Another MMO?

[BarghastTimes]

I've just been looking at the financial numbers that FFXI and FFXIV drew in, and they're both Squeenix's best earners of their eras. Do you think they'll make a FF18 Online or 20Online in the future?

Or do you think they fact they pour most the money we pay in this game into things like Kingdom Hearts Super Bad Rush Job Messy Narrative Dissonance the Gamplay 2.980 Prologue Chi Unchained Hearts Hearts Hearts Hearts and other Playstation Exclusives, means they've given up on the MMO market and see this as a dead end?

Opinions?

I for one would love to see what they could do, unshackled from the burdens of 1.0's sphaghetti code.

[Enkidoh]

Doubtful, as MMOs are considered old-hat and far too finanically demanding to bother with, when mobile games are the big money earners nowadays (FFXIV ARR only came about because it started as 1.0 whose development began way back around 2006ish, in otherwords, the heyday of the MMORPG).

A new FF MMORPG simply just doesn't seem likely I'm afraid - especially when FFXIV is still earning enormous amounts of money to the company.

[BarghastTimes]

But it's earning ENORMOUS amounts of money, you don't take your best cattle out back and put them to rest. And you don't just funnel all the money into medical services for everyone else, lol.

[Bonoki]

But it's earning ENORMOUS amounts of money, you don't take your best cattle out back and put them to rest. And you don't just funnel all the money into medical services for everyone else, lol.

FFXIV will probably go the same fate that FF11 took. Operating under maintenance mode for years to come with minimal updates while remaining a paid subscription. MMOs are heavily debated as being a dying genre these days, especially with the ethical battle of grinds vs casualization taking center stage towards the next generation of gamers. To whom of which SE seems to be entirely prioritizing these days. When FFXIV was first created it nearly sank the company and there's a good chance that SE still has war trauma to those events. FFXIV was created in the likeness of FF11 and flopped. Chances are, the next would be FF MMO would be created in the likeness of FFXIV. Considering this game's current successes. That said, while this game is generating cash, there simply is no reason for them to make another MMO because they would be competing with themselves. In all likelihood, there won't be another FF MMO until 2030ish if even that. SE seems to be transitioning to the mobile market and even has explored FF11 being re-released for the Andriod. Mobile games are probably the future until something shifts the tide. Additionally, I think the next FF MMO won't be a numbered title at all. Yoshi-P has gone on record wishing he had settled the name of the game as Final Fantasy Online instead of Final Fantasy XIV and believes that it may be time to drop the numbers altogether.

[BarghastTimes]

I think he's onto something, often when I try to get people into the games they're like "But that's the tenth game." And I have to be like, "Each game is a contained story, the only similarities are the combat mechanics and spell names."

[Jeeqbit]

FF14 is more successful now than it has ever been in any other expansion. By that, I mean the average Active Character estimate for most of Shadowbringers was 900,000, whereas in Endwalker it has been around 1,200,000 or more, consistently throughout the expansion. There is no logical reason that a game at the current height of its success would suddenly be replaced with a new one.

You also have to understand that Square Enix view a new expansion as a "whole new game". That is the mindset with which they develop one. They release it in the same way, selling it through retailers for a similar price as a new game and include a brand new musical score for every aspect of the story (battles, dungeons, exploration, sad moments, tense moments), a story with the average length of a new single player game and far more more new dungeons and bosses than we'd get in, say, a patch.

They have also told us they have a plan for the next 10 years of this game. That is not the sort of thing you say if you aren't confident it will be around for 10 years. They were not even saying 10 years in the past. They were saying more like 5 years or more, because they weren't as sure in the past. But at this point they feel extremely confident it will be strong for at least 10 years.

I agree with their assessment on the basis that, according to statistics, the game population is stable and higher than in any other expansion. It took a decade to grow to this point and it is therefore logical it would take a decade to decline back to how it was in ARR or Heavensward, where the active population was more like 300,000-600,000. Regardless of people who say they are quitting on these forums all the time, they will just get replaced by one of the 30 million former players returning to the game.

They have also said that the graphics update is the "first" graphical update, implying there will probably be more in the future.

To understand why this scenario happened to FF11, we need to explore why it happened to FF11. It was designed for playstations, like other FF games at the time. It was designed around tools that they struggle to use now and that newer developers are not familiar with. My understanding is that, recently they started using virtualization so they can throw away old machines. FF11 was falling behind its competition and the assessment must have been that the only way to fix it is a new game, all the way back in 2005. Which is quite a familiar story, isn't it? Because that's what happened with 1.0 of this game.

Based on what I've read from Yoshi-P interviews, this game was designed more with the future in mind, so that they can gradually increase bones and animations and things like that. Plus we just have crazy technologies to avoid the need for a new game now: AI, that can effectively just convert everything to have more detail in seconds. I think they used AI on the action icons when preparing the PS5 update.

[Rekh]

There's "hope" for a new ff mmo since Yoship wants to make another one before he ends his game career. Looking at the quality of game content since shadowbringers, but specially since endwalker I'm not sure Yoship's the right person for it. If square enix was smart they would be developing their new ff mmo right now and promising to transfer FFXIV characters, minions, mounts, etc into the new one. That way all you would lose would be the overworld and locations. But you'd be gaining a far better battle system, game-server infrastructure, glamour system more similar to WoW's; and just the wholesale removal of all these FFXIV limitations the game is famous for, like the lack of character customization options.

