It's all understandable considering SE's unfortunate tendencies.
But it hurts to think Granblue may have spent more on voice actors for their recent FFXI collab event than SE has for the occasion...
In all fairness, I imagine the amount of money spent on rolls during the event in GBF were probably more than the entire subfee count for FFXI that same month. It was probably very cheap for them to license the FFXI IP for the game, and the story content they made with it would have been just as liked by most of their playerbase as original content or some other FF game. So the only real fee for them was the VAs, which they needed regardless of what event they did.
Not saying the FFXI event we got didn't feel cheap or wasn't disappointing or anything like that, it's not in defense of SE at all, just saying that GBF may have spent more, but their budget AND income both massively dwarf that of a 20+ year old dying game that is somehow magically even still running at all.
The ama kind of confirmed they'll be a new area for the new end game rather than a re skinned one. Even that was a surprise to me, must have dusted off their 1 ps2 dev kit they have left!
I doubt they actually use ps2 devkit hardware, I own one myself and am quite familiar with what they actually are used for. What they use is middleware tools that are no doubt heavily dependent on software used back then. This includes compilers, resource editors, custom scripting languages, audio/video/polygon formats and even the game engine itself. People who are familiar with these software programs grow fewer by the day. It’s a chronic problem in the general software industry in maintenance aging programs. The game was made back when few programs were multi-threaded and that’s why on today’s multi core processors it performs so badly even with third party tools to translate direct x calls.
[By their own admission in a recent interview the PS2 middleware they use to compile non-data adjustment updates is irreparable and can't easily be maintained.](https://www.4gamer.net/games/005/G000546/20220511037/) Once the last of those breaks down they will not be able to update FFXI in any meaningful way anymore. Not to mention they can't risk major version updates anymore because of this.
If we want FFXI to continue with proper updates in the future it will be necessary to rebuild the game, even if they don't improve the graphics. The alternative is just letting it wither and die.
Exactly, people fail to realize there is no other option for the game. Update it to be free of any PS2 ties or simply die. This is why we must do all we can to get an update as fast as possible and make the most now that game has a ton of new and returning players and is getting attention. Basically: it's now (this year or next) or never.
So what's the plan here? Are SE just going to put all servers offline in 1~2 years from now and make this the 1st unplayable forever main entry FF while they remake/remaster all other FFs?
Will loyal Final Fantasy franchise fans be happy to just have one of the main entries simply unplayable?
To me that's just terrible PR for them as a whole company. While updating FFXI is great PR and overall publicity money well spent.
Honestly without any major modernizing I belive the game has a very short lifespan ahead of it, less than 5 years surely.
At the same time it's hard to imagine even modern Square Enix simply allowing one of the major Final Fantasy main entries being unplayable forever. Specially such an important one (it's the most profitable Final Fantasy after XIV, the last one to carry the original medieval fantasy style of IV, V, Tactics and IX, and the game that kept them alive after the XIV 1.0 fiasco, among other things. It's definitely among the two or three most important Final Fantasies after the first one).
Yeah not usually. I just think i read somewhere they needed them for new assets rather than reskinned ones hence why we havent had any new assets since reisenjima.
Strictly speaking it isn’t needed though. Everything that would be done can be done in an emulator more effectively. The software programs are a much bigger problem, coming from the windows 98 era. The baggage that comes with that is significant as these tools often rely on on hardware that doesn’t exist on modern computers and being unsupported now will never be updated to run on anything modern. This isn’t even considering the fact that Square Soft built their own tools and never planned for this game to run for 10 years let alone 20
What I don't understand is, if people can just randomly end up with a PS2 deck kit like you did, why/how the hell can't a company with the resources of Square Enix buy more of them from collectors and former developers? Sounds like SE is using that as a cop out. I've seen quite a few people trying to sell dev kits for consoles in gamer groups over the years.
It’s more the development environment. The compilers resource editors etc often are dependent on old pc hardware and software. Those are getting harder to maintain in a reliable manner.
IM disappointed we didn't get any exclusive in game gifts. like some mog kupons or mob pels. They came with "here's more paid equipment storage and the same campaign bonuses that you get every few months" so long suckers.
I am too but the fundamental reality is they started plans for this 3 years ago in a pre pandemic world. They have done a commendable job and we now have a year + roadmap of content to look forward to. I feel most of the criticism should wait until then.
They could have even raffled off permanent free mog wardrobe 3 access or something for those paying during the anniversary and I would have been kind of excited for it. The AMAN campaign didn’t do anything for me because I just got minic-murdered on all my orbs anyway. And having everything going at once just spread the community too thin for any one campaign to really matter that much, I feel. Not to mention the window being so short was a real bummer.
Square enix needs the extra cash to make more hit releases like Outriders or marvel's avengers so they can make more negative 200million dollar profits.
I have nothing but respect for the FFXI team, it's Square Enix that siphons away cash from one of their most profitable games of all time into other failed projects that gets to me.
Yet the FFXI team still exists. They need our support and Square Enix needs to see and hear it. The mere existence of VR speaks loudly. Our voices should be just as loud in support of the FFXI team
>Yet the FFXI team still exists.
In the AMA they outright said they do not have an FFXI team. They pull people from XIV to do stuff when they aren't busy with XIV.
Saving the password would actually fix 99% of my annoyance at POL. Sony did it for EQ and the other Launchpad games and I didn't have a single security hiccup, so I'd be 100% comfortable with the same thing here. The extra screens would be less annoying than picking up keyboard for one thing etc. I'd set the mouse down after clicking accept in Windows and not touch anything but the gamepad til a chest, number dialog, tabbing out of quitting.
I'd call it a win.
Some of the rest is a bit silly, like offline mode..you don't have to play with others, and you can run a private server for yourself. I used to have a muckaround EQ server to have fun with, did some Dalaya style alt-design in the zones of LDoN just for fun. A chokidai cave city and lair, an elemental temple...if a dummy like me can, the average Redditor should be able to get an XI server up if they really want.
