FFXIV has lost it's magic

[Aegis]

Problem is you don't have the data to back this up. Your claim is people started leaving FF11 because they changed it's core game philosophy. What made the Devs change it's core game design? They have access to data that you do not. It's more likely the game was losing players which resulted in a shift on how the game was designed. Many of us have played older mmo's and have quit them in the new age that was introduced to us by WoW.

Of course it's a much smaller share considering how massive WoW is and let me tell you. You clone FF11 with better graphics and possibly updated gameplay and you won't come close to WoW's market share even with it's declining playerbase. I'd bet money you wouldn't come close to the 600k mark either.

I would take that bet. Unfortunately neither of us will get a chance to prove the other wrong.

You misunderstand the point; WoW proved to the world that there is a bigger interest in mmos than people realized. That casuals make up more of the gaming market than the die hard players. Their game catered to the casuals. Leveling become more streamlined, reaching end game became easier, and even after they established their player base they made constant steps to make said game more accessible for it's player base. The end result? The biggest mmo in existence. Many people began to quit their older school mmorpgs to hop on board as well many existing mmo's took massive hits to their player base.

And that's kind of my point. FFXI didn't take a massive hit. It held its playerbase really well even in the face of WoW.

So what did they do? They began to incorporate WoW's elements to make their game more like WoW. They aimed to appease their casual fanbase in order to retain subscriptions.

And those that did (including SWG) took massive hits to their populations.

Some mmo's tried to do their own thing while ignoring WoW but came up with a problem. People would drop out of their game and they couldn't get new blood to join. The problem is you act like it was a spontaneous idiotic decision by the devs to change FF11 into what it is now when the decision was probably based off data and research.

I don't doubt they looked at the numbers and made their decisions based off them. I do believe the results bear out that it was a bad decision. The server merged as the population that had been stable before this point fell off rapidly.

*Edit* You also missed my point about SWG. It wasn't about player retention. You asked "Do you think FF14 will be around 9 years later?" My answer was "SWG was practically tearing itself to pieces and limped along for 8 years. FF14 is making an attempt to add in people's suggestions, improve the game, and add in more content while staying true to the original vision. Yes I do believe it will last more than 9 years if it keeps going the rate it's going. An MMO has to practically be trying to destroy itself to lose that much of their core fanbase."

The reason I chose 9 years is that XI will shortly be 12 years old. XIV is 3 years old. I want to see it get to 12 years, not 9. And not limping along waiting to be put out of its misery, but with a decent population as XI had until recently.

Even if FF14 doesn't maintain the same sub numbers as 11 did in the past it wouldn't prove "11 is better and it's style would have been better than 14." The market is different. The competition is different.

I suppose this is true. However we don't know how well an XI-2 would do, neither you, nor I, nor the devs because they won't take the chnce to release it. I know you think I am wrong, and I am not sure I am right. I would like a chance to know if I am right though. People say that old-style MMOs can't compete nowadays, that the paradigm has shifted too far, but there hasn't been an old-style subscription based MMO released with a large enough budget to verify this claim. FFXIV Version 1 would have been an example if they hadn't released it so damn broken.

A lot of us really enjoyed Tanaka's vision but were appalled at the terrible UI/server/engine, the copy/paste terrain, the lack of quests or any endgame, the botched attempt to make DoL/DoW able to complete the main storyline, the unusuable market wards etc. If the game had been released on the current engine, with those issues fixed, I believe we would have been over 600k now.

Just because someone dismisses someone else's views as bias, doesn't mean they aren't.

Well, a broken clock is right twice a day. I wouldn't use one to tell the time. If you want to dismiss someone's opinion as biased you should back up your claim or risk coming across as ignorant.

[Reslin]

I would take that bet. Unfortunately neither of us will get a chance to prove the other wrong. And those that did (including SWG) took massive hits to their populations. I don't doubt they looked at the numbers and made their decisions based off them. I do believe the results bear out that it was a bad decision. The server merged as the population that had been stable before this point fell off rapidly. The reason I chose 9 years is that XI will shortly be 12 years old. XIV is 3 years old. I want to see it get to 12 years, not 9. And not limping along waiting to be put out of its misery, but with a decent population as XI had until recently. A lot of us really enjoyed Tanaka's vision but were appalled at the terrible UI/server/engine, the copy/paste terrain, the lack of quests or any endgame, the botched attempt to make DoL/DoW able to complete the main storyline, the unusuable market wards etc. If the game had been released on the current engine, with those issues fixed, I believe we would have been over 600k now.

FF11 was stable at the time but it's numbers were still dwindling. I was there and they weren't gaining anyone new. In the long term this was a problem which is why they tried something different. To claim that they didn't look at data and just made a decision "just because." is foolish. No one in their right mind would do this (Note I know you didn't do this just reiterating here). SWG was an entirely different beast in that it was run by Sony who has now made bad decision after bad decision in just about all the mmo's they currently run. They've had several under their belt that have outright died. (At least FF11 is still alive.) by the way you do realize Pre-cu SWG was still losing subscribers to WoW, right? This is well documented. FF11 was doing very well in the face of WoW and I do not deny this fact. I also believe it was a mistake releasing abyssea but not for the reasons you think. Note I called what SWG did "Alienating it's fans." it's better to let your subs dwindle down slowly on their own while offering incentives for your existing subscribers to come back than it is to make it a completely different game. Why?

Several reasons.

1. People get angry and tell their friends who then avoid the game because their friend's don't like it.

2. Game is perceived as a failure as it had to change from what it was in order to get new players (whether this is true or not)

3. You just removed any incentive for people that prefer that gaming style of coming back as well as hurting your company's reputation as a whole.

