You know what would increase subs?

[LyrisAdamanteia]

But you don't know that. Everyone says that like its fact. XI would be the perfect counterweight to WOW classic, as its SE's own unique offering that was well beloved. And WOW classic proved there is an audience for more old school experiences. I also don't understand taking the standpoint of guarding a companies money.

There is a good chance they get all their tens of millions back with enough time and support for a game with a proven track record than launching the new crap that has been bombing left and right from their studios. You benefit nothing by telling them hey don't do it, just pocket the change, and stand a lot to gain from bringing back a good game to modern standards. Maybe you don't have time anymore, but a lot of young people do, just like we had time back then. Heck most people that left this game did so because there isn't anything to do in it if you're caught up. The bad story was just the excuse they needed to finish breaking the cycle.

Does anyone here think FFXI remastered would be a worse investment than Babylon's fall?

"Square Enix did not publicly disclose the specific financial losses from Babylon's Fall. However, it's clear the game was a commercial failure and contributed to a significant drop in Square Enix's stock value. The game's poor performance led to the company restructuring its development approach and taking an "extraordinary loss" of 22.1 billion yen (approximately $140 million USD). This loss likely includes costs associated with the game's development and subsequent abandonment. "

I don't. The probabilities of FFXI having been the better bet than that are overwhelmingly clear. Even in its ancient decrepit state FFXI still pulls a profit.

I currently play FFXI and I can concur with Atma's statement. WoW Classic and FFXI are two different eras of mmos. FFXI is still firmly an EQ-like experience, WoW Classic is Classic yes but its an old school server of the modern mmo. Like a lot of people really don't realize what a sea change WoW was to mmos that came before it, the way folks talk about how (say) FFXIV is the baby casual game is how older mmo players were talking about WoW when it came out because it offered a convenience factor that you don't get in the EQ era from games like FFXI.

Like this is really operating under the assumption that FFXI and WoW are similar enough because they came out 2 years apart but in the development of mmos that 2 years was enough to really consider pre-WoW and post-WoW mmos entirely separate genres.

ETA: That isn't to say that WoW is solely responsible for it, as much as folks give that credit to WoW both EQ2 and CoH make a lot of the same changes that WoW did to the mmo formula of the EQ era but neither go as far or as extensively as WoW did nor were either as successful despite both releasing earlier in 2004 than WoW did.

[Atma]

I currently play FFXI and I can concur with Atma's statement. WoW Classic and FFXI are two different eras of mmos. FFXI is still firmly an EQ-like experience, WoW Classic is Classic yes but its an old school server of the modern mmo. Like a lot of people really don't realize what a sea change WoW was to mmos that came before it, the way folks talk about how (say) FFXIV is the baby casual game is how older mmo players were talking about WoW when it came out because it offered a convenience factor that you don't get in the EQ era from games like FFXI.

Like this is really operating under the assumption that FFXI and WoW are similar enough because they came out 2 years apart but in the development of mmos that 2 years was enough to really consider pre-WoW and post-WoW mmos entirely separate genres.

(...)

And I mean don't get me wrong, personally I'd love to see it from a nostalgic standpoint. But I'm also pragmatic, and understand that there's simply no 'mass market appeal' here and I am in a very small minority. I've been playing MMO's since the days of Ultima Online, so I've seen multiple massive seismic shifts in the industry across my time. Once WoW hit the market, that was basically the functional end of EQ style gameplay.

I mean let's be purely realistic - though some of these things may have changed, I don't really think the core of the game changed that much. To play FFXI effectively, first you need to learn to interact with their macro system. You need to learn all the commands, all of the <> identifiers like <t> and <st>. Instead of using abilities from a simple hotbar, you need to create unique macros for each one, often broadcasting information to party chat.

And then that's even better.

You need to read party chat. Like pretty much all the time. You might as well ask the average 18-24 year old in 2025 to saw off their own leg, you'll have a better chance of that succeeding than getting them to read party chat constantly for important information. Then the pacing. FFXI gameplay pacing is s.l.o.w because it's designed for an era where you needed interparty communication via text.

Now let's bring up the fact the game is designed from the ground up to be played with a controller. Mouse and keyboard need not apply. Can you do it? Sure. It's a miserable experience to start out with and it doesn't really improve.

Like this is just a small, small sampling of the reasons why FFXI is just not built to have mainstream success in 2025. The game will forever hold a special place in my heart, but absolutely yes. It is 1000%, unequivocally, without a moment's hesitation in my mind, better for them to take a shot on a brand new franchise or creating a brand new IP than giving a 23 year MMO a facelift.

