Announcing the FFXI Development Team Reddit AMA (07/18/2016)

[Cleverness]

Honestly, it's this path that deters me from investing time and $ into other products of theirs like 14, even though I have old friends still playing. Why, so i can go thru the same again? It's such a bullshit company any more that they have killed off any trust or goodwill

But it's not like they are luring people in with huge promises, the game is 14 years old. There are many of us who have spent 8+ years with this game before it descended to this point, its not like some of these other MMOs coming out where there are huge promises and then after a short while it goes to shit. If 14 starting from 2.0 even lasts half as long as 11 did that'd be a major accomplishment. FF11 has been releasing content slowly for a long time now, look at how long it took for them to finish WoTG missions finally compared to CoP. CoP was released 9/04 and you can find the wiki page for the final mission started on 11/05. ToAU was 4/06 and mission Ragnarok was around 8/07. Wings came out 11/07 and we didn't get to the last part until 12/10, 3 years after launch. If 14 1.0 didn't tank as hard as it did we probably wouldn't have had anything past Abyssea and this stagnation of content would have started much earlier as opposed to recently.

They've been milking it for a long time now, it's just we had either A) lots of road blocks that extended content and B) lots of lateral content that even if we didn't have CoP done to the point we could do Limbus/Sea farming, we had Dynamis/Sky/Lottery Pop NMs with expensive drops/etc, and then Assault/Nyzul statics when that expansion came out. With the addition of Trusts everyone who couldn't get past story missions before can do it on their own with not much difficulty depending on their job, which means a lot of those roadblocks are gone and we're just left with farming CP and the ilvl event content.

A free/lower monthly fee wouldn't really be the trigger to make me want to play again, money is not the major factor in why I unsubbed while paying for 2 accounts near the end. I left due to burnout and annoyance with the content. I'm sure maybe in a few months/1 year I'll probably start playing again like usual but it won't be because of whatever SE is doing it's just due to how I feel about the game.

[Spicyryan]

Apologist freak? Do you even read the posts in this thread? I've said multiple times it sucks they charge the same amount for less work/resources and they aren't investing in the game. They are creating new content(ambuscade fights and Master trials) but its not as much as we should be getting. Also do you know you don't have to post three times when you can make a single post? Idiot.

Don't worry, it is just the whiny freaks who get this twisted idea in their head that their service fee has been based off of content provided. (psst, it never has been)
It be like bitching about how before WotG was released we found out that they took the dev staff after ToAU and moved them to FFXIV and this somehow merits a lower fee.

[Zetanio]

Time to abandon ship. All is lost.

[Spicyryan]

My reputation precedes me.

[arus2001]

You're completely missing the point of this genre if you don't think a fee justifies further content development. No one is saying upkeep isn't a thing, but the cost of that is far less than what players have put in over time.

Put another way, something like an XBL sub is more bang for your buck in enabling various multiplayer functions on top of varied monthly game access. Any and all updates a given title there receives is more to the whim of the dev and not always (expensive) DLC to boot. In XI's case, paying more for less may not be 100% accurate, but us paying the same for less is still fact.

Might be easier to instead relate this to vehicle models. Does your average 2003 car justify current 2017 pricing? Unless you wanna play devil's douchebag, you're gonna say no. The 2003 simply isn't as advanced and feature rich as today's models even if it functions just fine as basic transportation. Coincidentally, if you are going into a market for an older car, something more recent is also likely to wind up more appealing unless the price is too good to pass up.

At a lower fee, XI may indeed draw FF fans who stayed away before because of the cost. I met my fair share of people who wanted to strongly assert it didn't even count as an FF title at launch due to the fee. By all means, grandstand in claims that the occasional irresponsible buy translates to someone not actually caring about their money. Perhaps it's almost as if people may value things differently. And none of this really taps into retired players who would still enjoy one last romp or two.

Of course, there's more to the dynamic. Some don't want to view a game as yet another monthly bill to pay. There's also the compulsion to get the most bang out of that buck and feeling anxiety when you can't for whatever reason. If you're well off enough to not care, fantastic, but not everyone is the same. Knowledge like this is further why F2P games are becoming the norm and not just a bailout tactic for failing P2P titles. It also forces devs to be more proactive in content creation as they don't have the guaranteed safety net of subs. They need to make the good things before we buy it and not so much the other way around in paying and hoping the good things come. Unfortunately, SE has their addicts by the balls. Wanting some morality, or dare I say charity, added to the situation isn't a bad thing. And the grim reality that XI may one day no longer be playable feels like a crime in itself, as both a form of entertainment and a piece of digital art. And I say that as someone unafraid to assert SE has made some boneheaded moves over time within the game itself.

[Spicyryan]

My taxes don't get me a good value either, but I have no real choice in paying them. With FFXI we do, and if we don't think our money is getting a good value then we don't have to pay.
The only real way companies listen is when people vote with their dollar, and SE clearly feels that it isn't worth the cost of giving players all the things they want. No one said they were smart, but then again they have their priorities and their numbers they run, and we don't.

Sure everyone wants to see more thrown into this game. Obviously most of us like it or love it, but lets be realistic. The fee isn't going lower, a lower fee that is short of free won't attract any meaningful number of players (if any), and there is a very slim chance that development will ever ramp up for this game.

Corporate bureaucracy is a bitch, and it doesn't matter what the argument is from any side for that reason. That and emotions tend to poison the logic for this discussion for the past however many years it has lasted.

