Comments from the Devs

[Priran]

The only thing "killing" XI is the same thing that kills humans; age. XI is sitting comfortable in its golden years, not making too many waves but not exactly withering away in an old-folks' home. The game will die peacefully and happily in its sleep in a few years, and will have many people show up at its funeral. There's nothing "wrong" with it nowadays; the main era that could have saw the game gain or lose massive subs based on changes within the game has long-since passed. Anything it does now, whether good or bad, won't really have a major effect on subs. It already has it's main market, has had that market for years and doesn't seem to really lose that market or gain more of it at this point.

this just in: massive hemorrhaging is "dying peacefully".

I dunno about you but a game losing ostensibly half its active accounts in a year, after holding that number remarkably stable for over 6, sounds to me like something they did had a "major effect on subs". What exactly constitutes "losing massive subs based on changes within the game" if not -50% subs immediately after announcing you're changing the game in a major way?

The game's age is beside the point anyway. The people who left FFXI didn't leave because it had dated graphics (hi2u WoW), they left it because they either stopped finding it fun or saw a new MMO they wanted to try. The MMO market has changed for better or worse and games like FFXI can't make it anymore.

[Gokulo]

How about those developer comments, eh?

We'll take that question to the development team.

[Tomino]

Lol
Lol
Lol

I was talking about old-school grind.
"Do this 100 times" grind.
"Wait for 1% drop" grind.
"Do this for 10 days" grind.

I agree no developer can put that much content out to satisfy its player base but still, there's a pretty difference between old FF11 experience tables (spent on crabs) and what GW2 is trying to accomplish.
To me, having different activities available from 1 to 50 (as random as possible, also) is one way to improve things for the better. As stated many times back in this same tread, the point should be to have the grind being the side-effect, not the goal.

[Hyan]

Two problems:

You are twisting terms however you like. Grind is grind.

GW2 isn't even out yet. And its the perfect example of a game that is intentionally short-lived (with little grind). Why wouldn't it be?

[Spider-Dan]

I dunno about you but a game losing ostensibly half its active accounts in a year, after holding that number remarkably stable for over 6, sounds to me like something they did had a "major effect on subs".

The cause you are looking for is called "Final Fantasy XIV."

SE fasttracking (ahem) XIV's release right before unveiling major changes to XI caused a lot of people to lose interest in XI. How many XIV players are former XI players? Do you think all of them would have still quit at the same time (for "some other game") if XIV were another offline FF? Abyssea may have been the extra push to get in or get out, but it wasn't the real cause for leaving.

It's strange that you could miss this, because you were 95% of the way to this conclusion already:

The people who left FFXI didn't leave because it had dated graphics (hi2u WoW), they left it because they either stopped finding it fun or saw a new MMO they wanted to try.

[Lucavi]

Grind is a thing of the past any way you look at it

This is just one of the many, many reasons no one of worth takes you seriously. The fact that you believe what you type as you hit "post" not only surprises me, but saddens me.

@Priran: People getting bored of the same old (even new content can be construed as "same old") and leaving when a game gets old -is- a part of an old MMO dying peacefully. You think an old person's body doesn't start going to shit towards the back end? What's happening to XI is perfectly natural. Lets not forget that SE basically pushed for old XI players to jump ship to XIV anyway, but that fact notwithstanding, if it was that bad, the game would either A) lose its profitability, which it has not (or it'd be gone) or B) try to quickly bust out an official F2P transition like other MMOs on the market in order to make an emergency cash-grab.

Given that I don't even think SE knows the proper way to convert to a F2P model, I'd wager on neither A or B happening. The game is old as Methuselah; its no surprise to see some of its long-standing fans get a little standoffish at some of the changes that are happening. I'm sure SE could take this as a sign that all change = bad, so they should just revert the servers to CoP status, but given that CoP is what caused the initial flood of subs from the game, I'd say that's not a very smart idea.

[Tomino]

What are you mad about, exactly? I already said grind can't be completely avoided in an MMO, but that still there are ways to make it less the crucial point of the gaming experience.

Making players travel the world eases the grind, as opposed to sitting in the same place for days. Adding different activities aside monster grind eases the grind. Making the same content more random (yet balanced) eases the grind.


I have good faith in Yoshi-P direction : we'd soon have Leves, Raids, Party exp (with Link system), open Raids, Hamlet Def (Campaign like?), Caravan Escort, Chocobo caring and Job/Skill quests to take players from 1 to 50. It's a step in a nice direction even if they may never have the resources to aim for something like Dynamic Events.

