Please confirm if there will be a 7.5 Ultimate before next Savage Release

[Bryson]

they better hope there is a 2nd ultimate or this game is gonna die with 7.5 potentially lasting a year at the current pace.

game can't "die" when you have hundreds of thousands of msq andies and rpers. Most recent lucky bancho census had 880k active players.
Also, I'm more doomer and don't believe DT will have a 2nd ultimate. Even if it is ready for release, I could see them sitting on it and releasing in 8.1. I don't think they'd unironically have ultimate, OC/FT, and criterion all throughout .5.. doesn't sound like SE.

[Daralii]

game can't "die" when you have hundreds of thousands of msq andies and rpers. Most recent lucky bancho census had 880k active players.
Also, I'm more doomer and don't believe DT will have a 2nd ultimate. Even if it is ready for release, I could see them sitting on it and releasing in 8.1. I don't think they'd unironically have ultimate, OC/FT, and criterion all throughout .5.. doesn't sound like SE.

The problem is that the majority of SE's income is XIV, and it's tens to hundreds of thousands of active players every time Lucky Bancho's census updates. I think the numbers are now back to where they were in Stormblood, so all the gains they got in ShB and early EW are just gone.

[Jeeqbit]

game can't "die" when you have hundreds of thousands of msq andies and rpers. Most recent lucky bancho census had 880k active players.

While I agree that the game won't die (it had lower than this on Lucky Bancho in Stormblood), I think we should nevertheless break down who those 880,000 probably are. Only 576,000 have beat MSQ and thus operating at the endgame, meaning:

• 304,000 are still doing MSQ, of which 50,000 are new players within the last 2 months.
• 130,000 casual/returning players (this could overlap with people doing MSQ to some extent, while others are endgame returners)
• 200,000 achievement hunters / sunk cost type players that aren't going anywhere
• We can probably assume the rest are RPers, glam enthusiasts, holding onto a house or doing raids.

I think the numbers are now back to where they were in Stormblood

They admitted around Stormblood release that subscriptions had hit about 600,000 for the first time (which was rather in alignment with LB). And LB remained 600,000 for most of Stormblood, with a few exceptions. So it does not seem quite that level unless alts have increased. However you can make arguments such as holding onto a house perhaps.

[Bryson]

While I agree that the game won't die (it had lower than this on Lucky Bancho in Stormblood), I think we should nevertheless break down who those 880,000 probably are. Only 576,000 have beat MSQ and thus operating at the endgame, meaning:

• 304,000 are still doing MSQ, of which 50,000 are new players within the last 2 months.
• 130,000 casual/returning players (this could overlap with people doing MSQ to some extent, while others are endgame returners)
• 200,000 achievement hunters / sunk cost type players that aren't going anywhere
• We can probably assume the rest are RPers, glam enthusiasts, holding onto a house or doing raids.

They admitted around Stormblood release that subscriptions had hit about 600,000 for the first time (which was rather in alignment with LB). And LB remained 600,000 for most of Stormblood, with a few exceptions. So it does not seem quite that level unless alts have increased. However you can make arguments such as holding onto a house perhaps.

exactly.. so the vast majority of active players are giga casual.. they provide a "soft landing" for SE. All the people dooming about the game "dying" are completely detached from reality. As much as i'd like for SE to raise the floor (across the board) and make more challenging content, i'm not naive enough to think that'll ever happen.

[Atma]

exactly.. so the vast majority of active players are giga casual.. they provide a "soft landing" for SE. All the people dooming about the game "dying" are completely detached from reality. As much as i'd like for SE to raise the floor (across the board) and make more challenging content, i'm not naive enough to think that'll ever happen.

I think this is a touch dangerous of a mindset, because 'dying' is not synonymous with 'shut down.' There are many, many MMOs out there, very few have actually shut down in comparison. AC, AC2, TERA, Elyon, Bless Online (like 4 times...) I'm sure I'm missing some, but the number is not huge.

Then, there are also countless games that I would call 'dead' that are online and playable today. Everquest? That's still online, when's the last time you heard about it, let alone cared? Same with EQ2. Dark Age of Camelot's still got servers up. Heck, even the OG - UO - is still totally active and available to play, heard anything about that one for years? Archeage comes and goes perennially it feels like (each time under different ownership, each time pretending "this will be the time we get it right...") Even FFXI falls into this category these days - it's not shut down, but how many people are going to start playing FFXI tomorrow?

There will come a time, if they don't figure it out, where new blood stops coming in and that is the point that the game is officially 'in trouble.' If a game cannot bring in as much new blood as the people who finally give up, it is on the fast-track to becoming a 'dead game', even if it runs for another decade.

Catering to a small hardcore population demanding ever-increasingly-difficult content is not how you bring in new blood. It's capitulation to the notion you have forgotten how to do so.

[Bryson]

I think this is a touch dangerous of a mindset, because 'dying' is not synonymous with 'shut down.' There are many, many MMOs out there, very few have actually shut down in comparison. AC, AC2, TERA, Elyon, Bless Online (like 4 times...) I'm sure I'm missing some, but the number is not huge.

Then, there are also countless games that I would call 'dead' that are online and playable today. Everquest? That's still online, when's the last time you heard about it, let alone cared? Same with EQ2. Dark Age of Camelot's still got servers up. Heck, even the OG - UO - is still totally active and available to play, heard anything about that one for years? Archeage comes and goes perennially it feels like (each time under different ownership, each time pretending "this will be the time we get it right...") Even FFXI falls into this category these days - it's not shut down, but how many people are going to start playing FFXI tomorrow?

There will come a time, if they don't figure it out, where new blood stops coming in and that is the point that the game is officially 'in trouble.' If a game cannot bring in as much new blood as the people who finally give up, it is on the fast-track to becoming a 'dead game', even if it runs for another decade.

Catering to a small hardcore population demanding ever-increasingly-difficult content is not how you bring in new blood. It's capitulation to the notion you have forgotten how to do so.

I agree. thats why I put "dying" in quotes. Dying shutdown etc etc, neither will happen because ffxiv yields an roi.. "managed decline" is a better way to put it imo