[Zetanio]

You're equating paying taxes with FFXI.

Dude, get the fuck out here.

[Spicyryan]

You're equating paying taxes with FFXI.

Dude, get the fuck out here.

I didn't equate that. I differentiated the two. Quit riding my nuts.

[steellord]

Although GW2 is quite playable without paying, it's pretty much the best example of very little content in MMO. It definitely had way, way, way less things to do than FFXI last time I played. I don't understand why people keep saying FFXI has less content than GW2. You know, 90% of playerbase haven't even finish Escha in FFXI, in fact more than half of people in my social ls haven't even clear T3, and people are saying FFXI has no content compare with GW2? The fact that FFXI has 22 jobs to work on and grind gears for, v.s GW2 has 9. Yeah, I see some biased opinions here.

Nothing biased about it, i played XI for far longer. It's true that HoT was rather empty for a while, well so was WoTG if you think back. The difference is that by the time WoTG was "fleshed out", you paid an additional $100+ in fees. Really the last period when the monthly sub in XI was justified by continuous development was ToA. Not a coincidence this is the time when subs began to plummet. Only now, it's worse than ever, there is literally no development yet the fee remains. Find me another game like this

People need to understand MMO is just a service to generate revenue, and game companies needs to find a way to make you pay in order to keep the game running.

Hah! No they don't. "The beast will starve if it doesn't grow" is such corporatist nonsense. The upkeep costs are so trivial that there's private servers kept up by random fans. I certainly find it reasonable too that since XI kept 14 afloat, 14 can keep 11 afloat for a fraction of the cost

A lot of companies also do F2P to establish bigger player community, they dont necessary do F2P due to the lack of content. FFXI playerbase are used to sub model and will pay for it anyways, there's absolutely no reason for them to change the subscription model and lose all the faithful playerbase unless it's proven to generate more revenue with the new model.

Today's faithful customers become tomorrow's "fuck you, i'm done with this company." They have undone the goodwill from RoV

[Cleverness]

And honestly the sub fee isn't even what I took away from the AMA that would benefit the game the most, the reluctance to want to merge servers after all the people leaving is the worst part. If you aren't on Asura you better be in an active LS or have a close group of people to do stuff with, shouts on most servers suck ass or don't exist most days. I don't even understand the fear of congestion, reduce the number of servers and add more zone instances since you'll have the hardware and add more ??? in Escha zones for popping NMs, they removed the possible lag issue from this a few updates back when they remove models from people not involved in the fight when you pop it.

[NynJa]

Im not on asura and i want to punch anyone who wants to merge servers

[Zetanio]

They could probably get by having 6 servers these days right? There's like 40-50k subs right?

[Kincard]

There's no reliable figures for number of subs as far as I know. You won't be seeing server merges until JPs start asking for them, and they don't want them right now.

[Xantavia]

um they aren't even doing that much (addicted apologist freaks like draylo aside), that's my point. They are charging the same they always have, for much less in terms of content. By march 2017 they will have gone 15 months of no new content while charging each player (if no mules or microtransaction) $183, surely the greatest ripoff for any video game ever. Does this somehow fail to escape your notice?

My solution to this was looking ahead years ago. New content comes out, and I take my time with it. I felt no need or pressure to get everything done ASAP. Knowing I still have things I want to accomplish is what keeps me going. Too late for a lot of people, but they have nobody to blame but themselves for a lack of new content. They shouldn't have tried to complete everything within 24 hours of release in the first place.

[NynJa]

They could probably get by having 6 servers these days right? There's like 40-50k subs right?

according to ffxiah, its about 80k, but thats active chars so it undoubtedly includes mules.

[NynJa]

My solution to this was looking ahead years ago. New content comes out, and I take my time with it. I felt no need or pressure to get everything done ASAP. Knowing I still have things I want to accomplish is what keeps me going. Too late for a lot of people, but they have nobody to blame but themselves for a lack of new content. They shouldn't have tried to complete everything within 24 hours of release in the first place.

But being FIRST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 is so important. Afterall, everyone remembers the first person who got an Aeonic, and the first group to clear Vagary, and so on and so forth, right?

[Spicyryan]

Im not on asura and i want to punch anyone who wants to merge servers

Pretty inconsequentially either way for most things.

[Helldemon]

FF11 has been releasing content slowly for a long time now, look at how long it took for them to finish WoTG missions finally compared to CoP. CoP was released 9/04 and you can find the wiki page for the final mission started on 11/05. ToAU was 4/06 and mission Ragnarok was around 8/07. Wings came out 11/07 and we didn't get to the last part until 12/10, 3 years after launch.

RoZ: 21 missions
CoP: 37 missions
ToAU: 49 missions
WoTG: 99 missions
SoA: 105 missions (80-90% CS)
RoV: 94 missions (80-90% CS)

Yes, I know it still took longer in comparison to the others but it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.

[Sechs]

according to ffxiah, its about 80k, but thats active chars so it undoubtedly includes mules.

Why shouldn't mules be considered though? A sub is a sub, wether it's a separate physical person or the same one paying for 5 accounts, it's still 5 separate accounts paying its own separate monthly fee, no?

[Viar]

Why'd people compare FFXI with 2003 car? FFXI is FFXI, it's not an older nor inferior version of newer MMOs. It's just a service that exists longer than current gen MMO. If you get enough enjoyment out of this game then $13 a month is worth it and vice versa. If you don't get enough enjoyment out of the game to justify the price then just don't pay?