FF14 player count reached the lowest point in 4 years. We lost 75% of the playerbase.

[DPZ2]

Because the man Yoshi-P himself has actually said that CS3 are working on two more titles in an interview with a different gaming site.
Now we don't know how the workload is balanced within the team, or how much capacity the project FFXIV even requires, so whether 14 is a side project or not is debatable, but his words do imply that not all resources CS3 have available are used on FFXIV.

Sure. But that's not what the blatant Botanist wrote. You're making excuses.

[ovIm]

Sure. But that's not what the blatant Botanist wrote. You're making excuses.

It kinda is though? Whether you agree with the way Red-thunders message is portrayed or not is a different thing, but there is proof that not every resource available to CS3 is used on the one big money maker Square Enix has.

I am in no way making excuses for the forum user (hells, I have argued against the use of the word side project, if you actually read what I wrote), I am providing a source for claims. Please don't let your antipathy cloud your perception of facts.

[DPZ2]

I am in no way making excuses for the forum user (hells, I have argued against the use of the word side project, if you actually read what I wrote), I am providing a source for claims. Please don't let your antipathy cloud your perception of facts.

You reported a possible source for those claims. I want a bit more specificity about their assertions, considering that Creative Studio 3 (CS3) is also responsible for both Dragon Quest X and Final Fantasy XI.

In the eight months since the article you quoted was written, CS3 is mentioned in connection with two new games.

The first game is Eternal Strands, developed by Yellow Brick Games and released just over two weeks ago.

The second is the mobile FFXIV game being developed by Lightspeed Studios.

Both games are in collaboration with CS3, neither should involve massive resources taken from this game to complete.

Perhaps the blatant Botanist has other sources for their assertions. Since they have not answered at this point, we can only wait and see.

[Nebelheim]

You reported a possible source for those claims. I want a bit more specificity about their assertions, considering that Creative Studio 3 (CS3) is also responsible for both Dragon Quest X and Final Fantasy XI.

In the eight months since the article you quoted was written, CS3 is mentioned in connection with two new games.

The first game is Eternal Strands, developed by Yellow Brick Games and released just over two weeks ago.

The second is the mobile FFXIV game being developed by Lightspeed Studios.

Both games are in collaboration with CS3, neither should involve massive resources taken from this game to complete.

Perhaps the blatant Botanist has other sources for their assertions. Since they have not answered at this point, we can only wait and see.

FF11 has been reduced from a team of 6 devs down to 2-3 and dragon quest 10 doesn't have a massive team either so ff14 dev team isn't diverting resources or development time to those two games. And yoship did confirm in the last 6 months to be working on 2 more games since ff16 finished with the team that worked on ff16 which was senior staff taken from ff14. I doubt yoship or the articles are talking out there butts when mentioning him working on 2 unannounced games.

[Red-thunder]

You reported a possible source for those claims. I want a bit more specificity about their assertions, considering that Creative Studio 3 (CS3) is also responsible for both Dragon Quest X and Final Fantasy XI.

In the eight months since the article you quoted was written, CS3 is mentioned in connection with two new games.

The first game is Eternal Strands, developed by Yellow Brick Games and released just over two weeks ago.

The second is the mobile FFXIV game being developed by Lightspeed Studios.

Both games are in collaboration with CS3, neither should involve massive resources taken from this game to complete.

Perhaps the blatant Botanist has other sources for their assertions. Since they have not answered at this point, we can only wait and see.

"The Mandalorians are going to attack us. Look at where their missiles are pointing! Look at the insane amount of war funds raised in the last six years! Look at what their leaders are telling their citizens about us!"

You: dO yOu HAvE evIDeNcE tHe ManDaLorIAns aRe ACtuAllY gOiNG tO AtTacK Us

I swear, you can show whatever you have to white knights, they'll NEVER admit they're wrong unless you livestream Yoshi P admitting word for word that "We are prioritizing resources for other unannounced games instead of FF14", and even then they'll probably say it's AI-generated and that you need to pay $3000 for them to go to Japan and set up a meeting with Yoshi P for him to personally tell the white knight that. And even then some of them will still not buy it LMAO

[Ath192]

You reported a possible source for those claims. I want a bit more specificity about their assertions, considering that Creative Studio 3 (CS3) is also responsible for both Dragon Quest X and Final Fantasy XI.

In the eight months since the article you quoted was written, CS3 is mentioned in connection with two new games.

The first game is Eternal Strands, developed by Yellow Brick Games and released just over two weeks ago.

The second is the mobile FFXIV game being developed by Lightspeed Studios.

Both games are in collaboration with CS3, neither should involve massive resources taken from this game to complete.

