We Need that Feeling back of "CoP"(first release)

[Sephrick]

Considering the tragic history, the famously failed launch and embarassingly horrible reception of the very MMO whose forums you've posted this on, I wonder if you see the irony in the "brand loyalty" argument you're making here.

Irony? There are servers full with players who have played since launch, now? About 10,000-20,000 people who have been paying since January now.

But there's a difference between cumbersome (XI) and broken (XIV circa 2010).

People will not play or support a game they don't enjoy enough to do so. They certainly won't play it continuously for years. Many certainly continued to play it for years in XI, even as more "casual friendly" MMOs were launching around it, and maintaining lesser populations despite being more "mainstream".

You missed my point entirely. I never said "no one enjoyed XI."

Here's the simplest way I can say it: Saying "XI reportedly had 500,000 subscribers therefore XIV should copy X" is flawed logic.

To this point, something as broad as the "magic" of Chains of Promathia. Whether the game had 500 or 500,000 subscribers, there's no way to reproduce the feeling something gave a unique individual.

Some people loved the grind. Some people didn't care about CoP at all and did it long enough to unlock Sea.

So trying to reproduce CoP would be far more prohibitive to XIV than moving forward and letting XIV be its own thing.

Problem with this bit. For one, FFXI reported ~500,000 players for several years in a row. Whether it's taken "at a certain point in the year", when it's that consistent year after year, it kinda indicates a trend.

Further, the Vana'diel Census was not purely a "marketing piece". It went far beyond providing population numbers. It provided detailed breakdowns of population by race, job, character style (hair, height, etc), home nation, and so on and so forth. It was several pages of all kinds of data provided for the players' consideration. It was more for the fans than for the public.I don't think I ever saw the Census mentioned on a general MMO news site. I always found out about it by going to the official site, or on a FFXI-specific fan site. That's not to say it wasn't mentioned on other sites. It just wasn't a high-importance, high-profile news piece.

Citing its overall population was just one piece of a much, much larger collection of data. I hardly think what race people played the most would be of much marketing value to them or the game.

That has nothing to do with the number everyone focuses on. Yeah, the census broke things down into all sorts of percentages. But they all still were percentages of the initial number of 500,000.

The initial number was meant to be promotional. A talking point each year.

Ah yes, the "there were bots" argument. Not an uncommon claim used to dismiss or downplay a game's success. It's also a very weak one.

Hardly. They were paid subscriptions and therefore counted in the census.

But again, you're missing my point. I'm not trying to say XI didn't have players who enjoyed the game. Just that the "500,000" isn't entirely accurate. It includes trials, unsustained users and RMT accounts and legit players with multiple accounts. A reported 500,000 doesn't automatically mean "500,000 unique players."

I find this funny considering how they've changed XI so drastically in order to appeal to more players, and yet the population has continued to drop over time. At one time they knew what worked and what didn't for their core player base - the very people who stuck with them for several years. And they were rewarded with a healthy and consistent playerbase of around half a million players. Somewhere along the line, they lost sight of that, forgot who their core player-base was, and decided to dip into a bigger, much shallower and far more fickle pool known as "casual gamers". Not surprisingly, it didn't really improved their situation overall.

There's a lot more that factors into XI's decline than the changes they made.

A service's subscribers can be sustained for only so long. The drop off was natural. Six years for an MMO is phenomenal.

But when was the last time XI was advertised? Or even promoted with interviews?

Even Blizzard advertises the hell out of the almighty WoW to this day. Because it's simple business, don't lose your subscription base to attrition. Create a market penetration that at least continually replaces leaving subscribers with new members.

Sustaining 500,000 was an impressive feat, but it was also a sign of a big problem -- they couldn't retain subscribers long enough to grow beyond that. Thus signifying a hemorrhaging of subscribers.

It's easy to point at XI and say "it's dying because it's casual friendly" but it has a lot more to do with age than content.

And again, it all comes back to the thread's topic. Some people left XI because they played it for six years and it was just time. Some didn't want to level beyond 75. Some didn't like Abyssea.

But these broad stroke statements need to stop. Especially when they're incredibly misconstrued.

[Preypacer]

Irony? There are servers full with players who have played since launch, now? About 10,000-20,000 people who have been paying since January now.

But there's a difference between cumbersome (XI) and broken (XIV circa 2010).

Please don't start back-pedaling and splitting hairs now to try and make your argument "seem right".

You made a flat, absolute statement. You stated, unequivicolly, that FFXI kept many of its players due to brand loyalty. Are there that many original players still in XI now? No. But that's also irrelevant to the point.

The point is, there still are many of them playing now, and there were many more who stuck around at least 7+ years into the game's life cycle. That still supports my statement that people are not going to stick with a game for years if they do not enjoy it enough to do so, regardless of what IP it is. Brand loyalty has very little to do with it.