Why do you think FF11 would do better today than it did back then? In my opinion it would, at the most, only do equally as well not better. Graphics? They don't matter as much as people think in fact WoW has pretty low graphics even at the time of it's conception. I mean, you only need to look at minecraft as proof to this statement. People will play a game with bad graphics and good gameplay over a game with good graphics but terrible gameplay. The problem is that asking this game to become like FF11 would only serve to do exactly what abyssea did to FF11. Many of us are here for the current FF14 and many of us would leave if it became something else. Note that FF11 hit 500k subs over time and this was after many updates/expansions this is also when the mmo market was already huge. We hit 600k subs within two months. As long as there's regular content updates and more things can be added in how big will it be when the world has been expanded with many more things to do? That depends on how FF14 is managed but in the end FF14 will never become FF11. FF14 is not inferior to FF11. It's type of mmo model has been proven to work while releasing an old school mmo model in the modern age didn't go so well (though there's only really one to reference.)

The devs played it safe by releasing a tested model. By the way so far everything is going better than they planned. The original plan was to start with 250k subscribers and with time move up from there via updates/additions.

[Aegis]

FF11 was stable at the time but it's numbers were still dwindling. I was there and they weren't gaining anyone new. In the long term this was a problem which is why they tried something different. To claim that they didn't look at data and just made a decision "just because." is foolish.

Of course, but it has to be expected that at 9 years (or however old it was at that point) you would expect numbers to dwindle, because, like it or not, people would have been put off by the ancient graphics and PS2-limited capabilities. Anyone picking up the free trial would not know about windower. Remember playing in 640x480 resolution? That, I think, was the max res without windower.

FF11 was doing very well in the face of WoW and I do not deny this fact. I also believe it was a mistake releasing abyssea but not for the reasons you think. Note I called what SWG did "Alienating it's fans." it's better to let your subs dwindle down slowly on their own while offering incentives for your existing subscribers to come back than it is to make it a completely different game. Why?

/snip

I agree with this in principle, however, I can think of one example of a game that's been gutted, risking alienating its fans and has so far proved a success (you're playing it).

It's type of mmo model has been proven to work while releasing an old school mmo model in the modern age didn't go so well (though there's only really one to reference.)

This type of model has been proven to work. It's also been proven to fail. The question is how well you make the game, regardless of model. If a game is competently made, well presented with frequent updates and sufficient things to do/time sinks then you're going to have a certain degree of success at any rate. Add a big Intellectual Property like FF (or WoW, or Star Wars) and it multiplies the audience.

It's annoying we never got a competently made, well presented, frequently updated old-school-style MMO. A lot of us believe it could have been a bigger success than this, but there's no chance SE will take another such risk in the next 10 years. We got a badly made, broken, empty, beautiful game and this can be forever held over our heads as 'why old school MMOs can't make it in this market'.

(I'm gonna stop derailing this thread, it was never about making this game into XI-2, it was about incorporating an element from XI's generation of MMOs)

[Reslin]

I agree with this in principle, however, I can think of one example of a game that's been gutted, risking alienating its fans and has so far proved a success (you're playing it).

Oh stop. This game wasn't in the same vein of FF11 and it didn't alienate any FF11 fans as it was never meant to be that type of game. Even the original rendition of it was very different. If you mean it alienated it's own fans (by changing) that was by necessity as 1.0 only had 30,000 players by the end of it. Those that preferred it the way it was were a definite minority. The game was going to sink on it's own so it's hardly comparable. There weren't many fans to alienate. If you take the people that were 100% satisfied with the way it was if they complained about it's change hardly anyone would have sympathized with them.

Also bringing up FF11 and this entire disagreement does serve a point. That point is the elements people want from FF11 would drastically alter what this game is and the vision the current creators have for it. Many of the elements people want from FF11 would essentially make it FF11-2. Such as slowing down the leveling curve making it abysmally slow and forced grouping. Some people seriously ask for this and it has no place with this kind of game.

I will fight vehemently against this because when I log in I want to get things done in the amount of time I have to play. Grinding 3-4 hours for a level and not even getting a single level in that time frame.. no thanks. My time gaming will be spent elsewhere. I like the game for what it is. Do I want more features? You bet. More dungeons? Yes please. Raids? Sure. Card games? Racing? Housing? Yes I want all of these too. Do I want to lug around multiple gear sets and constantly instant switch between them? No.

Do I want to stand around all day with a guild waiting for certain things to spawn and pray that we have a better claimbot than them? No. Do I want to go back to all the accusations and rage about people who may or may not be grouping with RMT or which guild may or may not have mpkers? No.

[Aegis]

If you take the people that were 100% satisfied with the way it was

Where are these mythical creatures? Please, find me one example of anyone 100% satisfied with Version 1.

[Reslin]

Where are these mythical creatures? Please, find me one example of anyone 100% satisfied with Version 1.

Exactly my point which is why I claimed 1.0 didn't really alienate anyone. You claimed "FF14 already alienated it's fanbase." What fanbase? The 1.0 fanbase?

[Aegis]

You claimed "FF14 already alienated it's fanbase." What fanbase? The 1.0 fanbase?

That's... the opposite of what I said

I can think of one example of a game that's been gutted, risking alienating its fans and has so far proved a success

I said in this bit, the bit you quoted, that they risked alienating their fan base by gutting their game and entirely remaking it, but that risk paid off and the game is proving successful. I never said they already alienated their fan base.

[Besbeset]

Why there are so many posts in this forum complaining about the current lack of content and how 2.1 isn't going to fix this? Because we want the games that way. We want everything and we want it now. And then we complain about running out of stuff to do... and then we blame the companies...

"I couldn't never ever play a game that takes months just to level up your character, I'm too busy!" ... but you have plenty of time to play the same 3 dungeons again and again and again for days and weeks? And that's actually more enjoyable?

I don't understand anything.