Grounds of Valor and Dungeon Treasure Caskets / Revamped Monster Placement (04/27/2011)

[Draylo]

My hope is that FFXIV fails. They decide to use FFXI as their flagship MMO. Drop ps2 support, revamp the graphics like WoW did but better! Expansions galore, new summons, more inventory space past 80, advertising etc etc.

[Cail]

Would be nice, but like everyone else, not holding my breath

[Spira]

XI isn't in overhaul mode, it's in "let's do as little as possible to retain subscriptions" mode, and my guess is that's how things are going to continue.

See, your problem is that you think the 2 modes are mutually exclusive. They could be doing both.

Overhauling, as far as mob placement shuffling and level tweaking is concerned isn't that hard to do at all, but it will serve to renew older zones if only just by a little. When the buzz from Abyssea dies down more, you're more likely to see people trying out other new content that has been overshadowed, such as this.

It may not be painfully obvious, but FFXI does have a budget, probably monthly ones that they work with. I'm not going to pretend that I know how much they're spending on FFXI, but it is clearly obvious what they're doing is not 'as little as possible'. As little as possible would be something like 2009 outside (or maybe inclusive even) of the Scenario add-ons. Like 3 new eq, 1 new mob and a bunch of subpar cutscenes. I consider us lucky that the new direction from the FF staff has breathed new life into FFXI as it is.

If XIV somehow becomes a success, XI is going to die. If XIV fails, we'll just see more of this kind of pseudo-content for a few more years until the game isn't cost-effective any more.

Logical fallacy. They are not mutually exclusive successes.

Also, you don't seem to be aware of the MMORPG success model. FFXI isn't going to turn cost-ineffective anytime soon. It's still reaping the most profits for Square Enix to this day, and if they feel like maximizing it more or scaling down costs to reap more, they could just merge servers (like they're doing now, since the populations have fallen). If FFXI really "dies", they can just repeat the merges until they end up with one server, although you can bet there will still be addicts who will want to play, and they alone would be able to keep FFXI afloat and profiting, except on a smaller scale. In short, FFXI isn't going to die other than if they pulled the plug on it.

You're not doing anyone any good by getting people's hopes up for completely fresh, new content and new expansions. It seems quite clear that that modus operandi died after ToAU.

MAybe so, but its nowhere near the whole "keep the sinking ship afloat with as little as we can" approach you seem to think they have either.

[MaachaQ]

My hope is that FFXIV fails. They decide to use FFXI as their flagship MMO. Drop ps2 support, revamp the graphics like WoW did but better! Expansions galore, new summons, more inventory space past 80, advertising etc etc.

It may seem promising that PS2 support will come to an end sometime soon when you notice that the new Vana Collection being released soon is not being released for the PS2 at all, even in Japan like all the other ones were. Watch the trailer here, it's virtually the same as the EN version, but has a Windows watermark on the whole thing, and at the end it says it'll be purchasable from the SE e-Store only.

[Cail]

Has SE ever advertised XI in the US? I can obviously recall dozens of WoW commercials. I remember even seeing some LotRO and Star Wars' MMO. I cant ever remember seeing any advertising on TV, magazines, radio, etc. I wonder if they were to revamp even a bit, and try advertising some, if a new playerbase would at least give it a try

[NynJa]

I believe people would jump ship to XIV if it became good, simply because by that point everyone would be so fed up with minimal development on XI (which would only get worse once XIV got up and running) that most of them would prefer to play something new, somewhat familiar and, above all, of good quality. Of course it wouldn't be an overnight shift, but you're delusional if you don't think XI would stagnate and eventually fizzle out if XIV were to become popular.

Would you really want to start fresh after a couple people have been playing FreeXIV for 8 months and are leagues ahead of you?

[TacoTaru]

Has SE ever advertised XI in the US? I can obviously recall dozens of WoW commercials. I remember even seeing some LotRO and Star Wars' MMO. I cant ever remember seeing any advertising on TV, magazines, radio, etc. I wonder if they were to revamp even a bit, and try advertising some, if a new playerbase would at least give it a try

I remember a commercial similar to this, if not this, game first came out, but even then I only saw it a few times.

[Malacite]

What's with all the hate on XIV anyway?

Each game has it's own separate teams & resources, thus are independent of the other. If one game falters it just ends up hurting SE's bottom line, and I for one like both games but refuse to go back to XIV until they've finished fixing it (it's gotten a lot better since Launch but still needs work)

[Draylo]

Would you really want to start fresh after a couple people have been playing FreeXIV for 8 months and are leagues ahead of you?

They aren't that far ahead, the job system going to be revamped and changed. I would highly advise anyone from caring about that, if FFXIV ever does get better. Would rather play a functional fun game than that POS that it is now.

[Spira]

i believe that TVC embedded above is like the only one for XI at all, and it was only shown during the PS2 release of FFXI, not even the PC one. That said, I actually like it because it didn't showcase very much but brought home the idea of community for me, which is still one of its stronger points imo..

XIV and XI did share some resources through having the same people in different appointments in both games, and its not hard to imagine them lending people around to give an extra hand (iirc in an interview for eg the spell animation person for XI went to work in XII and then came back after CoP or something) but other than that, its true that they have separate resources/budgets to work with..