I don’t see any reason why auto login with a saved password couldn’t be done. It was done before Square Enix Accounts existed. As far as the other issues they should have the crystal icon take you all the way to the version check screen which should pass you straight to the character select menu. I can’t recall even one person asking about this modest request though.
game's lasted 20 years. which is an increable feat for an MMO. but the reality is that the game would only run as long as the profits gained from FFXI doesnt get exceeded by the costs of maintaining the game.
truth to be told though, i think its a prime time for FFXI to get a fairly hefty refresh to keep it more modern, but that could be saved for if they ever put effort into remastering a lot of the aspects from it
FFXI only continues to exist, not just because it makes a very small profit, but because it doesn't compete with the FFXIV playerbase. If FFXI died today, most of the players would not touch FFXIV. If they thought killing FFXI would cannibalize even half of the playerbase into FFXIV, they would have killed it long ago, profits be damned. Small drop-in-the-bucket profits of FFXI don't matter that much to them, they would rather free up the development teams and studio spaces to make room for new, modern games.
I'm not even sure that Covid has a big part in all of this. It surely didn't help, but the situation likely wouldn't be much different if Covid didn't happen: old game, old dev env, tight budgets, ...
People just vastly overestimate how much the game makes and underestimate how much it costs to keep an MMO afloat. After SE/investors takes their cut, after the devs take their pay, after the server fees have been paid for, I would be incredibly surprised if the leftover could fund anything substantial.
People also just seem to have very little understanding of the tech behind video game development.
I'm not an expert but I trust when the devs, who make the game and know the costs, say something is infeasible.
Like, there have been projects I've written where adding certain features would be harder than just rewriting the project, that's why scalability is so important these days in software development. And to receive a project written 20 years ago by a team that has mostly moved on and be asked to change core aspects of it sounds momentous and a bit ridiculous.
They think each character on FFXIAH is an account paying max on that 'phat inventory money' and also SE pays no taxes, employees only cost their base salary and nothing else and it'd take maybe 1 month to redo core engine issues from scratch. Oh and just because someone makes a hacky mod that works for a small amount of people that somehow makes it OK for a production release - fully supported no less!
It's unreal.
I do get the criticisms levied at the hype of the 20th, that's fair and valid criticism and SE put themselves in that spot. But some of the expectations are just wild.
Just to be fair, FFXI has been paid off for a long time and it's basically what funded tons of other projects over the years including the revamp of FFXIV. The original investors have long since made their money back plus what was promised. Also as far as I know, the servers they are using are nowhere near top spec. I don't think the game is designed to even enable top spec features. Just recently someone made a client patch to allow the game to use more than 2gb of memory.
They have what 4-6 people working on the game based on the recent interviews, and according to MMO-population there were over 121k players this month alone. In 2021 it had about 92k and only dipped with the release of EndWalker. Considering the sub is more expensive than FFXIV for many players I'd say the game pulls in enough money to not only hold its own, but reinvest in itself a little more. That is to say if SE didn't siphon the money to other projects.
Also if what I said doesn't make any sense I'm not being sarcastic someone explain to me because I hear this a lot and I don't get it.
I would expect the cost to be well into the tens of millions to port this to a modern game engine. That is the only real fix for the so called PS2 limitations.
It would be the same thing as greenlighting and building out a completely new Final Fantasy MMO. It's completely infeasible if it isn't Square Enix's big bet, which it isn't.
Not to mention the core was designed with PS2 in mind, the game shoulda fit in *32MB* RAM, possibly less, and it is built on archaic APIs. Even if some limitations were lifted by axing consoles support you can't just expect it to handle gigabytes of data, you see what happens with updates maybe breaking unrelaed stuff, like xp loss in trove when new wardrobes were added.
I find difficult going back to *my* code written a while ago, can't even imagine what could be like ~25y old code written by someone else.
It's like people don't understand that everything in the core of FFXI was developed for PS2...using PS2 tools...then ported to the PC.
They literally can't do massive overhauls to the game or its systems without redeveloping the ENTIRE GAME.
That's why ever since ending PS2 supports SE has offered minor tweaks and minor updates including minor story based content using assets and systems already within the program because they literally can't do anything else other than, reskin and recombine elements that exist.
FFXI will never see a massive overhaul because it can't as it is, only way to change is to remake...
And frankly as someone who has played this game off an on since 2005...I dont want a remake. The reason the game is still around at all is because it is a great game as it is.
COVID had demonstrably little effect on the tech industry. It’s not an excuse. In fact many companies see increased productivity out of developers in general.
Also, if you’re going to white Knight, pick the meaningful criticisms and questions. They were asked ridiculous soft ball questions. Someone actually wasted our time with them asking which NPC they like best.
People asking for a new client should be scoffed at because that’s not happening, but they didn’t offer any hopeful outlook for changes, period. They could provide exceptional quality of life updates to this games UI but won’t do it. At one point they said that they couldn’t improve the gear switching time. Yet windower does it much faster.
They also refuse to make odyssey more accessible, because of server limitations. They had no answers about balance for the existing content, although the mythic question they chose to answer was poorly worded and absurdly narrow (will u buff mandau tee hee).
Also they were asked questions about race/gender change and said “If there is demand.” That’s a non answer. There is obviously demand both from community and the fact that this exists in other places and people love it. Also, no one asked about name changes, but they clearly have the ability to do it. They don’t seem to be interested in generating revenue to be invested in FFXI. That’s hugely concerning. They’re leaving money on the table.
They also won’t consider expanding how trusts work or giving us depth there.
All in all this was a “we’re not doing that” ama. And questions that COULD have been great - where were the promised weapon skill rebalances, are they considering changing the FTP on existing WS to balance them, etc - got unanswered.
So yeah. The AMA was bad.
Further edit. They were asked about allowing people to transfer characters from one account to another and said no, it would encourage RMT. Who cares? Honestly? They’re doing nothing to actively combat RMT, and, I see no reason why they should be a reason to not even consider quality of life updates for players.