Perhaps the blatant Botanist has other sources for their assertions. Since they have not answered at this point, we can only wait and see.

Hmmm. Yes Eternal Strands does seem like CBU III had its hands on it. Check out this review:

--------------------

I really don't recommend this game. Look, it's made well enough, and it has one of those crafting systems I'd like to see become more common where materials have a visual and mechanical aspect. It's easy to play and if that's all you want then maybe you can get further than I did.

But once we get to the story and characters? Where to begin?

We get our first taste at the start where Oria has to rush into the fog to save someone we haven't met yet, only to be swallowed in a scene of apparent self-sacrifice ... then immediately re-emerges totally fine. Who is Oria? Exactly. The game tries to play a desperate self-sacrifice card with two characters we don't know only to walk it back two seconds later. Phew! I almost sort of kind of gave a crap!

It's Sonic fanfic-level bad writing, where whatever basic conflict the game can muster resolves immediately. Whatever passes for arguments in this world leads to exhaustive apologies and clarification. "I'm so sorry I was slightly less than completely respectful, it's just that when I get close to people I can be anything other than immediately obedient and self-sacrificing, and I realize now that I'm doing that to you, so I hope going forward we can have a more productive relationship and also I'll work extra hard to be a better person." I wish I were joking. If the crew actually blamed you for this mess and it took time and effort to convince them they were wrong it might feel earned, but as it is everyone is on board with Brynn as the super best coolest person ever ... it's Sonic. It's literally Sonic.

And like Sonic, everyone is reading the script. An intruder enters camp while you are sleeping and Brynn is like, "I didn't mean to startle you, I just want to talk!" She makes a sad puppy face as they scurry off. We're literally in a hostile land we know nothing about and your first instinct after having been approached by countless aggressive creatures is to assume the one sneaking up on you in the dark is friendly? Of course it is—not immediately. Don't begrudge the writer their penchant for drama. It will take *one more scene* for it to come around to your best friends' club.

It's just so safe and unchallenging. No personality clashes, no personal agendas. Everyone lives to serve Brynn and exhaustively reiterates a single personality quirk. Maybe that's not a total killer though, the writing is at least *comically* terrible. No, the characters are not funny or interesting and I find myself skipping 90% of the dialogue, but I'll admit—I laughed out loud at these scenes I've described. And, if I treat it like a viewing of The Room where I ignore all the awful dialogue and nothing scenes for those rare moments of unintentional comedy, I could ... if not like the game, at least enjoy how badly written it is alongside the functional gameplay.

I can't in good conscience recommend it on that basis. The controls are bad, the story is boring, the characters are unremarkable and the gameplay is fairly milquetoast. It really does come across as the video game equivalent of bad movie fare where if you are willing to take the piss out of it you might get more mileage enjoying the boss fights and slightly more robust crafting elements. Steam doesn't offer a middle of the road option and so when I weigh the scales I don't recommend Eternal Strands.

-------------------------------

Where have we seen this before? It's like they can only produce one game lol. BTW interesting what the game scores in metacritic, we can actually see what reviewers think of this game design when you take out all the good will XIV has from its past.

[Red-thunder]

Careful there, since 68 > 50 they're going to call that an unparalleled success where the majority of people loved it.

[NightHour]

The last month in which the player count was below 17100 was January 2021, which was Patch 5.45.



LuckyBancho confirms these numbers.



We haven't even gotten to the second patch and we already lost 75% of our playerbase.



But I guess those $5 Hilda hairstyles will single-handedly save this game.

While the player base is smaller, it's no where near 75%.



Steam does NOT and has never accounted for the majority of players.




Most players either use consoles or the official launcher.


"omg playerbase is down 75%" and producing statistics for the minority platform is just being ignorant.



Population increases and decreases are nothing more than the natural course of MMO's.

We're not in 2010 anymore when MMO's were the cool thing to play.

[CuteBucket]

While the player base is smaller, it's no where near 75%.



Steam does NOT and has never accounted for the majority of players.




Most players either use consoles or the official launcher.


"omg playerbase is down 75%" and producing statistics for the minority platform is just being ignorant.

Wow, would you look at that, yet another person who has no idea how statistics and sample sizes work, and who also ignores the Lucky Bancho numbers. How many of you are there? Are y'all not tired yet of having this same point debunked for 15 pages?

Yes, it's more complicated than just "we've lost 75% of the player base," but if you think these numbers aren't representative of the player base and are completely fine...more than simply ignorance, that is delusion.

[Saraide]

Wait actually steam gamers are very different, they have access to other games. Think about it: the PS5 has no games, xbox is a dead platform, standalone launcher. /s