You know what would increase subs?

[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.

[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

[AlienDiplomat]

This is the NVIDIA tool I was talking about devs maybe using to automate the bulk of upscaling old games:

NVIDIA RTX Remix:
youtube.com/watch?v=Vg52-HZhrFc

[Kewitt]

I played ffxi for 10 years before switching to ffxiv, I go back from time to time but I would love a graphics overhaul.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

Graphics wasn’t the big reason players left. Yes, you might get a small influx if the graphics changed, but those players would drift off again. The real damage came from SE’s own design choices:

Abyssea instantly killed all existing endgame areas overnight, funnelling everyone into one place.

Level cap raise to 99 and introduction of ilvl wiped out years of balanced endgame content in one go. This was the biggest error it should've just stayed at 75 and just kept adding content it WORKED.

Endgame equipment that took years to get became scrap

Relic weapons were left useless for months (if not over a year) before finally being updated.

Flowerpot exploit bans gutted the community trust. (funny how flowerpots managed to help kill both XI and 1.0 :P)

Party play was one of the game’s best features and was undermined in favour of solo play.

Yes, people left for WoW and Aion when they launched, partly because they looked better. But a huge number came back after a few months. What drove them away for good wasn’t the graphics, it was SE dismantling the community and progression structure that made the game special in the first place.

[Luluna]

I loved FFXI and still go back sometimes but the UI and clunky playonline puts me off. I will say though I prefer the world and atmosphere of FFXI and the battle system is much better for me at least. The exploration in FFXI is exciting.

I would love a graphic update and some of the UI sorting but I get worried what a remake would do as I am not into all the rush pew pew of the battles here in XIV, in FFXI mobs and bosses have meaning and strategy but here they all just blend into one boss where you just dodge and it has become tiresome and not fun.

I love turn based games and time to think but I am older and never really liked action type games, its such a shame because in 1.0 moving forward it would have been very similar to FFXI now its just wait for buttons to light up and dodge the big red circles on the floor. Also every job felt unique.

[Sunhwapark]

I would definitely try XI if the subs were merged.

[MayuAmakura]

Graphics would be better yeah but that's not the reason for people not playing. There are plenty of games with bad graphics yet they are fun to play and people stay. It's all about gameplay and how fun the game is. FF xiv online graphic update was OK but it left a lot of characters changed and in a wrong way. We still have Hyur face 1 eye bags sigh, but other faces don't have this. It's really criminal.