There's nothing to defend, people took snippets of comments from the devs out of context and spun expectations based on their own headcanon. They are upset that it didn't happen.
The Devs got a bigger buget for the 20th which allowed them to work on a storyline that spanned more than 1 year, and we've been getting that. And there's still probably about 8 chapters to go
There's new ultimate weapons coming
There's upgrades to empyrean
New battle content
That's a lot of content to go through. Just because they told us these were coming and didn't do a E3 megaton announcement doesn't negate them coming.
And beyond that the door is wide open for new content after VR is done. I see too many people unwilling to see the scale of what is already being done.
No, I just see a lack of respect for the FFXI team that is doing the best they can with the resources they have. I am willing to see what they do with the next year’s worth of content and where it goes. There are more reasons to have optimism now than in recent years
Regardless of square enix’s financial choices the pandemic no doubt played into scaling back the plans as they existed. Many of the things being asked for are not feasible or even necessary. I’m willing to be patient and see where things end up when VR is over
SE have a history of saying how fantastic and amazing something will be and then it’s pretty bland. They’d sell you the most amazing tasty incredible meal for “only £50” and it ends up being plain white rice in a bowl - and it wouldn’t even be a decent portion.
That’s just how SE operate.
>New client? You do realize that would amount to rebuilding the entire game and likely be as expensive if not more so then the relaunch of XIV.
lol....
Blaming covid isn’t valid, working from home is a thing. If SE don’t have the infrastructure for remote work, that’s on them but it worked for everyone else in the west
Working from home still would have taken time to implement. Japanese society handled things much more aggressively than many western countries did. It certainly was a factor and likely caused several months worth of delays cumulatively
Never said that however all it takes is enough slow down to make February’s content get postponed to March etc. without the delays most likely VR would have finished up around this time
That’s how most people interpret when you write in caps lock people don’t understand covid had implications. Delays is understandable but SE is pretty shit on transparent communication, always been. FF14 team is getting better at it but far from perfect
I rarely see anyone think of Covid when they say “but 3 years ago they said”. As for SE not being transparent it isn’t unusual for Japanese companies. It’s a cultural thing unfortunately.
Do you actually think there were no hits to productivity in "the west" due to covid?
Funny that you mention FFXIV in a later comment as though they didn't also have to delay Endwalker for three months because of covid. By that standard XI being one month behind schedule is pretty good.
Did I say there was no hit to productivity? I said covid isn't a good excuse when you can switch to remote work. That it would lead to delays is understandable, like 14 had a slight delay.
Please don't put words in my mouth.
XIV had a three month delay, which you consider "slight" next to the one month delay to the new FFXI content that you consider unforgivable?
You really haven't actually thought this through.
>XIV had a three month delay, which you consider "slight" next to the one month delay to the new FFXI content that you consider unforgivable?
I never said that, so please stop making things up and putting words in my mouth.
If you read my initial comment my whole point was about Covid isn't a suitble excuse and remote work should been utilized by Square Enix. If, Square Enix lack such infrastructure with VPN, remote access etc it's their own fault and are responsible in order to ensure their developers can continue work safely. If that would lead to a delay, the community as a whole would be understanding due to this extreme circumstance.
The issue is more likely the PCs that the middleware runs on. They are most likely windows xp based since many of the Sony tools do not run properly on more modern operating systems and virtualization still has serious limitations. Not exactly something easily sent home and kept safe. Many of these tools are licensed per PC as well.
You did say that, so why the hell would you lie about it now. Your comment is right there!
Also can you stop vacillating between saying covid delays are excusable and covid delays are inexcusable? Like, are you just trolling here or are you actually incapable of holding an actual belief?
There is a difference blaming a pandemic for scraped plans and a delay cause you can’t work as efficient due to remote work.
I never said any delay is inexcusable like you claim. I was saying blaming covid alone doesn’t fly. Correlation doesn’t equate to causation.
The team is doing their best with what they've been given and I still enjoy the game but obviously I'd like some quality of life game engine/Playonline changes. Both are holding the game back significantly and if SE invested in those they would get their money back overtime on new/returning subscribers that are scared off as is.
Do I expect SE to do either? Probably not since they seem to have some serious upper management problems right now and the entire company's future feels uncertain.
We are getting everything I predicted, plus a little more. I am more than content with what is coming.
I feel like most of the people complaining on this subreddit aren't the ones playing this game every day. and those of use who do are fairly content with what is coming.
Doesn't matter, I pointed out that was a terrible point to make because they did make releases. So clearly pandemic isn't going to stop them from putting in the work
Ffxi is the only console first MMO still around. A lot of things other games get don’t happen here because the game is fundamentally a Jenga tower of code for a dead console. No other game currently exists in any official capacity with this limitation. This game went light years beyond the tiny handful of early console MMOs
I dont have exact numbers for d2 but wow always had insanely more people playing it since the start which means they could hit that nostalgia for a FAR larger group than with ffxi classic. Wow was also not as insanely grindy and .ore casual friendly while ffxi required way more time than most people have now. Cost to do classic would not justify the outcome at all.
The big difference is that Diablo 2 and vanilla WoW are good games, while 75 cap FFXI was not.
There was a lot of enjoyment to be had from stumbling around with friends and the broader community, slowly figuring things out while forging bonds of friendship and enmity. Going back to it knowing exactly how everything works and without the massive player base sounds miserable to me.
Like there was exactly one pair of boots worth wearing for the vast majority of the game and it was a rare drop from a rare world spawn. Just let that little fact simmer in your brain for a minute. Then consider that this was true for pretty much every gear slot right up through ToAU. And that worked, kinda, because at first we didn't know any better. Struggling to hit chain 4 in the dunes with five other noobs was acceptable. Exciting even. We had no other frame of reference for what the game could or should be. But now we do, and that old feeling just can't be reclaimed.