This is just one of the many, many reasons no one of worth takes you seriously.

funniest part of internet arguing is people tossing judgements all over. k k

[Priran]

The cause you are looking for is called "Final Fantasy XIV."

SE fasttracking (ahem) XIV's release right before unveiling major changes to XI caused a lot of people to lose interest in XI. How many XIV players are former XI players? Do you think all of them would have still quit at the same time (for "some other game") if XIV were another offline FF? Abyssea may have been the extra push to get in or get out, but it wasn't the real cause for leaving.

It's strange that you could miss this, because you were 95% of the way to this conclusion already:

So your theory is that 250,000 people quit FFXI after playing it for years to try out FFXIV, and when they realized it was awful they swore off MMOs forever instead of just going back to FFXI. Gotcha.

[Spider-Dan]

So your theory is that 250,000 people quit FFXI after playing it for years to try out FFXIV, and when they realized it was awful they [...]

a) kept playing XIV anyway (see: everyone on this forum)
b) jumped over to a newer MMO (e.g. Rift)
c) took a break from MMOs while waiting for GW2 or Old Republic

No, I don't see "went back to FFXI" as a plausible answer. I don't know about you, but when I quit XI, I sold/gave away everything of value, and I have no intention of going back to that game so I can be an underleveled lowbie again (complete with grinding subjobs). I guess you could argue that Abyssea drove away re-subscribers from that standpoint, but those horses were essentially out of the barn.

[Lordender]

I went back to FFXI after being gone for 4.5 years, XIV was bad and Cataclysm is the 2nd worst expansion i've played across any MMO, I rated it behind Wings of the Goddess. I honestly like the changes XI has done, the game is a hell of a lot less annoying than the last time I played it, you can really see its age though and even then there are still things I dislike about XI and there are still things I find annoying as hell with it.

I thought SE made it pretty easy to start XI back over from scratch.

[Gadritan]

How about those developer comments, eh?

Separate thread for the dev comments only now. This one allows for all the herp derp S-Dan & friends "discussions."

[Draylo]

Care to share your numbers on FFXI current subs and how many have quit over a certain time period Priran? Kinda sounds like you are pulling numbers out of your ass.

[Gadritan]

How many XIV players are former XI players?

I honestly don't know a single former XI player that quit for XIV. Nearly all of them had left XI years before. In most cases, they only played XI for about 6months to a year to begin with.

[Lordender]

If anything people left XIV for XI lol.

[Lucavi]

Where are these numbers for the "great" exodus from XI over the last year or so? Are they JP or NA players? If they're JP, for all we know, they all left to play some Dating Sim MMO or something. You can never apply standard logic to a Japanese gamer.

[Spider-Dan]

I honestly don't know a single former XI player that quit for XIV. Nearly all of them had left XI years before. In most cases, they only played XI for about 6months to a year to begin with.

I would really love to see these subscription statistics Priran is talking about, because it would be immensely entertaining to see the explanation for an XI subscription dive in September 2010 that doesn't involve, you know, the release of its sequel.

[Gadritan]

Idk why you quoted me. I'm not Pirian. That was anecdotal evidence.

Spoiler: show

That means I was just talking from personal experience.

[Spider-Dan]

I quoted you because you seem to be joining the chorus of people who don't understand why a dive in XI's subscription numbers would have anything to do with SE releasing a sequel to FFXI.

If I'm wrong in that regard, I take it back.

[Arximiro]

I honestly don't know a single former XI player that quit for XIV. Nearly all of them had left XI years before. In most cases, they only played XI for about 6months to a year to begin with.

I quit FFXI for FFXIV. Mainly for the same reason everyone else I know who quit did so. Abyssea came around and made the rest of the endgame that SE had spent 7 years putting in pretty irrelevant. All that work in Salvage, Einherjar, etc for years on end pretty much shat upon in a few months with insanely awesome gear that was easy to obtain. It was a bad idea to raise the level cap after having it set in stone for so many years imo. I had a ton of fun with FFXI, but it's just not the same game anymore, not the one I loved.

Inb4butthurt Yeah I was butthurt for awhile but I quit a year ago and I'm having fun with FFXIV. ^^

[mightyg]

The reason I don't play FFXI at the moment isn't because it's dated, or FFXIV is out, or any other MMO. It's because it's obvious that the dev team is on life support duty. We're getting nice adjustments and revisions to the game, but no legitimate story or mission content. Basically without any major expansion announcements, the game feels like it has no future.