Comments from the Devs

[shepardG]

I'm surprised that you guys haven't quit yet. not trolling, i mean there's gotta be something that's keeping you guys going right? I'm curious

[Lordender]

lol almost getting to the point where I'm going to check XI back out and just not give a crap about lol14. XI just seems more interesting now to me than a 7 boss raid tier in lolWoW that has taken almost 7 months to put out plus laughable grindy dailies that will require months of grinding to unlock lolvendors and running lolheroic 5mans.

[Hyan]

I'm surprised that you guys haven't quit yet. not trolling, i mean there's gotta be something that's keeping you guys going right? I'm curious

Who hasn't quit? Hats off to them.

[Celeras]

I'm surprised that you guys haven't quit yet. not trolling, i mean there's gotta be something that's keeping you guys going right? I'm curious

Half the people here don't play and just feel like trolling because they have nothing better going on in their lives.

For people who are playing, it's still free and a few leves once/week isn't a horrible way to spend an hour. I doubt anybody is playing more than that.

[Vuitton]

only bots play this game currently

[Corrderio]

I'm surprised that you guys haven't quit yet. not trolling, i mean there's gotta be something that's keeping you guys going right? I'm curious

I'm mostly waiting to see what happens next update. Til then I'm mostly just getting ranking stuff up to 36 to buy crap from guilds.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

I still play but only to get my fisher to rank 50 before the patch(which removes easy sp from grade 6+) and to get the rest of my crafts to 40(some 50). I have some 'fun' doing leves with friends but it's really getting dull now. I really only play while watching TV anymore.

[Dooom]

For people who are playing, it's still free and a few leves once/week isn't a horrible way to spend an hour. I doubt anybody is playing more than that.

Pretty much; and it's not like it's hard to do a little crafting while watching TV or something.

[Asai]

I was playing to get everything to a somewhat rational level (r30) for job unlock requirements and doing missions in mass when I unlock them. But working 40 hours a week + playing PC/console games (LoL, free shit on PSN) basically getting on to do leves is all I have time for anyway, so it doesn't really get boring just yet. I DO watch shit while crafting, though.

[Patriarch]

It all boils down to a player's playtime, actually.
When someone has 10 hours to spend playing the day after patch, then the design choices available to avoid insta-clears becomes:

- Forcing waits. Much like infamous "jap midnights", limited attempts/pop items, tier system that requires more days, etc.
- Extend time needed for completition via lame attempts. See 1/100 drop rates, 24hr repops, claim wars.
- Extreme difficulty, basically generating wipe over wipe. That's one dangerous choice tho, because it's hard to make an encouter hard for hardcore players (ie: gear check fights) without making it impossible for casuals.

In the end, besides introducing tier system progression, there's little one can do to avoid hardcore players accessing all new content the day it's release. It's not even an issue that strictly FF14 related.
Any good, hardcore player had the same exact problem with patch 4.1 in WoW : he was able to clear all quests and instances at day 1.

In any case, I think it is a horrid idea to scale the game down in difficulty for casual players, because your hardcore players are going to have the most monthly subs. Final Fantasy XI may not have been a blockbuster in revenue, but dynamis, hnms, (fuck me) Salvage, and shit like that kept people playing.

Implement events that are going to motivate, captivate, and keep your customers online.

Don't throw them an hours worth of garbage gameplay every 48 hours.

[Dooom]

Final Fantasy XI may not have been a blockbuster in revenue, but dynamis, hnms, (fuck me) Salvage, and shit like that kept people playing.

Disagree with your examples. While Dynamis was probably popular-ish, the other examples you list were probably only ever done by a quarter of the population back at 75 cap. I imagine most people kept playing 'cos of character progression through relatively casual ( for old FFXI) character progression such as exping, meriting, and more casual-friendly endgame/events such as Sky; but then, in XI, exping was pretty much an event in itself, rather than something which simply happened. I'd be willing to bet that casuals made up the bulk of subs for XI, and for most other MMOs which turn a profit too, if not all. The trouble with endgame and endgame groups is that you often come to think that what they do and how they play is the norm; when really, it represents only a relatively small part of the playerbase.

Ironically though, I think 14 is gonna have to survive on it's hardcore players, simply 'cos everyone else has quit or dismissed the game already. But then, I don't expect 14 to turn a profit anytime soon, if ever.

[Patriarch]

Disagree with your examples. While Dynamis was probably popular-ish, the other examples you list were probably only ever done by a quarter of the population back at 75 cap. I imagine most people kept playing 'cos of character progression through relatively casual ( for old FFXI) character progression such as exping, meriting, and more casual-friendly endgame/events such as Sky; but then, in XI, exping was pretty much an event in itself, rather than something which simply happened. I'd be willing to bet that casuals made up the bulk of subs for XI, and for most other MMOs which turn a profit too, if not all. The trouble with endgame and endgame groups is that you often come to think that what they do and how they play is the norm; when really, it represents only a relatively small part of the playerbase.