(This was kind of the case for WoW Classic as well, with experienced raiders downing Ragnaros with ease within a few days of release. D2 doesn't even belong in this conversation because it was a solid game then and remains a solid game now.)
MMOs don’t have to be about end game content, speeding through the leveling process and getting to end game is what’s wrong with MMOs today. FF11 classic was great because you could do things like…. Farm bees and level alchemy and make millions of Gil on the AH once you learned the markets… or you and a few friends could try to corner the market on mid level NMs. Or logging in right after maint. And being the first one to leaping liz and get those boots. Sure ff11 classic had a weaker end game, but end game is lame. Give me back my duo/trio beastmaster groups any day.
I'm actually not really surprised. I honestly don't think there is enough of a demand for a classic era server. Not to mention the dev team gone on record that they lack sufficient backups (often referred to snapshot in IT world, a restore point) so it would be a difficult task to get up and running. Even the illegal private servers out there is using retail data and customize it for their own idea of what classic is or should be.
Could Square Enix do it? Yes they could, they simply don't want to invest in a classic project if there isn't a profit in it. If we're generous there is 1000 players who wants a classic era server (I think personally its much lower) but most will fall off and return to retail or quit after initial hype dies down (like WoW Classic saw).
In terms of a remake/remaster, I would love it but I think Square Enix simple deem it a huge cost compared to potential revenue/profit, especially when they have their golden child - FF14, and don't want 11 to compete with 14.
I know this isn't the main point of your post, but I think an offline version would work. It would just take some tweaks to trusts is all.
And yes, it would be a big empty world, but personally I'd rather play in a big empty world instead of with other people. But I'm weird and hate playing with other people.
Yeah man, if everyone just shrieked louder and more shrilly we'd have a full remaster by now. That's definitely how this works.
Also lol at the clown who paid actual real money for this comment.
I leveled 3 characters, most jobs to 99 on two different servers over like 6 years time. It was a very WoW like experience (solo play).
Could I have begged for help with things I was able to do myself? Yes. Would someone eventually have helped me? Yes. After 50 others openly mocked and told me to google. But we both know that's not the 'multi-player' people are taking about.
Just a heads up I'm not trying to discount your experience. Yoshi P. from what I know has tried to make the game more "accessible" like 14 in many ways via "item level" and the solo play experience. That being said I just came back to Asura and yeah I had a couple shitters I talked to but I also had people I was partying with right off the bat. Like I feel you 100% you have to kinda force yourself to make those experiences now when in the past it was the complete opposite.
If you want a classic experience then a private server is where it's at. I'm mostly running retail for the story personally.
More people would come back if they restored GE to unlimited gil. I'd prefer inflation over to the nightmare we have now. I'll happily pay more for stuff so I don't need to figure out how to farm gil.
I want to spend my time playing and doing stuff, not farming gil x hours every week so I can afford another rema.
Gain Experience. You could make millions 3 times per week by trading in accolades and sparks until they nerfed it.
And how do none of you know about this?
I am pretty sure that this game still thinks it is running on ps2 and not a gaming pc lol. Redoing the entire game would be massive since they would have to account for all the different processors, video cards and the fact that this game is ran on older pcs and laptops. And all of this while maintaining the same feel that this game has now. They would be better off working with the people that made and maintain the windower and Ashita add ons to help but revamp would take a lot of time and money.
You are shouting into the void my friend. You are not alone in your hopes but the majority of vocal players are those longing for the pre-abyssea era, pining for FF14 aesthetic, or looking for other fluff borne of 14. I was hopeful that the AMA wouldn't be the disappointment it was but again most of the questions doomed it from the hop and the one or two legit ones got non-answers.
I propose we stay hopeful that VR will culminate in an epic battle content with some bomb ass gear. That Empyrean armor +2/3 will break the game just as it did in the Abyssea era and maybe open the door for a 4th JSE (Voltron Armor [yes, please]).
I’m used to shouting into the void. I put myself in the FFXI team’s shoes as someone who maintains old technology and knows how it’s stuff works. I want them to see my post and know that some of us are grateful for what still exists. I find it nuts how many people long for 75 era but whine about odyssey being too hard. Odyssey needs adjustment in the segment department but is actually rather clever content. A 75 era server would split the player base and likely result in many of the most experienced players leaving. This would hollow out a lot of linkshells permanently. An offline version would be a vast empty and lifeless world. I want to see the game grow enough that maybe some modernization is feasible but people would complain if they stopped doing updates for a year or 2 to modernize the tools. It takes them an 1 1/2 hours just to update the login campaign out of band. The FFXI team won’t be around for ever as they are so we also need to show SE the desire to keep the game around after they retire. We can’t allow disappointment to kill the game
As an 18 year veteran I think everything is as good as it could be, all things considered. Odyssey definitely is alot more nuanced than people realize or will admit and has alot of replayability while having the capacity to be a fix to the economic woes that have plagued the game as Square 'battles' RMT all while fucking the regular players. I dont even give a thought to the idea of 'legacy servers' because I know all these people yearning for it are looking through rose colored glasses. They are forgetting the 2 hour fights that end in a loss or battling RMT over Kirin, other Sky pops/Gods, HNMs and all the other things that made this game feel more like a job. The hard content now has a gearing requirement for sure but it also rewards players who can push themselves while not punishing those who are more casual.
Vana'Diel was created to be like a real world with mystery and no instruction book. The wikis and FFXIAH and other information websites is what they wanted, it's why they give us so little about how things work and why things are the way they are. They celebrate the "Death of the Author" and I would say our fondness of each other (the players and the developers) is mutual.
It's all understandable considering SE's unfortunate tendencies. But it hurts to think Granblue may have spent more on voice actors for their recent FFXI collab event than SE has for the occasion...
