Will you return to Final Fantasy XI?

[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.