playerbase down 25% in 4 months?

[CrstyCaptin]

I think Melmond is under 100 active players(NA). Not sure about JP but probably around the same. The last few weeks I've seen a big decline in active players logging in. I myself have pretty much 'had enough' when it comes to grinding leves for sp and I'm waiting on 1.18 before I grind any combat class. I think we'll see a big increase in population for 1.18, at least for a week, then a big decline again as there's still not enough content to support the masses.

[Keftenk]

Cornelia seems just as packed as ever (during JP time)...

[Peregrine]

This will certainly put SE's bold statements to the test that unlike every other MMO developer out there that relies on investors and subscriptions, SE doesn't need any of that to make their MMOs and can keep improving it until it's good enough. Because they don't have any of that, and won't have any of that for a year at best, if at all, ever.

Games have already been scrapped because FFXIV didn't bring in anticipated money to make them. At some point FFXIV becomes a waste of electricity, a developer team, and company equipment.

If we half the population again, we are probably looking at that point. I don't want to play a niche MMO on 4 piddlydink servers with a half update a year from some b-team developers in SE's basement, which is the trajectory this is heading.

1.18 to 1.3 have to be a series of remarkable events.

[Shikyo]

Reality check for some people on here maybe.

I see posts on here complaining about the lack of new direct X support and other assorted rubbish, the game is losing huge numbers of players in such a short amount of time, during free mode. I think reality should make people stop asking for stupid stuff when the game is dying so quickly.

I think at this point players would like to see anything, FUCKIN ANYTHING get implamented its that damn sad.
I am one of the statistics of players that dont log on, I think i checked retainers once in last 2 months this game is sad, funny part is the ones that still say there is nothing wrong its fun and love this garbage =/ I play eden eternal a f2p anime inspired mmo that just came out its far better with I bet no where near the budget this game has, check it out.
Again SE is like tiger woods, Ohhhh how the mighty has fallen.

[Frisque]

My own estimate is that there are probably about 100-200 active players on Besaid. About half are English and the other half are Japanese, although I've been seeing a lot less Japanese lately. It's easy to confirm the loss of players just by anecdotal evidence. This is alarming news but there's nothing to do in the game, so it's not that strange.

I can't resist tossing this in there: our linkshell alone has around 40 active players (none from Japan, as far as I know). That's just one shell on the server, so Besaid isn't doing as badly as that.

You think that one server is any different from the rest? It's a snapshot of the playerbase, what is happening on one is more or less happening on them all.

While I think I understand why you made this thread, I have to disagree that the activity on one server should pose as a snapshot of anything. If you were trying to use this figure to illustrate that people are leaving the game, that is not entirely true. Consider this: around 10 of our newer members came from other servers.

So leaving a server =/= leaving the game.

(PS... no need to point out the fact that the game has been hemmorhaging subs. I know this. I'm just saying that this isn't exactly a great example)

[JackDaniels]

This will certainly put SE's bold statements to the test that unlike every other MMO developer out there that relies on investors and subscriptions, SE doesn't need any of that to make their MMOs and can keep improving it until it's good enough. Because they don't have any of that, and won't have any of that for a year at best, if at all, ever.

Games have already been scrapped because FFXIV didn't bring in anticipated money to make them. At some point FFXIV becomes a waste of electricity, a developer team, and company equipment.

If we half the population again, we are probably looking at that point. I don't want to play a niche MMO on 4 piddlydink servers with a half update a year from some b-team developers in SE's basement, which is the trajectory this is heading.

1.18 to 1.3 have to be a series of remarkable events.

Yerp... unless they are secretly massing as much content as there was at release (if not double) and are planning on releasing it all at once after the core mechanics are fixed, this game is doomed to an eternity of lack-luster development and a pathetic community (well it's already pathetic, but i mean even more so)

[OJtheLIONKing]

I'm not surprised. i know the dev team is working their asses off because their jobs likely depend on this game succeeding, but development takes a long time, and players' patience is not nearly as long. I don't want to believe it, but this game may have been doomed from launch even if what Yoshida said about not having to please investors is true. I have trouble seeing how SE will develop enough content that's both quality enough to be fun and sufficient to occupy players, since the game shipped with almost none. It feels like they'd need a whole other development team just for adding content until it gets to an acceptable level, then they could continue with the standard one, but this game's been a big enough monetary drag on SE as is so I doubt that'll happen.

As an earlier post mentioned, the next few patches would probably have to be dynamite to keep this game at a "fair" population even if it is free. Hell, I have more to do on some F2P games than I do on this one right now, and the slow slog to rank 50 doesn't help motivation.

[Morticous]

It feels like they'd need a whole other development team just for adding content until it gets to an acceptable level, then they could continue with the standard one

I've been saying this for a while now... If they had more development team, they could build/test/release efficiently and faster resulting in more shit to do and happier fanbase. Enough of this babystep horse shit.. re purpose some of the developers from FFXI (this game sucks now with Abyssea) and GET SHIT DONE! I DONT CARE WHERE THESE OTHER DEVELOPERS COME FROM! JUST GET THEM AN PUT THEM TO WORK AND GET THIS SHIT ROLLING!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!

[Ashgarth]

Most people here (myself included) are provably waiting to the 1.18 patch. The question is:
¿How long will the 1.18 content keep us entertained?

The problem with the patch is that besides what's implemented with it there is nothing else for current players to do other than grinding. That means most people will rush to complete the new areas and quests and then find themselves bored and waiting for the next update.
A mission with fully voice-acted cutscenes and flashy animations takes a lot of time to create but how long does it last? 30 minutes?

We are getting content updates on an alpha/beta basis, meaning we get small bits of content to "test" and once all of it is added up then a new player can log in and say "woah, there's a lot of stuff to do" while old players just stand around picking their noses waiting for the next one.

[Peregrine]

I'm not surprised. i know the dev team is working their asses off because their jobs likely depend on this game succeeding, but development takes a long time, and players' patience is not nearly as long. I don't want to believe it, but this game may have been doomed from launch even if what Yoshida said about not having to please investors is true. I have trouble seeing how SE will develop enough content that's both quality enough to be fun and sufficient to occupy players, since the game shipped with almost none. It feels like they'd need a whole other development team just for adding content until it gets to an acceptable level, then they could continue with the standard one, but this game's been a big enough monetary drag on SE as is so I doubt that'll happen.

As an earlier post mentioned, the next few patches would probably have to be dynamite to keep this game at a "fair" population even if it is free. Hell, I have more to do on some F2P games than I do on this one right now, and the slow slog to rank 50 doesn't help motivation.

Basically if we don't start getting a game people would easily pay 13 bucks a month for, no one is going to play it for free. There is no demand for a free bad game. You would have to start paying people to play it to increase demand. 12 bucks a month and free are the same to people who care more about quality than price. And that's almost everyone when you're talking about forgoing one large pizza a month, or getting one more pizza a month. We don't care about the sub fee. No one does. It just looks silly to try to charge for industry substandard product.

It's not about the money. People don't play bad games even if they're free. This game's subscription fee has nothing to do with who plays. If 12 bucks a month is worth that much to you to play a low-caliber game, you shouldn't be playing MMOs.

Maybe SE is perfectly fine with players all kindof quitting so they can continue to retool it in relative peace. They don't seem too worried that free isn't even keeping people around. Dunno if that's confidence or they're just too broken by the ongoing performance to even mount a response any more but to keep their head down and barrel on.