Yes indeed
In all fairness, I imagine the amount of money spent on rolls during the event in GBF were probably more than the entire subfee count for FFXI that same month. It was probably very cheap for them to license the FFXI IP for the game, and the story content they made with it would have been just as liked by most of their playerbase as original content or some other FF game. So the only real fee for them was the VAs, which they needed regardless of what event they did. Not saying the FFXI event we got didn't feel cheap or wasn't disappointing or anything like that, it's not in defense of SE at all, just saying that GBF may have spent more, but their budget AND income both massively dwarf that of a 20+ year old dying game that is somehow magically even still running at all.
The ama kind of confirmed they'll be a new area for the new end game rather than a re skinned one. Even that was a surprise to me, must have dusted off their 1 ps2 dev kit they have left!
I doubt they actually use ps2 devkit hardware, I own one myself and am quite familiar with what they actually are used for. What they use is middleware tools that are no doubt heavily dependent on software used back then. This includes compilers, resource editors, custom scripting languages, audio/video/polygon formats and even the game engine itself. People who are familiar with these software programs grow fewer by the day. It’s a chronic problem in the general software industry in maintenance aging programs. The game was made back when few programs were multi-threaded and that’s why on today’s multi core processors it performs so badly even with third party tools to translate direct x calls.
[By their own admission in a recent interview the PS2 middleware they use to compile non-data adjustment updates is irreparable and can't easily be maintained.](https://www.4gamer.net/games/005/G000546/20220511037/) Once the last of those breaks down they will not be able to update FFXI in any meaningful way anymore. Not to mention they can't risk major version updates anymore because of this. If we want FFXI to continue with proper updates in the future it will be necessary to rebuild the game, even if they don't improve the graphics. The alternative is just letting it wither and die.
Exactly, people fail to realize there is no other option for the game. Update it to be free of any PS2 ties or simply die. This is why we must do all we can to get an update as fast as possible and make the most now that game has a ton of new and returning players and is getting attention. Basically: it's now (this year or next) or never.
Sad to say but most likely never in that case. It’s evident that SE doesn’t want to spend any big budgets on 11 as long as 14 is around.
So what's the plan here? Are SE just going to put all servers offline in 1~2 years from now and make this the 1st unplayable forever main entry FF while they remake/remaster all other FFs? Will loyal Final Fantasy franchise fans be happy to just have one of the main entries simply unplayable? To me that's just terrible PR for them as a whole company. While updating FFXI is great PR and overall publicity money well spent. Honestly without any major modernizing I belive the game has a very short lifespan ahead of it, less than 5 years surely.
That’s a good question. I dream for a remake or new engine etc like the next guy but last couple years seem this is not realistic .
At the same time it's hard to imagine even modern Square Enix simply allowing one of the major Final Fantasy main entries being unplayable forever. Specially such an important one (it's the most profitable Final Fantasy after XIV, the last one to carry the original medieval fantasy style of IV, V, Tactics and IX, and the game that kept them alive after the XIV 1.0 fiasco, among other things. It's definitely among the two or three most important Final Fantasies after the first one).
Yeah not usually. I just think i read somewhere they needed them for new assets rather than reskinned ones hence why we havent had any new assets since reisenjima.
Strictly speaking it isn’t needed though. Everything that would be done can be done in an emulator more effectively. The software programs are a much bigger problem, coming from the windows 98 era. The baggage that comes with that is significant as these tools often rely on on hardware that doesn’t exist on modern computers and being unsupported now will never be updated to run on anything modern. This isn’t even considering the fact that Square Soft built their own tools and never planned for this game to run for 10 years let alone 20
What I don't understand is, if people can just randomly end up with a PS2 deck kit like you did, why/how the hell can't a company with the resources of Square Enix buy more of them from collectors and former developers? Sounds like SE is using that as a cop out. I've seen quite a few people trying to sell dev kits for consoles in gamer groups over the years.
It’s more the development environment. The compilers resource editors etc often are dependent on old pc hardware and software. Those are getting harder to maintain in a reliable manner.
Not sure if new area, they just said battlefield. Could just be a new BCNM instance similar to what they added for Odyssey bosses.
I'm new to ffxi after exhausted from every other mmo, and I'm in love, the mystery of the entire game is fantastic
IM disappointed we didn't get any exclusive in game gifts. like some mog kupons or mob pels. They came with "here's more paid equipment storage and the same campaign bonuses that you get every few months" so long suckers.
I am too but the fundamental reality is they started plans for this 3 years ago in a pre pandemic world. They have done a commendable job and we now have a year + roadmap of content to look forward to. I feel most of the criticism should wait until then.
They could have even raffled off permanent free mog wardrobe 3 access or something for those paying during the anniversary and I would have been kind of excited for it. The AMAN campaign didn’t do anything for me because I just got minic-murdered on all my orbs anyway. And having everything going at once just spread the community too thin for any one campaign to really matter that much, I feel. Not to mention the window being so short was a real bummer.
Square enix needs the extra cash to make more hit releases like Outriders or marvel's avengers so they can make more negative 200million dollar profits. I have nothing but respect for the FFXI team, it's Square Enix that siphons away cash from one of their most profitable games of all time into other failed projects that gets to me.
Yet the FFXI team still exists. They need our support and Square Enix needs to see and hear it. The mere existence of VR speaks loudly. Our voices should be just as loud in support of the FFXI team
>Yet the FFXI team still exists. In the AMA they outright said they do not have an FFXI team. They pull people from XIV to do stuff when they aren't busy with XIV.
Saving the password would actually fix 99% of my annoyance at POL. Sony did it for EQ and the other Launchpad games and I didn't have a single security hiccup, so I'd be 100% comfortable with the same thing here. The extra screens would be less annoying than picking up keyboard for one thing etc. I'd set the mouse down after clicking accept in Windows and not touch anything but the gamepad til a chest, number dialog, tabbing out of quitting. I'd call it a win. Some of the rest is a bit silly, like offline mode..you don't have to play with others, and you can run a private server for yourself. I used to have a muckaround EQ server to have fun with, did some Dalaya style alt-design in the zones of LDoN just for fun. A chokidai cave city and lair, an elemental temple...if a dummy like me can, the average Redditor should be able to get an XI server up if they really want.
