A Crystalline Prophecy Review from 1up...

[BRP]

The bolded is where you're placing faith in SE they haven't earned and have no history of doing.

Are you trolling me? It's like you only read one sentence and ignore the rest. I don't think it is very likely they will put more effort in the second and third scenarios. This is because they will probably make enough money regardless. Hence the very next fucking sentence, pay attention. Do I need to spell things out?

[Correction]

Calm down tuffguy I think we agree on more than you imagine.

I'm simply saying that it's not 'hard to tell' whether or not SE will go back and replan events for $10 DLC; They just won't. There are plenty of suckers who will buy anything with the words "Square Enix" printed on the package so yeah the success of future DLC is completely divorced from its quality. That doesn't mean we don't get to call them out on their mistakes. And is it really is it that hard to predict what SE will do in the future? There's nothing 'hard to tell' about the direction of a company with seven years of history to read up on. No reason to be diplomatic on the account of a multimillion dollar company.

[Katlan]

They won't make those pack "meatier", they will just add better item reward to make up for the lack of success of this one. After the token episode...it's obvious which path SE is going to take to make money.

I wouldn't be surprised if they added a little more content to the next mini-xpac (or w/e you want to call it) and made the associated quests a little less tedious. Not expecting anything major, but due to all the negative feedback they have gotten it would be in their best interest to add a little something more & fix a few design mechanics

[ronin sparthos]

I wouldn't be surprised if they added a little more content to the next mini-xpac (or w/e you want to call it) and made the associated quests a little less tedious. Not expecting anything major, but due to all the negative feedback they have gotten it would be in their best interest to add a little something more & fix a few design mechanics

I just hope ACP was the worst because it was an "epic" storyline that turned out to be not so epic.

With Shantotto and Kupo they have the opportunity to create short and sweet stories based on humor instead of the "imminent doom" theme that suits real expansions over short stories.

[Sirenia]

I liked the expansion. It was short and sweet. I didn't understand the story much but maybe that was because I didn't pay much attention to the last cs and wanted to get my reward.

[ryskar]

I liked the expansion. It was short and sweet. I didn't understand the story much but maybe that was because I didn't pay much attention to the last cs and wanted to get my reward.

You didn't miss anything.

It. Fucking. Sucked. :<

[spooky]

They should have just add 1 new merit camp with the add-on, and no one would be bitching.

[Velocy]

I thought a bit over the whole ACP thing... and if you tie the loose ends together of what happened in the last few months... it makes sense to me.

Final Fantasy XI has had it's turn around when they started with sell of merchandise. SE in my opinion is going a very different strategy... which could be stated as: Melking the cow.

Look back at the last months... what did we get:

Merchandize with ingame bonus for $$$.
Improved security with ingame bonus for $$$.
Miniature-Expansion with item bonus for $$$.

Oh, and Mog-Bonanza does it's part, too.

Why that all? Look back a few years... we had updates giving us new quests which were more evening-filling than the expansion. Why the sudden turn?

Answer is easy... Final Fantasy XI is like 7 years old now, and does not draw in many new players... as before... so simple and easy what did they do:

1st: Many of the old players are playing cause they want their character to be "perfect". They want to aquire the best weapon, the best gear and so on. That's why we got a new relic like weapon. Also these players buy things like the merchandize and the security token, to aquire all possible bonus they can get. So they buy the stuff for real money... they get squeezed out.

2nd: Some people look at coming back, some people really are new, and some people mentioned in "1st" want to level new jobs. Hard to do, with many players going to endgame and less in lower levels. To bring them all together we got level sync! Yet, another feature to have people playing longer.

3rd: I'd take mog bonanza as 3rd point. Have you noticed, when they announced, they just left a little time till the months end, so if people want to buy as much marbles as possible, they have to create as much mules as possible. And then 4 months till the payout. Oh and don't forget the changed entry conditions! No longer the level is depended, not suddenly its the age of the character? Why? Easy! Those who create 12 Mules, or also buy another copy of FFXI for more mules each bring another 12+ Bucks over a period of 4 months. And the changed entry conditions encurage people to create more mules... since they dont have to level each one! So... no wondering why we suddenly cracked 2mil characters mark after 7 years, when Final Fantasy has had its peak of players already had.

4th: ACP... to be hones, I have no clue how they can come with the idea of ACP now. It's far too late. They should have brought up something like that, where endgame was overrun and dominated, or prices were jacked high... the current gear that can be aquired is not really usefull in my opinion for most people in the engame. I play Ninja, Samurai, White Mage and Corsair. The only constallation I found usefull for me was Dual Wield and Accuracy to replace my NIN AF1+1 Body, and perhaps use it for my upcoming DNC. With Hauby, Denali, Osode, Arhats and so on... I see no point in using it somewhere else.
This exansion was maybe mainly planned for the perfectionists who want to aquire everything. They really should have placed it like 2-3 years ago, to encurage people that have problem aquiring decent endgame gear.

I don't really expect more complex content in the future... WOTG was the first sign, ACP one of the last nails in the coffin.

They must have dramaticly reduced the development costs... recycled maps, recycled models... afaik the biggest cost in developing a MMORPG is initally the base code... after that, further development is rather cheap... expect for new graphic design. In WOTG we got 3 completely new maps, a hand full of new mobs types and the rest is just pure recycling. How the hell we suddenly have Colibris in Ronfa? Compare that to TOAU!

If SE really should bring another expansion like TOAU, I'd be really supprized... but it all seems to me, like what a CIO does to his company before he sells or let the ship sink: He melks it.

Sorry for the long text, typos or mistakes in grammar... drunk + not english as first language.

Oh and ya SE... I see your plan... but damn you got me addidcted to that game, too.

[Xno Kappa]

Probably the best thing about ACP was the final BC music. And even then you didn't have to buy the add-on to do the fight.

[Patriclis]

SE found one of WoW's spoons and they're using us to feed us with it XD.

Honestly though i get the feeling that SE is trying to make things easier for some reason to compete with WoW, since alot of new players leave FFXI because it's "too hard"

[Kaylia]

SE found one of WoW's spoons and they're using us to feed us with it XD.

Honestly though i get the feeling that SE is trying to make things easier for some reason to compete with WoW, since alot of new players leave FFXI because it's "too hard"

When "too hard" is synonym with "boring grinding", they have the right to complain

[Ruuz]

lol necro a bawww thread. Go post in spam.

Seriously, you missed the ACP bitching by a week, everyone is over it already.

Mod edit: This is a good example of what not to do in Advanced anymore.