I'd rather XIV didn't fail. I mean, it does still kinda suck (i last logged in last week) but its gotten a lot better and with the direction they're taking has the potential to soar to great heights with the right marketing push (which i have no doubts will come together with a PS3 launch). I like the FF series and would rather not see a main series game fail - i'd play it for the story and the world tbh.. half of the reason why I don't play it has little to do with the game mechanics and moreso the infrastructure being a resource hog and the game being too demanding for my "gaming laptop"

[Draylo]

I don't play because there is no content, for the most part, and the jobs are horrible.

[lamp]

Has SE ever advertised XI in the US? I can obviously recall dozens of WoW commercials. I remember even seeing some LotRO and Star Wars' MMO. I cant ever remember seeing any advertising on TV, magazines, radio, etc. I wonder if they were to revamp even a bit, and try advertising some, if a new player base would at least give it a try

Its the same in the EU, i personally got mine about 6 months after NA release. But when it was eventually released in the EU i remember seeing nothing in terms of advertising, they may have had some in gaming magazines but idk.. I'm no advertising guru, but i would bet they lost out on atleast a few thousand hard copy sales by not even raising awareness of its release in the UK. A couple of cheap late night commercial slots could have gone along way for this game, especially if a lot of the latest changes were in place from the start.

[drwaffles]

When the buzz from Abyssea dies down more, you're more likely to see people trying out other new content that has been overshadowed, such as this.

When the buzz dies down from Abyssea you're going to be seeing a lot of people getting frustrated if they don't do something quite drastic. They boxed themselves in so much with Abyssea gear and exp that it's going to be difficult to create goals that actually keep people interested once Abyssea has been exhausted.

it is clearly obvious what they're doing is not 'as little as possible'.

We'll have to agree to disagree there. Their timeline certainly doesn't look like anything other than a bunch of filler designed to keep people hooked for as long as possible. There's no actual creativity going on here.

I consider us lucky that the new direction from the FF staff has breathed new life into FFXI as it is.

Everyone agrees on this, since the alternative was a continuation of the stagnation we saw in 2009. Don't get me wrong, I like Abyssea too, but let's not pretend that it was anything other than an attempt to draw people back in that didn't require huge amounts of development (more reskinned zones/mobs, very little storyline or cutscenes, etc.).

Also, you don't seem to be aware of the MMORPG success model. FFXI isn't going to turn cost-ineffective anytime soon.

Where did I say it was? Even if XIV became popular, obviously it would take quite some time for XI to get to the point where they would consider discontinuing it. My point was that it probably will happen eventually if this ends up being the case.

Would you really want to start fresh after a couple people have been playing FreeXIV for 8 months and are leagues ahead of you?

I think that when PS3 launch comes around they'll advertise it as a re-launch of the game and allow people to start on completely fresh servers, possibly merging the ones with all the high-level masochists on them together and keeping them separate. They should have learned from XI's NA release that people don't enjoy having a bunch of hardcore JPs towering over them from the beginning.

[Mojo]

The best part of this is maybe new mobs that can be killed for magian trials.

[Hyan]

They should have learned from XI's NA release that people don't enjoy having a bunch of hardcore JPs towering over them from the beginning.

Is the crave for being "the first" so strong that people are unable to cope with the fact that some people started playing sooner than they did? In the end most MMO players (at least in the past) started playing after the official release anyway.

I mean, I'm sure some people find it unacceptable that somebody is ahead of them, but I can't see it being a problem for most.

Maybe the world has changed in the recent years, and I'm just old with this kind of mindset. Who knows.

[Odin'sLaw]

It may seem promising that PS2 support will come to an end sometime soon when you notice that the new Vana Collection being released soon is not being released for the PS2 at all, even in Japan like all the other ones were. Watch the trailer here, it's virtually the same as the EN version, but has a Windows watermark on the whole thing, and at the end it says it'll be purchasable from the SE e-Store only.

i'm hoping everyone is thinking the same and going "i want that black chocobo hat!"

[Spira]

stuff

agree to disagree.

i wasn't really even focusing on the timeline when I brought up my point on not doing as little as possible, but I think not enough credit is being given to them for pushing the lv cap boundary. Sure stat progression, but also job defining and job balance. Given the abilities that some jobs have gotten it seems that they didn't just decide to throw on whatever was left still unused. Sure a lot of it probably doesn't look too original, but its an ageing game that has to be designed to fit PS2 hardware so there's a certain technical limit to what they can do.

As far as creativity goes, same thing imo. Creativity requires for the devs to step boldly into a different direction, but this may not necessarily be beneficial to the game in the long run. Abyssea is the perfect example, since their creativity in reworking the EXP system was overwhelmingly well received - however, it screws the traditional system of EXP over. Players are 'spoilt' by the new creativity and don't want to go back to it (or don't need to, capped out everything already).

Hell, even the whole level uncap thing was a call for going a direction previously meant to be closed. I think as far as creativity is concerned, they have a need to limit themselves in what they do because each time they take a big step, it usually opens a whole new hole in the overall fabric of the game through what they implement - partly their fault for not planning that way to begin with, but also because players can be fickle and they can never please everyone.

New mobs? We got that good. in the last 3 updates, at least 10 different genus of mobs in the game, more than the same period of time in the previous year. If you count reskins, probably 3 to 4 times what we get before in a similar time period.