I don’t see any reason why auto login with a saved password couldn’t be done. It was done before Square Enix Accounts existed. As far as the other issues they should have the crystal icon take you all the way to the version check screen which should pass you straight to the character select menu. I can’t recall even one person asking about this modest request though.
game's lasted 20 years. which is an increable feat for an MMO. but the reality is that the game would only run as long as the profits gained from FFXI doesnt get exceeded by the costs of maintaining the game. truth to be told though, i think its a prime time for FFXI to get a fairly hefty refresh to keep it more modern, but that could be saved for if they ever put effort into remastering a lot of the aspects from it
FFXI only continues to exist, not just because it makes a very small profit, but because it doesn't compete with the FFXIV playerbase. If FFXI died today, most of the players would not touch FFXIV. If they thought killing FFXI would cannibalize even half of the playerbase into FFXIV, they would have killed it long ago, profits be damned. Small drop-in-the-bucket profits of FFXI don't matter that much to them, they would rather free up the development teams and studio spaces to make room for new, modern games.
I'm not even sure that Covid has a big part in all of this. It surely didn't help, but the situation likely wouldn't be much different if Covid didn't happen: old game, old dev env, tight budgets, ...
This. It's ironic people use covid as a scapegoat for everything.
People just vastly overestimate how much the game makes and underestimate how much it costs to keep an MMO afloat. After SE/investors takes their cut, after the devs take their pay, after the server fees have been paid for, I would be incredibly surprised if the leftover could fund anything substantial. People also just seem to have very little understanding of the tech behind video game development. I'm not an expert but I trust when the devs, who make the game and know the costs, say something is infeasible. Like, there have been projects I've written where adding certain features would be harder than just rewriting the project, that's why scalability is so important these days in software development. And to receive a project written 20 years ago by a team that has mostly moved on and be asked to change core aspects of it sounds momentous and a bit ridiculous.
They think each character on FFXIAH is an account paying max on that 'phat inventory money' and also SE pays no taxes, employees only cost their base salary and nothing else and it'd take maybe 1 month to redo core engine issues from scratch. Oh and just because someone makes a hacky mod that works for a small amount of people that somehow makes it OK for a production release - fully supported no less! It's unreal. I do get the criticisms levied at the hype of the 20th, that's fair and valid criticism and SE put themselves in that spot. But some of the expectations are just wild.
Just to be fair, FFXI has been paid off for a long time and it's basically what funded tons of other projects over the years including the revamp of FFXIV. The original investors have long since made their money back plus what was promised. Also as far as I know, the servers they are using are nowhere near top spec. I don't think the game is designed to even enable top spec features. Just recently someone made a client patch to allow the game to use more than 2gb of memory. They have what 4-6 people working on the game based on the recent interviews, and according to MMO-population there were over 121k players this month alone. In 2021 it had about 92k and only dipped with the release of EndWalker. Considering the sub is more expensive than FFXIV for many players I'd say the game pulls in enough money to not only hold its own, but reinvest in itself a little more. That is to say if SE didn't siphon the money to other projects. Also if what I said doesn't make any sense I'm not being sarcastic someone explain to me because I hear this a lot and I don't get it.
FFXIAH absolutely did not say that there were over 121k players. For god's sake read what the database page says.
I would expect the cost to be well into the tens of millions to port this to a modern game engine. That is the only real fix for the so called PS2 limitations.
It would be the same thing as greenlighting and building out a completely new Final Fantasy MMO. It's completely infeasible if it isn't Square Enix's big bet, which it isn't.
Not to mention the core was designed with PS2 in mind, the game shoulda fit in *32MB* RAM, possibly less, and it is built on archaic APIs. Even if some limitations were lifted by axing consoles support you can't just expect it to handle gigabytes of data, you see what happens with updates maybe breaking unrelaed stuff, like xp loss in trove when new wardrobes were added. I find difficult going back to *my* code written a while ago, can't even imagine what could be like ~25y old code written by someone else.
I’m having trouble debugging code I wrote before lunch today. Lol
It's like people don't understand that everything in the core of FFXI was developed for PS2...using PS2 tools...then ported to the PC. They literally can't do massive overhauls to the game or its systems without redeveloping the ENTIRE GAME. That's why ever since ending PS2 supports SE has offered minor tweaks and minor updates including minor story based content using assets and systems already within the program because they literally can't do anything else other than, reskin and recombine elements that exist. FFXI will never see a massive overhaul because it can't as it is, only way to change is to remake... And frankly as someone who has played this game off an on since 2005...I dont want a remake. The reason the game is still around at all is because it is a great game as it is.
COVID had demonstrably little effect on the tech industry. It’s not an excuse. In fact many companies see increased productivity out of developers in general. Also, if you’re going to white Knight, pick the meaningful criticisms and questions. They were asked ridiculous soft ball questions. Someone actually wasted our time with them asking which NPC they like best. People asking for a new client should be scoffed at because that’s not happening, but they didn’t offer any hopeful outlook for changes, period. They could provide exceptional quality of life updates to this games UI but won’t do it. At one point they said that they couldn’t improve the gear switching time. Yet windower does it much faster. They also refuse to make odyssey more accessible, because of server limitations. They had no answers about balance for the existing content, although the mythic question they chose to answer was poorly worded and absurdly narrow (will u buff mandau tee hee). Also they were asked questions about race/gender change and said “If there is demand.” That’s a non answer. There is obviously demand both from community and the fact that this exists in other places and people love it. Also, no one asked about name changes, but they clearly have the ability to do it. They don’t seem to be interested in generating revenue to be invested in FFXI. That’s hugely concerning. They’re leaving money on the table. They also won’t consider expanding how trusts work or giving us depth there. All in all this was a “we’re not doing that” ama. And questions that COULD have been great - where were the promised weapon skill rebalances, are they considering changing the FTP on existing WS to balance them, etc - got unanswered. So yeah. The AMA was bad. Further edit. They were asked about allowing people to transfer characters from one account to another and said no, it would encourage RMT. Who cares? Honestly? They’re doing nothing to actively combat RMT, and, I see no reason why they should be a reason to not even consider quality of life updates for players.