You made no distinction between a "broken game" or a "cumbersome game" in your previous post, which are subjective views anyway; there are people who'd argue XI was absolutely broken, while XIV just needed some tweaking and more content to be a near perfect game for them. Opinions are all over the place and you can't build an objective argument on a sea of subjective views. Regardless, you made an absolute, unqualified statement that "brand loyalty" is what kept many of those people around.

I merely pointed out the objective fact that people will not stick with a game they don't enjoy for years regardless of its IP or brand. This proves out with SWG, TOR, XIV, Matrix Online, and so on.

Now, if you're going to start back-pedaling so you can retro-actively work new criteria into your argument, then there's really no point in discussing it further with you. I have no interest in debating with a moving goal-post.

You missed my point entirely. I never said "no one enjoyed XI."

I never said you did. I made a statement in support of my argument against your claim that brand loyalty had something to do with keeping ~500k players around for at least 7+ years. That statement was part of the previous bit you quoted separately. So, you were basically addressing it individually and not in its intended context.

Here's the simplest way I can say it: Saying "XI reportedly had 500,000 subscribers therefore XIV should copy X" is flawed logic.

Why? Races were copied from XI to XIV. It worked. The new Auction-House like system from XI is being worked into XI, that's working. Several of the same gameplay mechanics that existed in XI are present in XIV. Those are working.

It seems to me that a MMO that managed to keep ~500,000 players (your "issues" with and nitpicks against the number notwithstanding) at least 7 years into its service was doing things very right overall, while a MMO whose servers were a ghost-town only months after its launch was doing things very wrong. So, it seems to me that it's perfectly valid logic to believe that specific implementations or systems that worked in XI would be at least a better solution than what was implemented in XIV. Because well, the one with those features was successful. The one with different implementations of those features wasn't.

Also consider this, FFXI maintained a healthy player-base, that 500k number you hate so much, right on through CoP.

The problem is that your entire argument relies on this premise you're trying to push that "FFXI wasn't really as successful as people seem to think it is". Perhaps if you chose something more solid and less dubious to base your arguments on...

That has nothing to do with the number everyone focuses on. Yeah, the census broke things down into all sorts of percentages. But they all still were percentages of the initial number of 500,000.

So, you're speaking for everyone now? I happen to recall many discussions taking place on various forums, on a lot of the different categories from year to year. So I don't know who this "everyone" you claim to speak for consists of.

Yes, they were all numbers based on the 500,000 number because that's the overall number of players the game maintained from year to year for several years.

That you personally don't think that's an accurate number is irrelevant. You're arguing from incredulity. Because you can't personally believe something is true doesn't mean it's not. If you want to prove it's not an accurate number, then you need to actually provide proof, not your personal opinions and misgivings.

The initial number was meant to be promotional. A talking point each year.

And? So what? It can't be promotional and still be representative of the state of the game, becuase you personally don't like the 500,000 number they posted for several years?

Hardly. They were paid subscriptions and therefore counted in the census.

This is regarding the bots. Excuse me, but I said a good deal more regarding bots than you are representing here. If you're going to respond to my point, please respond to my entire point and don't cherry-pick one part and then respond to it out of context. That's an incredibly and blatantly dishonest way to discuss/debate.

But again, you're missing my point. I'm not trying to say XI didn't have players who enjoyed the game. Just that the "500,000" isn't entirely accurate. It includes trials, unsustained users and RMT accounts and legit players with multiple accounts. A reported 500,000 doesn't automatically mean "500,000 unique players."

And just like the bots argument (which you omitted in your response), all other MMOs have trials, unsustained accounts, RMT accounts and legit players with multiple accounts. Like I said before, if you're going to bring those aspects into your argument, then you need to bring the same aspects into play for all other MMOs you're comparing it to.

FFXI was not the only MMO with trial accounts, unsustained users, multiple accounts and RMT/bot accounts figured into its numbers. Regardless, FFXI maintained ~500,000 accounts for about 7 years into its service, while other, supposedly "more casual and mainstream friendly" MMOs around it dropped down to ~200k within their first year.

Now in case you don't realize it, I'm granting you your point about bots/trials and such figuring into the 500k total. I'm simply stating that on balance, it doesn't really matter. All other MMOs have bots, RMT, trials and such as well. Regardless, FFXI's population almost 7 years into its service was double that of many others only 1 year into theirs. You can't dismiss that just because it doesn't suit your narrative.

I know you don't want to admit it, but no matter how you spin or dismiss it, FFXI has been a very successful MMO.

But these broad stroke statements need to stop. Especially when they're incredibly misconstrued.

You should listen to yourself more often.