Ironically though, I think 14 is gonna have to survive on it's hardcore players, simply 'cos everyone else has quit or dismissed the game already. But then, I don't expect 14 to turn a profit anytime soon, if ever.

You are correct sir, Salvage may not have been a prime example, but you can't deny the many thousands of people who went into Namis on a regular schedule. Sky however I consider an event, which most of the time, aside from farming was a planned occurence.

I agree though, Final Fantasy XI was an event, with casual kickbacks to due in your spare time. Something XIV could use.

[Cichy]

FFXI hit the non-saturated market at a great time and poped the MMO cherry for many people. Dynamis was popular because it was one of the only events for the only MMO many people knew. I know the game is still kicking but the same formula wont work on the current MMO market. XIV should've took those ideas that worked in XI and improved/built on them instead of just throwing everything out.
The problem is that SE thought they going to release a game with barely any content and than spoon feed us slowly over period of another 10 years. This wont work in the current market as there is ton of games that people can be playing. Look at Rift, it had tons of content and what not and the game is just going down hill in a short period, however, they made money due to volume they sold. TERA is a great game with 100 times more content than XIV and it's hella fun but personally I dont know if I would play it past 3 months. Lots of people here including me would like a game that we can play for couple years or something but I dont know if that's really possible anymore. If it is, it sure going take more than SE is prepared for.

[Patriarch]

FFXI hit the non-saturated market at a great time and poped the MMO cherry for many people. Dynamis was popular because it was one of the only events for the only MMO many people knew. I know the game is still kicking but the same formula wont work on the current MMO market. XIV should've took those ideas that worked in XI and improved/built on them instead of just throwing everything out.
The problem is that SE thought they going to release a game with barely any content and than spoon feed us slowly over period of another 10 years. This wont work in the current market as there is ton of games that people can be playing. Look at Rift, it had tons of content and what not and the game is just going down hill in a short period, however, they made money due to volume they sold. TERA is a great game with 100 times more content than XIV and it's hella fun but personally I dont know if I would play it past 3 months. Lots of people here including me would like a game that we can play for couple years or something but I dont know if that's really possible anymore. If it is, it sure going take more than SE is prepared for.

Very well put.

I did not intend to make it sound like I wanted a pure Copy-Paste from XI to XIV. It is just mind-boggling as to why the didn't further develop methods that worked from their only prior MMO. I know I'm beating a dead horse here, just frustrating to think about how excited all of us were. Sitting in Aery talking about moving on to XIV when it came out, and here we all sit with our fingers in our asses hoping to be fed by the machine that will not put out.

[Cichy]

Very well put.

I did not intend to make it sound like I wanted a pure Copy-Paste from XI to XIV. It is just mind-boggling as to why the didn't further develop methods that worked from their only prior MMO. I know I'm beating a dead horse here, just frustrating to think about how excited all of us were. Sitting in Aery talking about moving on to XIV when it came out, and here we all sit with our fingers in our asses hoping to be fed by the machine that will not put out.

I'm in the same boat, was super excited for this to come out.

[Lordender]

I think MMO companies are just getting slower and slower with the content patches while the players are getting faster and faster at clearing content. I've read that Rift has been pretty fast about getting content out compared to other MMO's.

3 months should probably be the max someone waits for content updates once a game's foundation has been established.

XIV just has so much reworking that needs to be done that I doubt its ever going to turn profit. I would be surprised if it ever gets out of F2P mode.

[Cichy]

If the battle system works and the game actually becomes playable, they going o need to pump out content every month atleast till end of the year. And all that still will be playing catch up.

[Celeras]

XIV should've took those ideas that worked in XI and improved/built on them instead of just throwing everything out.

Actually, from where I'm sitting... they did just that and thats exactly the problem.

-XI had kiting as the only method for difficult enemies for a long time, so they went out of their way to give every mob a ranged attack with retarded leash mechanics.
-XI had min/maxing gear swaps for every thing you did, so they gave you a debuff for switching gear in combat.
-XI had fights that required a lot of people switching in and out of parties and the ability to 'hold' for backup with low numbers, so they made it so you can't invite/disband while in combat.
-XI was extremely unfriendly towards solo/casual play, so they went out of their way to give solo/casual incentive and punish the opposite.
-XI was separated by zone lines, so they made these huge repetitive landscapes. Which also ties back to the retarded leash mechanics since it would no longer be practical for things to hold aggro until you zoned.

S'all I got off the top of my head, but the list goes on. It would seem to me that XI was the game they planned for and built, and XIV was their attempt at fixing everything they didn't like in XI. Problem being, all their fixes were asinine. So I certainly don't think that their lack of 'building off XI' was the problem here.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

XIV was their attempt at fixing everything they didn't like in XI.

There's their problem.

[Patriarch]

Heres to hoping Monday brings good news.

As a side note, off topic: During FFXI prime, lets say 2006-7, if someone could guestimate here, how many active players do you think that community held (across all servers, prime time)?