged servers several times and it was one of the greatest MMOs of its time and stood as a king in the online community for nearly a decade and its still going strong.

2: I don't see why servers merging would mean that the game is changing colors.

Yea gaming sites would most likely report on a server merger before saying piss all about 2.0 if they even still cared at all. People love to kick something when its down, Schadenfreude and all that.

Thing is mergers/transfers are the correct thing to do right now flack be damned. Yea people are a bit squirrly over the issue, The details are a big stinky unkown.

Though from the little they have said it sounds like they are going to go with mass transfers rather then hard mergers. while it will be a logicstical headache for larger shells on the closing servers it should work out for the best.