A closer look at the Amano artwork

[Spira]

if thats really the case i'd think XI could afford to go earlier.
an unfinished XI product would still be able to bring people back so long as some good elements are in place (think ToA in the sense that much of what was in the "box" wasn't ready until much later)..

but an unfinished XIV ARR = second death for the game, which they simply cannot afford.

[Shenrien]

I can't imagine why people would want an expansion with unfinished content out the box, I could only imagine how unbearably boring it would be to sit in a new town that has no new music developed so you're listening to jeuno music as a placeholder, none of the new guilds available because there is no real purpose for them at the time being, the outposts you discover and secure not being available, and the jungle thing they have been working on being unaccessable due to its missing a lot of work to detail / monster placement / hnm placement.

[arus2001]

Except the part where every boxed expansion has been unfinished content. The DLC add-ons avoided this fate, but they were also more narrow in scope. Honestly, I'd prefer the Abyssea style expansion releases in 3-6 month windows over 1.5-2 years for a still-incomplete "boxed" expansion.

That said, if it's a man power issue, I just fall back to my old argument that money FFXI makes should go toward FFXI first. XIV's certainly done its damage to XI over the past 5 years, maybe more. And bluntly, I think anyone who pays for an XI sub should be able to play XIV free. We've paid for that game who knows how many times over.

[Damane]

Except the part where every boxed expansion has been unfinished content. The DLC add-ons avoided this fate, but they were also more narrow in scope. Honestly, I'd prefer the Abyssea style expansion releases in 3-6 month windows over 1.5-2 years for a still-incomplete "boxed" expansion.

That said, if it's a man power issue, I just fall back to my old argument that money FFXI makes should go toward FFXI first. XIV's certainly done its damage to XI over the past 5 years, maybe more. And bluntly, I think anyone who pays for an XI sub should be able to play XIV free. We've paid for that game who knows how many times over.

This. Not that I would go play XIV, because I am not gonna touch another SE MMO. FFXI is getting a bit boring considering the content that is getting pushed out. I was hopeing for Adoulin to make it to march/april, August so fucking I late that I would consider just to take a break from the game. We are paying atm for FFXIV FFXI content and the makeing of FFXI expansion (which will cost anyway somethign later on). This really pisses me of that the FFXI money is flowing towards FFXIV.

[Nightfyre]

It's the same company for both games. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't hyping it now or plan on releasing it any time soon because they want people to go play FFXIV first. After people play FFXIV 2.0 for a while then they will give FFXI something. I doubt they would want any attention being taken away from their attempted revival of the colossal failure that is FFXIV.

Same company, but different teams competing for resources. FFXI is already losing subs to player ennui, so sooner is better* even without bringing XIV into the picture. XIV is a relatively attractive alternative for XI players even with the 1.0 stigma because it's still Final Fantasy, and many are also aware of the sweeping changes in the game of late. Some of the playerbase will be watching alpha/beta testing to see if it's good enough to warrant the jump. The XI dev team is going to do whatever they can to present XI in the best possible light to the higher-ups, especially since they've put the additional investment in towards developing a new expansion. Subscriptions are going to be the barometer for that. Staying ahead of XIV's release schedule maintains current subscriptions, (at least temporarily) attracts returning players that might otherwise head straight to XIV if it's successful, and generates additional profit in the form of selling the xpac itself.

*As long as they don't screw the pooch by releasing SoA as an incomplete mess, which might still happen anyway.

[Tarage]

Using logic with SE is like pretending pigs have a complex barter system in place.

[Prothescar]

I fully expect them to release both at the same time, having their own products compete with each other.

[Scythiroth]

It's the same company for both games. I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't hyping it now or plan on releasing it any time soon because they want people to go play FFXIV first. After people play FFXIV 2.0 for a while then they will give FFXI something. I doubt they would want any attention being taken away from their attempted revival of the colossal failure that is FFXIV.

I've pretty much assumed they've been doing this for a while now with how little info they've given us. It annoys me though because FF14 2.0 still doesn't interest me. >.> I just can't see it doing well in the long run.

[Kyte]

FFXIV would interest me more if the skin on the character models didn't all look so pale and washed out.

[Michelob]

FFXIV would interest me more if the skin on the character models didn't all look so pale and washed out.

A thousand times, this ^ !

[wipers]

I'm hoping for a May 2013 release for expansion. Because if it is any later I will not continue to play. I'm pretty much on hold till they release any info on the expansion. It has been since June and they have yet to mention anything.

[Slycer]

I'm hoping for a May 2013 release for expansion. Because if it is any later I will not continue to play. I'm pretty much on hold till they release any info on the expansion. It has been since June and they have yet to mention anything.

Frankly, at this point I think they're less interested in how many people they can hold on to and more interested in how many people they can lure back. This has been painfully obvious with their recent (lack of) updates. It seems like they are essentially pooling their limited resources for a bigger payoff with SoA rather than the smaller payoff of reducing the player attrition rate. The player base is pretty small right now, so I think FFXI's continued success will really depend on people coming back in droves for SoA. I don't see it happening, but it's hard to predict right now.

