Will you return to Final Fantasy XI?

[Sephr]

Whenever the subject of Abyssea comes up, you're always going to get the butthurt people who played an incredibly unhealthy amount of time, only to have the rug pulled out from under them and force them to realise that it actually didn't mean anything.

I like Abyssea, it's great to log on, meet some friends, take down a NM and come away with something for your efforts. FFXI was unique back in the day because of it's incredible time sinks, matched only by the grindiest of korean MMOs, and some people miss that. However, I think your 400k estimate for population pre-abyssea and 190k post is totally stupid. The fact that the first server merge announcement came before Abyssea is evidence the population was dropping, and there was a good year at the end of WoTG before abyssea where the version updates were awful and hardly anything new was coming out.

Comparing that to now, where constant small patches are coming out and the devs are genuinely addressing player concerns, I'd say the game's in the best shape it's been in years.

I'm loving it whilst they're sorting FFXIV out.

They made the game playable for more casual players, unforgivable. We all know mmos should be only playable in full and perfectly organized groups of pro players, for all the rest it should be unplayable. I mean why did they allow casual players to be able to achieve something in game? SACRILEGE!!! I ragequit right there ....*sarcasm off

This sums up a lot of what I was saying, albeit in a more anti-hardcore way. People treated FFXI as a second life, and then were shocked when all their effort came to nothing.

[Shika]

Whenever the subject of Abyssea comes up, you're always going to get the butthurt people who played an incredibly unhealthy amount of time, only to have the rug pulled out from under them and force them to realise that it actually didn't mean anything.

I played FFXI for 5 years, and stopped playing on the release of FFXIV.

Before I left (getting two jobs to 85 and two to 80 with others still at 75) the game actually felt like more of a grindfest to me with less to do (but that is just my opinion).
Everyone only partied in Abyssea and wanted to do parties for hours and hours on end to cap out their jobs in as few sittings as they could. Partying in other areas was pretty much killed off. On my server anyway, levelling didn't seem to be as laid back as it used to be and everyone seemed to be rushing to get all of their jobs to the new cap as quickly as possible.

There were a lot of things that I did not personally like which they introduced to FFXI so many years after its release.

Level Sync- I can understand why they did it, but I still hated it all the same. So many players with uncapped skills. Good for low levels but it was abused too much in my eyes (people going to 50+ in Qufim for example...) and not being able to land a hit or spell at 75+ because they hadn't bothered to skill up after.

Hard-earned gear at 75 becoming pretty obsolete- yes this is where the "butt-hurt" bit comes in. Obviously they had to introduce new and better gear after raising the level cap, but it would have been nice in some way if they could have increased the stats on some of the gear that was at the time hard to achieve at 75. After all this was the cap for so many years and a lot of players strived hard to have the best gear possible for thier jobs- and this took time.
Magian weapons - yet more grinding of mobs - became better than Relic weapons... Would it have hurt to put better stats on some of the endgame gear with a level pre-requisite to open up so that a lot of the playerbase didn't immediately feel kicked in the nuts?

I don't think anyone does Dynamis, Einherjar, Sky, Sea or Salvage anymore. Checking in with my old "Endgame" LS on their website all I see on their calendar is Abyssea, Abyssea, Abyssea- that's a lot of content and areas that appear to have very little use anymore.

So, as much as I enjoyed playing FFXI for the time I did and achieving the gear (which at the time was good) for my jobs, I don't have the heart to go back to it. It is probably better now for more casual players just starting out, and I know a few people that are determined to keep playing regardless, but it's not for me anymore.

[Shika]

However, I think your 400k estimate for population pre-abyssea and 190k post is totally stupid. The fact that the first server merge announcement came before Abyssea is evidence the population was dropping, and there was a good year at the end of WoTG before abyssea where the version updates were awful and hardly anything new was coming out.

Oh, and there have been two lots of server mergers in less than a year. The most recent on the 16th March 2011, taking the number of servers from 20 to 12.

Source World -> Destination World

Ramuh -> Bahamut
Alexander -> Shiva
Titan -> Phoenix
Gilgamesh -> Carbuncle
Unicorn -> Fenrir
Ifrit -> Odin
Diabolos -> Siren
Caitsith -> Ragnarok

[Sephr]

Oh, and there have been two lots of server mergers in less than a year. The most recent on the 16th March 2011, taking the number of servers from 20 to 12.

Source World -> Destination World

Ramuh -> Bahamut
Alexander -> Shiva
Titan -> Phoenix
Gilgamesh -> Carbuncle
Unicorn -> Fenrir
Ifrit -> Odin
Diabolos -> Siren
Caitsith -> Ragnarok

Seems pretty irrelevant, considering I was talking about the fact that populations were declining pre-abyssea. Besides that, there was a lot of talk in the community that these merges weren't necessary at the time, considering that the servers all had relatively stable populations (I was on Ramuh, didn't see any real need to merge with Bahamut).

I wouldn't say FFXI is a game you should go back to if you're planning to invest time for years to come, but I would say if there's anything you want to do in the game (like play through story missions that were too time consuming or whatever before) then now's the time to do it. It's pretty fun.

[Shika]

Seems pretty irrelevant, considering I was talking about the fact that populations were declining pre-abyssea. Besides that, there was a lot of talk in the community that these merges weren't necessary at the time, considering that the servers all had relatively stable populations (I was on Ramuh, didn't see any real need to merge with Bahamut).

Ok, apologies, I misread your post and thought you were trying to say that there had not been any mergers other than prior to the launch of Abyssea.

I know people were pretty annoyed about the recent mergers; a lot of servers doubling their online numbers from 1800-2000 peak up to 5000-6000 players. But, with half the servers around now than there used to be, it would still suggest to me personally that the population is in decline and the game not in as strong a state now than it used to be. It was like that before I left (I was on Odin)- 85% of the people I used to know are no longer there.
So if half the servers (near as damn it) are gone; the figure of 400K players to 190K players may not actually be as far fetched as it seems ^^ That was my long-winded point lol.

[Sephr]

Ok, apologies, I misread your post and thought you were trying to say that there had not been any mergers other than prior to the launch of Abyssea.

I know people were pretty annoyed about the recent mergers; a lot of servers doubling their online numbers from 1800-2000 peak up to 5000-6000 players. But, with half the servers around now than there used to be, it would still suggest to me personally that the population is in decline and the game not in as strong a state now than it used to be. It was like that before I left (I was on Odin)- 85% of the people I used to know are no longer there.
So if half the servers (near as damn it) are gone; the figure of 400K players to 190K players may not actually be as far fetched as it seems ^^ That was my long-winded point lol.

Haha, I see! I guess purely eyeballing, it makes sense.

I'm pretty much messing around on MMOs generally till GW2 comes out, can't wait for that. That said I do really hope FFXIV does well, if it could generate the lasting appeal FFXI had for a good 7 years I'd be all over it, although 7 years from now I'm not sure whether I'd be playing MMOs or not...

[Dragon]

XI is a dying game as well atm.

Unless SE fixed everything they screwed up with abysea... there is simply no reason to go back.

Indeed.

I was actually for a lot of Abyssea's stuff on paper; however after seeing everything in August, I retired to playing XIV - came back a couple months ago and regret ever supporting Abyssea. It is not the FFXI I grew to love, so there's no way I can go back unless they do a rollback to pre-Abyssea.