Do we want another 10 years of FF14 on this engine?

[PirateRyanG]

now tell me how many will be left after a few months.

Probably still way more than any other MMO, subscription or otherwise.

[Jeeqbit]

Whether people like it or not FFXIV has already begun descending slowly after its final prime (being EW).

There really isn't any evidence of that. We will know whether your claim is true in the middle of 7.0. Every expansion has had an overall growth of 200,000 active players over the same time in the previous expansion (multiple times this in 6.0 obviously). If it declined instead then that would be new.

Lucky Bancho estimates.
April 2021 - 950,000
July 2021 - 1,200,000
November 2021 - 1,620,000
January 2022 - 1,350,000
April 2022 - 1,700,000
June 2022 - 1,330,000
August 2022 - 1,310,000
October 2022 - 1,450,000

How about we compare this with Shadowbringers between 5.2 and 5.3.

February 2020 (right before 5.2) - 1,040,000
April 2020 - 860,000

This looks like growth to me and let's not forget how SE's revenue from this game has been significantly increasing as well.

Yes, an MMO does eventually decline, but when it does it can take a long time to decline because of how invested the players are. WoW is an example of this. It took some sickening things in the news to break their loyalty and nothing else would whatever poor decisions the developers made. 10 years of this game has definitely created a similar loyalty.

[Curisu]

They constantly updating the engine and making new things possible.
It is a slow and steady progress that probably can be keep the game running for the next 10 year's.

What comes after that? I don't know.
I would wish for a new FF-MMO but I don't think it will be anything we have now.
We don't know what the gaming landscape will look like in 6 year's when they start building it. Mobile games will probably be even bigger.
The new MMO could be a crossplay game for console/mobile/pc.
Maybe even AR or VR content.

[Deveryn]

Personally, I don't. I don't FFXIV-2 either. I'm much more excited and looking forward to a completely new FF MMO. I want a fresh experience.

Having played a few of these over some years, I think it'll be hard to come by something "fresh." What that even means depends on who you ask.

XIV initially looked like it wasn't going to be much of an improvement over what had come before and it never caught my attention until Shadowbringers. It's got its flaws, but it's still better than anything I've played before. It seems like they learned a lot of the lessons from their predecessors. (The ease of pressure on staying subbed seems like one of the smarter moves, as every so often we see that surge in use.)

It might be some time before someone else comes along and learns how to really improve this genre and make something new and fresh. I wouldn't expect SE to do anything for a while. If anyone does, it's probably going to be someone other than Yoshida. Someone else will have to come along and be ready for that kind of commitment.

In the meantime, just try to enjoy more and stress less.

[hynaku]

I thought in 7.0 they were ether upgrading the engine or replacing it. Pretty sure engine has now can't handle the new graphics coming in 7.0.

[PirateRyanG]

I thought in 7.0 they were ether upgrading the engine or replacing it. Pretty sure engine has now can't handle the new graphics coming in 7.0.

Does anybody here actually know what a game engine is?

[Curisu]

Does anybody here actually know what a game engine is?

A wheel with hamsters in it!
But rare hamsters and you need to find some that like each other otherwise they constantly crash together.

[Eraden]

You don't have a choice.

It is rare an active game will change its engine.

Yes. FF14 did at one point, but that was an exceptional case that cost them a ton of cash.

The only other game I can think of that did this is Rust, and it essentially received no updates for a ton of time during that process.

Minecraft did too, but it now has two versions of the game so it doesn't really count. The Minecraft switch was for financial reasons.

I think gamers don't realise that most engines we have now have been kicking around for decades (and they are just upgraded engines of what we had before). You can't just switch an engine. It takes a whopping amount of work.

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't ANET do a major engine upgrade for Guild Wars 2 not long ago? Does an engine upgrade become an engine change if it is big enough?

[Jeeqbit]

Does anybody here actually know what a game engine is?

Most people definitely don't. I see this everywhere.

I thought in 7.0 they were ether upgrading the engine or replacing it. Pretty sure engine has now can't handle the new graphics coming in 7.0.

They said they would be making changes to the shaders. They showed some examples of what it could look like. Shaders are files containing instructions that are given to the graphics card to tell it how to render things, such as making it shine or reflect more. So in other words, changes to the shaders can make it look more realistic and increase how demanding it is for the graphics card.

They will also be making higher resolution textures for things such as grass and faces.

They limit how many objects they add to the environment to be considerate of people with low specs, but they will add more objects to the environment. They limited how many lights they added to the environment to consider people with low specs, but they will be adding more now.

None of these things necessarily require changes to the engine, although I expect they will make little adjustments to it here or there as needed.

It's possible they set some arbitrary limit within the engine on the number of objects or lights, but otherwise I don't see why the conversation always turns to the engine when SE themselves have tried to remind us that it's not just about the engine always.

[PirateRyanG]

Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't ANET do a major engine upgrade for Guild Wars 2 not long ago? Does an engine upgrade become an engine change if it is big enough?

I think Guild Wars 2 only updated their engine for DX11.