[Supersnow845]

They would spend tens of millions of dollars reworking the graphics engine and then updating all the models and all the textures for pretty much the entire game. You can't just 'update a graphics engine' for a 23 year old game without updating models and textures and expect miracles to happen.

And then people would play it for 2 weeks and quit.

Look, I loved FFXI when it came out, I poured multiple thousands of hours into that game. There was a point where my average played hours per day exceeded my average sleep hours of the day. But even I can come to grips with the fact that FFXI's gameplay style is not conducive to a modern MMO audience. It was a niche game then and it'd be even more of a niche game now.

Did you reply to the wrong person

I never suggested updating 11

[Atma]

Did you reply to the wrong person

I never suggested updating 11

Sorry, as someone who played 11 suggesting they make 11 'a little less esoteric' is functionally a very heavy overhaul to 11, so apologies if I misunderstood you.

[Supersnow845]

Sorry, as someone who played 11 suggesting they make 11 'a little less esoteric' is functionally a very heavy overhaul to 11, so apologies if I misunderstood you.

I meant give it a vague tutorial, not the mess it has right now

Not overhaul its systems

The game has basically already been solved online compared to how it was back then but I basically meant just some vague visual indicators

[Onshinn]

They will have to ride bad writing and publicity with Dawntrail to the end. Unfortunately, it is historically the most boring dialogues and msq I've ever journeyed. Nowhere near the work quality of what I've had in ARR and Heavensward. By the time, we go to Endwalker... Let's just say, they lost me at Meteion. From that moment nothing has sit well as it ride towards this expansion. I can't pinpoint the exact problem. The writing direction for this expansion is inferior. Most of us just aren't excited about it at all frankly. Nice graphics yes, It just feels soulless. I usually never skip their dialogues But this time, I sadly, felt no excitement in reading any of them.

I'm not one to know who does what in the development of each aspect of the game; But all I know is as I go on this adventure, it doesn't feel like an adventure, its almost like whoever wrote this is hollow inside. It's definitely not Koji Fox anymore am I right? Some choices they made for this expansion doesn't sit well with me. It's almost like a bitter toxic camouflage as a game... That's the feeling it gave. And it also almost felt like there is a power struggle between 2 people trying to spun the narrative in the expansion. Like too many cooks spoil the broth.
As such I guess maybe players felt that trashy feeling; just my observations. It's almost like they are trying to repackage a garbage bin to look like a flower pot.

There were lots of great QoL improvements and graphics. I think the only story I like, was excited about was the subquest with that little sweet corn minion. The battle mechs in the game is still top notch!

it's been 2 weeks, My friends and I haven't really had the excitement to login yet... even though we haven't finish, we didn't feel compel like it use to. But this is just my 2 cents. The last time I got completely honest, I got into some nice trouble. XD.

Maybe they hire the wrong people for this expansion, I can only guess. you can't expect people to sub if they're not compel to login and want to play.

[LyrisAdamanteia]

They will have to ride bad writing and publicity with Dawntrail to the end. Unfortunately, it is historically the most boring dialogues and msq I've ever journeyed. Nowhere near the work quality of what I've had in ARR and Heavensward. By the time, we go to Endwalker... Let's just say, they lost me at Meteion. From that moment nothing has sit well as it ride towards this expansion. I can't pinpoint the exact problem. The writing direction for this expansion is inferior. Most of us just aren't excited about it at all frankly. Nice graphics yes, It just feels soulless. I usually never skip their dialogues But this time, I sadly, felt no excitement in reading any of them.

I'm not one to know who does what in the development of each aspect of the game; But all I know is as I go on this adventure, it doesn't feel like an adventure, its almost like whoever wrote this is hollow inside. It's definitely not Koji Fox anymore am I right? Some choices they made for this expansion doesn't sit well with me. It's almost like a bitter toxic camouflage as a game... That's the feeling it gave. And it also almost felt like there is a power struggle between 2 people trying to spun the narrative in the expansion. Like too many cooks spoil the broth.
As such I guess maybe players felt that trashy feeling; just my observations. It's almost like they are trying to repackage a garbage bin to look like a flower pot.

There were lots of great QoL improvements and graphics. I think the only story I like, was excited about was the subquest with that little sweet corn minion. The battle mechs in the game is still top notch!

it's been 2 weeks, My friends and I haven't really had the excitement to login yet... even though we haven't finish, we didn't feel compel like it use to. But this is just my 2 cents. The last time I got completely honest, I got into some nice trouble. XD.

Maybe they hire the wrong people for this expansion, I can only guess. you can't expect people to sub if they're not compel to login and want to play.

