New Lucky Bancho Census 12/1/17

[Sandpark]

The difference is in XI players wanted to raid or do the endgame. The rewards from participation felt powerful and valuable and as such were incredibly desirable. You would blow months Even a couple of years clearing an entire cop storyline and get a single ring at the end if it. But damn that ring was priceless felt so valuable.

This is simply nostalgia speaking. FFXI existed when video games were significantly less mainstream. A large portion of the audience where teenagers or younger who could spend hundreds of hours whereas today the highest demographic is 25-35; adults with jobs, college and real life responsibilities. While one can certainly argue against FFXIV's rapid treadmill pace. Comparing it to its predecessor is disingenuous. Port the enormous time investment and grind associated with FFXI into today's market and it likely wouldn't attract a fraction of its peak subscription count. Even the juggernaut that is WoW had to adapt to a market that simply doesn't have the same time nor desire of a decade prior.

Videogames have been mainstream since the advent of the PS2, the beginning of life for FFXI. The ps2 sold 155 million units, that's not including Nintendo or the original xbox and pc. Now if you mean mmos, those were never mainstream until world of warcraft. Even today there are probably only 1-4 mainstream mmos. WoW just popped that first casual cherry when everyone else was doing hardcore or sandbox.

There is still an audience for hardcore gamers, it wont be mainstream though, even the DS series capped at around 2 million, 2 million isn't mainstream in this day and age. But you don't really have to be mainstream to be successful unless you bow to the will of investors.

Would a brand new spiritual successor of XI hold a 500k player base for 1/2 a decade to a decade? I don't know? Maybe not? But even holding 300k or 400k for longer durations wouldn't be much worse than most mmos nowadays. 800k is not ten million, 300k is not 10 millon.

Every game has 1000 more competitors than it did 14 years ago, every game has to compete with social media, movie apps, music apps, etc. Lots of these things were not as prominent as now.

It is definitely possible to focus too hard on the most visible minority, because within a month over 80% of of players, that is to say the players that weren't interested in even the easiest version of a raid that has a difficulty of easier than an extreme primal, had absolutely nothing to do. WoD lost nearly a million subscribers a month of a good reason.

Mainstream, to some it means success, to others it just a fancy term for streamlining games with a tendency towards dumbing down to reach a larger audience.

I know one thing, anything that becomes harder to do be it actual activity or needing larger and larger groups, or a combination of the two is stepping away from being mainstream. There a center between hello kitty and super savage extreme murder monstrosity<insert x game here>. Dumb it down too much or make rewards too fleeting and most will take that path laid for them, that is until they get bored or the carrot loses it's gold lustre. Make it the most difficult game ever which require 20-50 players moving in 100% harmony, executing to perfection and you already limited your playerbase substantially.

All this million and millions of player talk is nonsense, speaking in terms of active persistent playerbase. Maybe mobas might pull that off but most traditional mmos do not.

The first part I find weird, while I agree with the second part. It is not like teenagers and young adults stopped existing as we got older and moved on from 11. Their are still age groups with the same if not more time to waste on entertainment/social endeavors. Also mainstream should mean that the pool is much larger to draw people with free time.

Simply 11 and those of us who played it are a relic. Or at least for anecdotal evidence. Kids don't seem to want to play any game that takes to long. Lots of people want lots of info in tiny little segments. I have seen reviews that imply an rpg at 20 hours is long. I remember when less then 40 seemed like a waste.

So agree they have less to pick from, but not due to age. Just a generation raised on 5 mins and less interactions. It makes me kind of sad.

One Big pool, or pools within a pool. There's a lot of pools around us now, many like jumping in all of them and for most one big pool is not enough.

Here we have pools within a pool. We have some in the deep pools, and some in the roleplaying pool, and some in the shallow end of the pool, if the deep end of the pool gets to deep it swallows all the other pools, if the shallow end gets to deep those people jump out of the pool due to fear of being drowned in the deep. There is not alot of average depth pools though. Maybe some of us will venture into the water a little deeper than we are comfortable, maybe we will need some floaties for safety. But if we go into the deep and are not a strong swimmer starting out, and sharks bite at our heels for being poor swimmers, the deep pool will eventually flood the whole pool. Or if the expert swimmers run out of the deep water, and are given floaties in the shallow water, they might feel goofy.

And on that note. The largest pools are the shallow pools, that is why everyone and their dog is aiming for that market most of the time. But if the target is everyone's target someone has to get the largest share of that while the other don't do as great. But what is great? Is WoW the greatest mmo of all time for every gamer? No, even though it had a huge playerbase. Choice, we like it for dinner, games, and life.