So just curious but how come there's no ff14 private servers?

[IDontPetLalas]

The point of private servers is to provide a better gaming experience for games that have suffered a lot of P2W trash and at times have become unplayable unless you throw your wallet at it, or they have been shut down (like TERA). FFXIV doesn't need it because there's really nothing in the shop that gives you any advantage in the game whatsoever. There are just cosmetics, emotes, and dyes, and all mounts have the same speed (unlike some other games). Besides, the game already provides you with 2 expansions for free until level 60 with limitations, but this is hardly the reason for a private server. I spent years playing Aion, and I was shocked to see there is actually a game that's not p2w and actually gives me the feeling that I'm valuing my time playing it.

I agree completely aside from one small aside- prior to Aion going p2w it was a subscription based game, and during that period I found that for the most part it was a very good value for PVP and PVE- the game quality (i.e. server stability, patch frequency, number of bugs) and the customer support- particularly with respect to game knowledge, quality of responses and speed and most particularly - the community feeling and self-moderation and population quality were very good. I never heard any discussion of private servers during that time.

[IDontPetLalas]

Yeah, but if you could make a private server with quicker snapshots / tickrate.. Mmmmmm

The idea behind private servers is that you can manage your own rules, events, systems, exp rates, and it's free. It's not just about going back to an old version of a game.

The reality is - There's no reason to even make a Private Server for most MMOs these days when there's a lot to choose from, and we have a ton of tools to just make our own game if we really weren't happy with something in particular (If you're skilled enough to do so). The private servers we typically see are from older games with simple mechanics or games that have been taken offline completely and still have a large enough dedicated fanbase. They take a lot of time and effort to make. We missed the curve of free shard reign by about 10 years, so the pool of engineers that would even attempt it over spending their time on something more productive is pretty low already.

I prefer the ability system and active open world of ARR, but the server would need to actually be relatively complete for me to want to even play. It's not because FFXIV:ARR is the best MMO ever made, it's because there's typically better things to do with our time, XIV is already free for like 100 hours, and SE has a beast legal team that takes everything down.

It really has nothing to do with XIV being the best version of itself, when 1.0 is out there. lol




Yeah the server would literally have to be devoid of all Trials/Raids, and just an Open World version of XIV. I can't imagine someone ever wanting to rewrite all of those over just making their own game. It'd be lunacy.

See, the part that you bolded is a problem for me. I expect I'll get some backlash from this, but private servers are not "free". Private servers are freeloading off of other people's work which cost them time and money to develop.

I can understand that a subscription can be expensive for some people- even in North America , for example I don't believe pricing is applied fairly giving exchange rates - however it is a choice to pay for it. There is a very generous free trial version.

[Renalt]

I don't think the work would be worth it to make one. Besides I feel like SQEX would bring down some unholy fire if they found one anyway.

Most people go to private servers because of one or more of these reasons...

1. Don't like the subscription. You can get a substantial amount of time into the game with the free trial. By then you'll know for sure if you want to go for it or not.

2. Time. Most games it takes time to level or get financially squared away but you can do both super easily with any boosts whatsoever.

3. Like older expansions over the newer changes.

Huh...actually I can't think of any more reasons so feel free to add to it if you like. Those are generally the 3 reasons I do WoW private servers when I'm in the mood for WoW.

[Renalt]

I mean without boosts. Mobile needs and edit button.

[R041]

See, the part that you bolded is a problem for me. I expect I'll get some backlash from this, but private servers are not "free". Private servers are freeloading off of other people's work which cost them time and money to develop.

I agree with you sorta, but most devs don't do it for payment. Payment opens up even further legal issues. If they want to get paid, they'll typically work on something that isn't tied to an existing IP. They'll sometimes accept donations though.

I've commit to some of them and have even published full conversion mods, the expectation is generally that you do it because you enjoy it, and if anyone wants to host it then great. If I do end up hosting my own conversion/framework/ruleset then I'd ask for donations to help keep the server itself alive, but not for my time developing it. Personal preferences, ultimately not trying to get sued.

[Rehayem]

I agree completely aside from one small aside- prior to Aion going p2w it was a subscription based game, and during that period I found that for the most part it was a very good value for PVP and PVE- the game quality (i.e. server stability, patch frequency, number of bugs) and the customer support- particularly with respect to game knowledge, quality of responses and speed and most particularly - the community feeling and self-moderation and population quality were very good. I never heard any discussion of private servers during that time.

Because it was subscription-based, and at that time, the game held itself very well for the western audience. It's NCSOFT's greed that killed the game; over time, they started adding more questionable items in the cash shop, the game went f2p (in the West only, in Korea they still had sub until like 2018), deletion of half of the maps twice... Of course, people want the old content because it caters to people's nostalgia for when the game was actually good compared to the garbage it is now. Aion Classic has already failed on the North American server; the European servers are launching in a few days, but it's Gameforge. One has to see how bad it's going to become. Aion is no longer meant to be a good quality game.

[Gaido]

As I understand from one of Yoshi-P posts on Lodestone, it's hard to make private server, because FFXIV is game that uses different servers for different activities, and there is complicated web of intercorelated dependiences between them. Understanding these intercorelations without inside knowledge is like trying to guess how your internal organs work only be looking at you. Even if you have knowledge and resources to replicate these systems, there are still law, and reward is not worth this risk.

[WCW524]

The reason is because other games did something major to make their players want to go back to a previous version of the game. A good example of that is classic WoW, which WoW ceased to resemble so people wanted it back that much.

In FFXIV, we can continue to do old content with the minimum item level and silence echo settings and still experience it regularly in roulettes. We can sync down to the rotation we had at a previous expansion. Of course, there have been changes to some classes at lower levels and less important actions have been pruned or merged from the lower levels over time, but the essence is mostly still there.

For example, at level 50 a PLD has always spammed the Rage of Halone combo and still does now. A DRG has always rotated between two combos at that level and used Dragonfire Dive and Jump at that level and still does.

The changes to the game have, generally, just been positive ones. Almost every change I've seen in patches have been things that people have thought should happen for years (we call it Quality of Life).

When cross-class skills were removed, it was because people were saying it was annoying leveling other jobs they don't care about to get important skills. When Parry was replaced with Tenacity, it was because Parry wasn't even worth it and although people may not choose Tenacity now, it at least does what it's supposed to (mitigates tank busters) which Parry often didn't. When Featherfoot was removed, nobody noticed (because it was useless and increased evasion on a DPS when DPS don't tank things much). These are the sort of changes we have got for most of the game's life - changes which people had been asking for or that just made sense. So there hasn't been a reason to want to go back.

For all the people who talk up Heavensward, it was full of jank, useless stats, useless items, useless abilities, grindy systems, unintuitive mechanics that turned people away and the game is a lot more polished and fine-tuned now.

This is easily one of the most dismissive and out of touch posts I have ever read on this website.
QoL may be leagues better today, but the FFXIV I fell in love with hasn't existed since late Stormblood.
I'd hop on an ARR server in a heartbeat. I would literally rather wait for the PLD to get their Hallowed Ground back after a wipe than play whatever FFXIV is today.
I'd prefer they skipped ARR and just started from Heavensward though.

[keichirou]

because this cult type community prefer to stick to retail release instead of a private one , whos gonna be there? no point of doing such thing if there no interest on it ,the fact some people think is hard to reverse engineer this game is laughable, is horrible behind in terms of coding, but it'll take time....time that some arent willing to waste for no reason.
is like gw2 ,nobody is willing make a PS if there's no interest

[nalaleaf]

All I can say is google/youtube exists...