My question to the forum community is; if all your glamours, minions, and mounts were transferred to a new FF mmo, would you be fine with square enix dropping FFXIV?

[Ath192]

But it's earning ENORMOUS amounts of money, you don't take your best cattle out back and put them to rest. And you don't just funnel all the money into medical services for everyone else, lol.

Of course they are going to make a new one. The issue is they are huge gambles, so yes, they can be huge money earners but also sink a company with them. However, They have a history of MMOs tuning into successes and as much as this game has been refined... There are still more issues than they can probably fix here. I would be surprised if the new one isn't already in the works. From what I've read it may take 6 years or so to get something decent going so I doubt they're going to wait for XIV to be 16 years old to announce its replacement.

The game right now is exactly at the point where XI was when its replacement got announced, breaking revenue records, peaking essentially, and this would be the moment to get something else going because if you wait too long you run the risk of the game fizzling out and then people get apprehensive about investing in things like this because maybe the market for MMOs has evaporated or so they think.

It's hard to get people to invest in you when the project is no longer bringing in the revenue it used to, but really easy when people can clearly see its extremely successful atm. I have a ton of achievements in XIV but the MMO has taken a direction that TBH I don't think it will crawl back out of and I can see myself retiring for a new MMO. It's just a matter of the right one or a successor to this one coming along. I've said this many times before but the graphics update and heavy investment the game is seeing right now is enough to keep me for Dawntrail but honestly when looking at the game from a macro perspective it's beginning to have so many issues I don't think they can fix them all. It's just becoming outdated. Like an old car, at some point it becomes more expensive to keep it running than getting a new one. Some issues I can think of easily are netcode issues/Inventory issues/glamour dresser issues/no time passage/zone loading/little multicore support/still DX11.

[BarghastTimes]

Of course they are going to make a new one. The issue is they are huge gambles, so yes, they can be huge money earners but also sink a company with them. However, They have a history of MMOs tuning into successes and as much as this game has been refined... There are still more issues than they can probably fix here. I would be surprised if the new one isn't already in the works. From what I've read it may take 6 years or so to get something decent going so I doubt they're going to wait for XIV to be 16 years old to announce its replacement.

The game right now is exactly at the point where XI was when its replacement got announced, breaking revenue records, peaking essentially, and this would be the moment to get something else going because if you wait too long you run the risk of the game fizzling out and then people get apprehensive about investing in things like this because maybe the market for MMOs has evaporated or so they think.

It's hard to get people to invest in you when the project is no longer bringing in the revenue it used to, but really easy when people can clearly see its extremely successful atm. I have a ton of achievements in XIV but the MMO has taken a direction that TBH I don't think it will crawl back out of and I can see myself retiring for a new MMO. It's just a matter of the right one or a successor to this one coming along. I've said this many times before but the graphics update and heavy investment the game is seeing right now is enough to keep me for Dawntrail but honestly when looking at the game from a macro perspective it's beginning to have so many issues I don't think they can fix them all. It's just becoming outdated. Like an old car, at some point it becomes more expensive to keep it running than getting a new one. Some issues I can think of easily are netcode issues/Inventory issues/glamour dresser issues/no time passage/zone loading/little multicore support/still DX11.

This is how I feel. And I constantly am reminded of all the 1.0 limitations, like the amoury and the inventory. And my original account that migrated from 1.0 to 2.0 had all kinds of issues. I had to delete characters and stuff and they were on MogStation but not in my game, it was bad. And the websites look dated.

[Jeeqbit]

But you'd be gaining a far better battle system

Here's the thing. Whether it's done through a new game, or just adjusting the battle system in this game, changing a battle system is a very bad idea. All of the current players have become accustomed to it and if it's changed they may not take well to it, because for many people it is why they play. They like combos and rotations, or snapshotting, or the scripted nature of fights, which allow them to become "good" at fights.

For example, let's say it changed to use action combat or to play like FF16. Do you really think all the players would stick around? SE's mindset is to avoid changing the things players are accustomed to because the fact is that is a great way to lose lots of players.

That's why they don't change a lot of other "formulas" as well. They work. If they got rid of roulettes or scrapped major content staples they have released consistently for years, that too could upset a lot of players. Reducing the number of dungeons produced already did this.

Perhaps all the people who leave over it will just be replaced by people who enjoy the new combat. But the problem is it doesn't create goodwill and they want to create goodwill because of what happened with 1.0.

game-server infrastructure

That can be changed without a new game. They even recently did a cloud data center test, proving they can run it through the cloud.

I don't accept the idea that the current game can't be adapted to make use of the cloud for things such as dynamic housing wards or expanded inventory (at least at Inns). These are things they can certainly do. Regardless of how much "spaghetti code" there is, it's easy to create a brand new type of inventory like they did with the Chocobo Saddlebag that uses new rules such as cloud servers.

glamour system more similar to WoW's

This is another thing that would benefit from the cloud. If physical drive space is a concern, it isn't in a virtual environment that can scale at the press of a button. Again, it does not require a new game. They can create a new system for it, just like the Glamour Dresser was a new system when it was added, but design it to use the cloud from the ground up. I don't personally want this to be an achievement system, but working like the Armoire would be good.

lack of character customization options.

It is certainly true this could be very different due to current technology. We could be going as far as describing how many hairs we want and how long they are and painting where we want them to appear. But I don't think SE would do this for the same reason the graphics update barely changes characters: they want to preserve the look everyone has come to love. Many people are attached to their characters' looks that they worked hard on and don't want it ripped away from them due to a new system.