[Tarage]

I keep checking this section thinking some new info about SoA came out, but it's only you schmucks speculating about when we will have things to speculate about!

[Spira]

I'm hoping for a May 2013 release for expansion. Because if it is any later I will not continue to play. I'm pretty much on hold till they release any info on the expansion. It has been since June and they have yet to mention anything.

me too actually.
May 2013 would seem fitting because SoA is like an FFXI rebirth of sorts, being the first full expansion in nearly 6 years. May 2013 also marks 11 years of FFXI. That in itself would be able to draw a little media attention to the game, which the game really needs if it wants to revitalize its player-base.

I see FFXI going a few ways into the future.

SoA, or any expansion for that matter can only do so much to draw old players back to the game and keep current players playing, but it probably won't do much to reverse the attrition or bring substantial new players to the game. It is considerably dated, and people are holding out for FFXIV too..

I think that if XI maintains status quo, it might still be able to turn in profit, but the pool would slowly shrink. There's been a great lack of updates in the past few months and you can tell that development focus is being placed on SoA and FFXIV.

what i think might happen is..

a) they reduce the monthly for FFXI. Price is a huge due consideration for many gamers who stopped playing not because there isn't new content but because it isn't worth the current sub fee. Thats the player point of view.
they've also gone well beyond breaking even and churning in billions (yen) of profit for FFXI so it might be time to milk this cow less and let it live a few more years without being all tired and shit.

b) they go all the way and make FFXI f2p. in addition to strengthening the arguments in (a), this would most likely bring in people who don't want to pay for a monthly, either because they're too cheap or they have payment issues or whatever. Also, other FF fans who refused to play FFXI because it was a paying MMO (i think the bigger contention was the paying tbh). F2P would probably bring in a lot of new life to the game. Even if you're anticipating XIV at this point, because it isn't monthly, the only commitment you'd need to put down is time.
from a dev point of view, XI has made enough $ to keep itself going for a long time, with or without additional development.

c) and this is the most unlikely imo.. - Cash shop. As far as I can tell, XI doesn't suit cash shop and micro transactions very well. and I dare to say that it doesn't need it. that said, the game has evolved so much over the years its hard to completely rule anything out anymore. you kinda also need a huge player base for micro-transactions to work well, so they'd need to boost subs with either (a) or (b) first to achieve that effect.

specific to SoA. I am really looking forward to it because its really fresh material to the game. New zones, new mobs, new jobs, new music - all built together for the same purpose, instead of bits and pieces being placed here and there like with the add-ons and recent events.

I haven't even been playing XI for months now.. but the thought of playing Rune Fencer when SoA hits makes me want to level my DRK and gswd...

also, hope new info and pre-sale trailer hits by early 2013.

[arus2001]

The game could easily go F2P/Cash Shop. Most arguments I see against it tend to err toward fears of it becoming Buy-to-Win or just the irrationality of nothing but stupid people playing because it's otherwise free.

[Damane]

The game could easily go F2P/Cash Shop. Most arguments I see against it tend to err toward fears of it becoming Buy-to-Win or just the irrationality of nothing but stupid people playing because it's otherwise free.

I dont see the game ever going F2P unless they restructure it from the ground up. FFXI isnt build around F2P and I doubt SE would invest that much money to go through all the spaghetti code to make it F2P worth.

F2P games live of services you can pay for, like for example if you want to change the race of you char. People have requested race-changes years ago and as far as I remember SE's answer to it was, that it would be near impossible to do that due to codeing and account managing (or something like that), then again they managed to add server switching (which was for them easier to implement due to servermerges they have done allready).

[arus2001]

Gone over this before, but shop items would be a mix of QoL things (aimed for newbies) and vanity stuff. On the QoL end, new players could buy SJ access, advanced jobs (they can later run the quest for), limit breaks up to 95, and things like EXP/AN/IS/Cruor/CP multipliers (And EXP rings already exist). For more of the veteran end, they can add items to allow repeat access to Dynamis or other daily restricted activities, buy more assault tags, etc.. Expansions and other future content could go under a reasonably priced cost umbrella. Gil could also be used to buy vouchers you can apply to CS options, both taking it from the economy and giving people who don't want to throw actual money at the game a means to slowly get stuff.

Rest just requires SE to be more mindful, but reasonable of additions in the future. If some guy can basically hack the server software and run it on a personal machine, actual upkeep shouldn't be too costly. Meanwhile, if XIV does ever get its legs, can basically look back to my earlier argument of XIV sustaining XI for a change.

[Spira]

the last point is a pretty fair stand to take.
in terms of the MMO model, each company will only need 1 good one to sustain itself, if it really needs to. If XIV succeeds, theres no reason why they should continue charging the same monthly to XI when its so dated and getting so much less development attention.

[Prothescar]

$13~15 a month for XI is pretty ludicrous when you think about it

[arus2001]

Yeah, $5-8 would be more reasonable. Heck, I'd even consider bulk purchase if they actually offered like 6 months for $9 per.