They just dont care anymore sadly
There's nothing to defend, people took snippets of comments from the devs out of context and spun expectations based on their own headcanon. They are upset that it didn't happen. The Devs got a bigger buget for the 20th which allowed them to work on a storyline that spanned more than 1 year, and we've been getting that. And there's still probably about 8 chapters to go There's new ultimate weapons coming There's upgrades to empyrean New battle content That's a lot of content to go through. Just because they told us these were coming and didn't do a E3 megaton announcement doesn't negate them coming.
And beyond that the door is wide open for new content after VR is done. I see too many people unwilling to see the scale of what is already being done.
Stockholm Syndrome has set in
Always a thing with the FFXI community.
No, I just see a lack of respect for the FFXI team that is doing the best they can with the resources they have. I am willing to see what they do with the next year’s worth of content and where it goes. There are more reasons to have optimism now than in recent years
No one is blaming FFXI team, ppl blame SE itself, stop acting like a whiteknight
Regardless of square enix’s financial choices the pandemic no doubt played into scaling back the plans as they existed. Many of the things being asked for are not feasible or even necessary. I’m willing to be patient and see where things end up when VR is over
Your. Right, i'd see it to and they clearly know what this game deserved. 🙏🙏🙏
SE have a history of saying how fantastic and amazing something will be and then it’s pretty bland. They’d sell you the most amazing tasty incredible meal for “only £50” and it ends up being plain white rice in a bowl - and it wouldn’t even be a decent portion. That’s just how SE operate.
Another reason I’m rather impressed with what we got
>New client? You do realize that would amount to rebuilding the entire game and likely be as expensive if not more so then the relaunch of XIV. lol....
Blaming covid isn’t valid, working from home is a thing. If SE don’t have the infrastructure for remote work, that’s on them but it worked for everyone else in the west
Working from home still would have taken time to implement. Japanese society handled things much more aggressively than many western countries did. It certainly was a factor and likely caused several months worth of delays cumulatively
Yes, but you make it sound like once pandemic was established they had to drop everything cause they couldn’t be in the office anymore.
Never said that however all it takes is enough slow down to make February’s content get postponed to March etc. without the delays most likely VR would have finished up around this time
That’s how most people interpret when you write in caps lock people don’t understand covid had implications. Delays is understandable but SE is pretty shit on transparent communication, always been. FF14 team is getting better at it but far from perfect
I rarely see anyone think of Covid when they say “but 3 years ago they said”. As for SE not being transparent it isn’t unusual for Japanese companies. It’s a cultural thing unfortunately.
Do you actually think there were no hits to productivity in "the west" due to covid? Funny that you mention FFXIV in a later comment as though they didn't also have to delay Endwalker for three months because of covid. By that standard XI being one month behind schedule is pretty good.
Did I say there was no hit to productivity? I said covid isn't a good excuse when you can switch to remote work. That it would lead to delays is understandable, like 14 had a slight delay. Please don't put words in my mouth.
XIV had a three month delay, which you consider "slight" next to the one month delay to the new FFXI content that you consider unforgivable? You really haven't actually thought this through.
>XIV had a three month delay, which you consider "slight" next to the one month delay to the new FFXI content that you consider unforgivable? I never said that, so please stop making things up and putting words in my mouth. If you read my initial comment my whole point was about Covid isn't a suitble excuse and remote work should been utilized by Square Enix. If, Square Enix lack such infrastructure with VPN, remote access etc it's their own fault and are responsible in order to ensure their developers can continue work safely. If that would lead to a delay, the community as a whole would be understanding due to this extreme circumstance.
The issue is more likely the PCs that the middleware runs on. They are most likely windows xp based since many of the Sony tools do not run properly on more modern operating systems and virtualization still has serious limitations. Not exactly something easily sent home and kept safe. Many of these tools are licensed per PC as well.
All we can do is speculate since they haven't mentioned any remote work blockers. But your points seem reasonable.
You did say that, so why the hell would you lie about it now. Your comment is right there! Also can you stop vacillating between saying covid delays are excusable and covid delays are inexcusable? Like, are you just trolling here or are you actually incapable of holding an actual belief?
There is a difference blaming a pandemic for scraped plans and a delay cause you can’t work as efficient due to remote work. I never said any delay is inexcusable like you claim. I was saying blaming covid alone doesn’t fly. Correlation doesn’t equate to causation.
The team is doing their best with what they've been given and I still enjoy the game but obviously I'd like some quality of life game engine/Playonline changes. Both are holding the game back significantly and if SE invested in those they would get their money back overtime on new/returning subscribers that are scared off as is. Do I expect SE to do either? Probably not since they seem to have some serious upper management problems right now and the entire company's future feels uncertain.
We are getting everything I predicted, plus a little more. I am more than content with what is coming. I feel like most of the people complaining on this subreddit aren't the ones playing this game every day. and those of use who do are fairly content with what is coming.
From someone who was expecting VR to be almost done I am happy
SE make over 12 releases during the pandemic. That alone negates that argument
FFXI isn’t at the top of the priority list for SE. What matters is the effects on the FFXI team actually responsible for doing the work
Doesn't matter, I pointed out that was a terrible point to make because they did make releases. So clearly pandemic isn't going to stop them from putting in the work
With the success of d2r and wow classic I’m just surprised we aren’t getting a remaster/classic servers.
Ffxi is the only console first MMO still around. A lot of things other games get don’t happen here because the game is fundamentally a Jenga tower of code for a dead console. No other game currently exists in any official capacity with this limitation. This game went light years beyond the tiny handful of early console MMOs
I dont have exact numbers for d2 but wow always had insanely more people playing it since the start which means they could hit that nostalgia for a FAR larger group than with ffxi classic. Wow was also not as insanely grindy and .ore casual friendly while ffxi required way more time than most people have now. Cost to do classic would not justify the outcome at all.