HW had the Sultana's whole assassination handwaved with a "she was actually asleep" and Lolorito, to this day, has still not faced any consequences. Also Koji Fox hasn't been localization lead since Stormblood when he was moved to help work on localization and lore for FFXVI. Kate's been localization lead since Shadowbringers.

[Atma]

They will have to ride bad writing and publicity with Dawntrail to the end. Unfortunately, it is historically the most boring dialogues and msq I've ever journeyed. Nowhere near the work quality of what I've had in ARR and Heavensward. By the time, we go to Endwalker... Let's just say, they lost me at Meteion. From that moment nothing has sit well as it ride towards this expansion. I can't pinpoint the exact problem. The writing direction for this expansion is inferior. Most of us just aren't excited about it at all frankly. Nice graphics yes, It just feels soulless. I usually never skip their dialogues But this time, I sadly, felt no excitement in reading any of them.

I'm not one to know who does what in the development of each aspect of the game; But all I know is as I go on this adventure, it doesn't feel like an adventure, its almost like whoever wrote this is hollow inside. It's definitely not Koji Fox anymore am I right? Some choices they made for this expansion doesn't sit well with me. It's almost like a bitter toxic camouflage as a game... That's the feeling it gave. And it also almost felt like there is a power struggle between 2 people trying to spun the narrative in the expansion. Like too many cooks spoil the broth.
As such I guess maybe players felt that trashy feeling; just my observations. It's almost like they are trying to repackage a garbage bin to look like a flower pot.

There were lots of great QoL improvements and graphics. I think the only story I like, was excited about was the subquest with that little sweet corn minion. The battle mechs in the game is still top notch!

it's been 2 weeks, My friends and I haven't really had the excitement to login yet... even though we haven't finish, we didn't feel compel like it use to. But this is just my 2 cents. The last time I got completely honest, I got into some nice trouble. XD.

Maybe they hire the wrong people for this expansion, I can only guess. you can't expect people to sub if they're not compel to login and want to play.

I mean cool story bro but what does that have to do with giving FFXI a graphics overhaul, which is the topic of this thread?

[AlienDiplomat]

This was highly successful for World of Warcraft and Classic servers.

I sadly missed the FFXI era due to being fully entrenched in modding Morrowind and Oblivion at the time. But a lot of what I hear people say about it sounds interesting and with a visual makeover it would definitely be something I would check out if it was included in my FF subscription.

EDIT: Obviously I wouldn't want the devs to devote TOO much time to it, since XIV is my baby and I wouldn't want to further subtract from it's own continued progress. TBH I have kind of been hoping that AI upscale tools like what NVIDIA is doing for lighting and 3D models in addition to textures might streamline these sort of facelifts in the near future. So actual human devs really only need to go over it at a QA level and tweak anything that is horribly wrong in the upscale.

[LyrisAdamanteia]

This was highly successful for World of Warcraft and Classic servers.

I sadly missed the FFXI era due to being fully entrenched in modding Morrowind and Oblivion at the time. But a lot of what I hear people say about it sounds interesting and with a visual makeover it would definitely be something I would check out if it was included in my FF subscription.

EDIT: Obviously I wouldn't want the devs to devote TOO much time to it, since XIV is my baby and I wouldn't want to further subtract from it's own continued progress. TBH I have kind of been hoping that AI upscale tools like what NVIDIA is doing for lighting and 3D models in addition to textures might streamline these sort of facelifts in the near future. So actual human devs really only need to go over it at a QA level and tweak anything that is horribly wrong in the upscale.

The difference being for all WoW fans complaints with it Classic and Retail are essentially the same game. The underlying systems all work pretty similarly in retail 2025 as they did in vanilla 2004, because mmos in the last 21 years haven't changed much, they all pretty much follow WoW's script as it were. FFXIV and FFXI are as different as peanut butter and castor oil in terms of gameplay, as I stated in another comment FFXI is very much an Everquest era mmo with none of the niceties that vanilla WoW would popularize just 2 years after FFXI's release. This is also, largely, why 1.0 ended up a failure. It didn't evolve in key ways, sticking to the formula they created with XI while evolving in others, and even going off the rails in yet others. Hate to be that lady but this is a real "you think you do but you don't" moment. I predict your average XIV fan will spend, maybe, a day max in XI and it would be way too frustrating. There are just a lot of things popularized by WoW (and also concurrently evolved in EQ2 and CoH, released earlier the same year) that are absent from FFXI.

Like people really overestimate the differences between Classic and Retail WoW and underestimate the differences between FFXI and FFXIV. Shoot, an FFXIV server that was structured like Classic WoW (like you take the FFXIV aesthetics and fit it in with the gameplay loop of Classic WoW) in terms of gameplay would be more natural than bringing FFXI up.