playerbase down 25% in 4 months?

[Arximiro]

I wouldn't worry much about the population. The game isn't even a "release candidate" yet, so the population means nothing. There's still a year left before Square needs to worry about the population.

Let's hope they do one hell of a marketing campaign if/when it gets cleared for a PS3 release.

[Rinsui]

They sure a fighting an uphill battle. Whenever they release a new patch, they get a lot of positive feedback from the community; for about 2 weeks, when that there's nothing else to do becomes evident once again. There simply isn't enough "base goodness" in this game to grow on. It still is in beta a year after its release.

I wonder how newcomers would react to the game world, though. For them, the content we were fed bit by bit may sum up to look like an impresive amount...?

[Jinrya-Geki]

Depends how fast they blast through the ranks. Honestly, if they raised their ranks to the appropriate mark to do missions and quests, by the time they do them all, more content should be out. That's for new players though.

[whoopeeragon]

Hmm...was it really necessary to revive this thread, Rinsui? Move from one thread to another, and spark a different argument...

And 2 weeks after the major patch....comes patch 1.18a. Now, it may not be rivetting new content to keep us all engaged, but the fact they release something to the game 2 weeks after the patch says something. Besides, did you honestly expect a patch to really provide enough content to last you months and months and months? That's what expansions are there for, I think.

Newcomers....well, for one, there's at least twice as much content as there was at launch. Not to mention that, if the newcomer decides to participate in quests and missions, they'll have enough harder to view the same amount of content as worthwhile.

[Rinsui]

Hmm...was it really necessary to revive this thread, Rinsui?

I guess: no. Some dogs should be left asleep. Mea culpa.

I also believe that newcomers joining now will already have a much better ride than we; there is quite a bit of content in the game already. In a way, the "loyal" players who never stopped playing are sort of an old mortage SE tries to pay off bit by bit - they will never be satisfied, because for them every patch will bring just a pittance of new stuff. Which would suggest that simply shutting the game down for a few month would have been an interesting solution... but that's also an old, and fruitless discussion.

I, for my part, consider myself a Beta Tester. Nothing more, and nothing less. I belong to an absolute minority of players who, when and if the game has it's re-launch in a few months, will be around to tell a tale of very humble beginnings. I don't really expect to be satisfied with the scheduled updates. Guys like me are way to few in number to actually matter from a business standpoint.

I am just a guinea pig that helps to shape a game. And I'm o.k. with that. I pay nothing, and if I want to, I am free to quit and come back whenever I want. For my "services" as a guinea pig, I just reserve myself the right to suggest, complain and rage whenever I fell like it. Simple.

[MattyWS]

The way I see it, we are getting a head start before this game is really released. :P We aren't paying because SE have a bigger income than they have a loss from this game. They aren't losing money really, so it's not big deal to them. Enjoy the free ride and when the game is released on ps3, there will be a ton of new players starting from scratch and we will have completed the game lol.

[Nipa]

I wouldn't mind have more up to date figures, particularly since last patch.

[GreatLeviathan]

This will only get worser i believe.. 1 of the reasons is the extreme Mp costs on Cure. People that solo the compplete time they are on are now forced to party. As you would need a mage to get cured.
I played lesser since the 1.18 as it just doesn't seem to be in any use to play solo anymore. And i just don't like to party up.
The way it is now with the Mp.. It kind of is boring as you have to attack weaker mobs.
Guess we all have to wait and see what happens with the next patches.
But completely giving up on FF.. never There is still hope.

[Visch]

Square enix... plz shut this game down and just focus on FFXI >.>.... Ppl still actually play that game...

Or just make this FFXI-2 plz.

[Abriael]

Aaah, 2-chan script kiddies that think they can produce valid statistics with an empyrical crawler.

That crawler only tracks accounts that shown a change in the SP totals. Guess what? someone that's at 50 already and does only activities that pertain his maxed classes (NM hunting, dungeons, crafting and so forth) does NOT have any increase in SP.

The more time goes on, the more people get to cap in all the classes they want, and dedicate themselves only to endgame activities (that in this game aren't numerous, but they do exist, and can still fill up someone's time unless he plays a lot), according to that crawler, all those people are considered "inactive".

Good job producing a completely invalid and actually misleading statistic there. May want to apply to write on sankaku complex, lol.