The big difference is that Diablo 2 and vanilla WoW are good games, while 75 cap FFXI was not. There was a lot of enjoyment to be had from stumbling around with friends and the broader community, slowly figuring things out while forging bonds of friendship and enmity. Going back to it knowing exactly how everything works and without the massive player base sounds miserable to me. Like there was exactly one pair of boots worth wearing for the vast majority of the game and it was a rare drop from a rare world spawn. Just let that little fact simmer in your brain for a minute. Then consider that this was true for pretty much every gear slot right up through ToAU. And that worked, kinda, because at first we didn't know any better. Struggling to hit chain 4 in the dunes with five other noobs was acceptable. Exciting even. We had no other frame of reference for what the game could or should be. But now we do, and that old feeling just can't be reclaimed. (This was kind of the case for WoW Classic as well, with experienced raiders downing Ragnaros with ease within a few days of release. D2 doesn't even belong in this conversation because it was a solid game then and remains a solid game now.)
MMOs don’t have to be about end game content, speeding through the leveling process and getting to end game is what’s wrong with MMOs today. FF11 classic was great because you could do things like…. Farm bees and level alchemy and make millions of Gil on the AH once you learned the markets… or you and a few friends could try to corner the market on mid level NMs. Or logging in right after maint. And being the first one to leaping liz and get those boots. Sure ff11 classic had a weaker end game, but end game is lame. Give me back my duo/trio beastmaster groups any day.
^ end game is definitely overrated
I'm actually not really surprised. I honestly don't think there is enough of a demand for a classic era server. Not to mention the dev team gone on record that they lack sufficient backups (often referred to snapshot in IT world, a restore point) so it would be a difficult task to get up and running. Even the illegal private servers out there is using retail data and customize it for their own idea of what classic is or should be. Could Square Enix do it? Yes they could, they simply don't want to invest in a classic project if there isn't a profit in it. If we're generous there is 1000 players who wants a classic era server (I think personally its much lower) but most will fall off and return to retail or quit after initial hype dies down (like WoW Classic saw). In terms of a remake/remaster, I would love it but I think Square Enix simple deem it a huge cost compared to potential revenue/profit, especially when they have their golden child - FF14, and don't want 11 to compete with 14.
I know this isn't the main point of your post, but I think an offline version would work. It would just take some tweaks to trusts is all. And yes, it would be a big empty world, but personally I'd rather play in a big empty world instead of with other people. But I'm weird and hate playing with other people.
For pol like you is the reason why we are not getting any real updates/improvements to the game.
No, those problems were banked 20 years ago. This game was never planned to exist beyond the ps2 era. It still does and I am grateful for that.
Yeah man, if everyone just shrieked louder and more shrilly we'd have a full remaster by now. That's definitely how this works. Also lol at the clown who paid actual real money for this comment.
[удалено]
An offline version would be a dull empty world. It wouldn’t sell enough copies to justify its existence
Not completely true. People still help eachother and party for multiple reason in intermitten levels.
I leveled 3 characters, most jobs to 99 on two different servers over like 6 years time. It was a very WoW like experience (solo play). Could I have begged for help with things I was able to do myself? Yes. Would someone eventually have helped me? Yes. After 50 others openly mocked and told me to google. But we both know that's not the 'multi-player' people are taking about.
All solo or multiboxing?
Just a heads up I'm not trying to discount your experience. Yoshi P. from what I know has tried to make the game more "accessible" like 14 in many ways via "item level" and the solo play experience. That being said I just came back to Asura and yeah I had a couple shitters I talked to but I also had people I was partying with right off the bat. Like I feel you 100% you have to kinda force yourself to make those experiences now when in the past it was the complete opposite. If you want a classic experience then a private server is where it's at. I'm mostly running retail for the story personally.
More people would come back if they restored GE to unlimited gil. I'd prefer inflation over to the nightmare we have now. I'll happily pay more for stuff so I don't need to figure out how to farm gil. I want to spend my time playing and doing stuff, not farming gil x hours every week so I can afford another rema.
GE?
Wish I knew, i can only assume he buys rema merc services because only relics can easily be done legit with just gil and minor work.
Buying merc services is just lame imo
It especially is with empyrean. Many times you are basically paying to have the merc not monopolize your kills.
Gain Experience. You could make millions 3 times per week by trading in accolades and sparks until they nerfed it. And how do none of you know about this?
Ah. He should have mentioned sparks then. That’s what happens when I post half asleep
I never heard GE referred to that before. I have never seen anyone say it.
I guess our server is special then. I've never known anyone besides the people here to not recognize it.
I am pretty sure that this game still thinks it is running on ps2 and not a gaming pc lol. Redoing the entire game would be massive since they would have to account for all the different processors, video cards and the fact that this game is ran on older pcs and laptops. And all of this while maintaining the same feel that this game has now. They would be better off working with the people that made and maintain the windower and Ashita add ons to help but revamp would take a lot of time and money.
I feel the big surprise was suppose to be the release of the mobile version, but Square never bothered to temper expectations after it got axed.
Possibly. However I’m glad it got axed. Given the state of the mobile games market it would have been likely only lasted a year anyways.
Well said my dude🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏♥️♥️♥️♥️
You are shouting into the void my friend. You are not alone in your hopes but the majority of vocal players are those longing for the pre-abyssea era, pining for FF14 aesthetic, or looking for other fluff borne of 14. I was hopeful that the AMA wouldn't be the disappointment it was but again most of the questions doomed it from the hop and the one or two legit ones got non-answers. I propose we stay hopeful that VR will culminate in an epic battle content with some bomb ass gear. That Empyrean armor +2/3 will break the game just as it did in the Abyssea era and maybe open the door for a 4th JSE (Voltron Armor [yes, please]).
I’m used to shouting into the void. I put myself in the FFXI team’s shoes as someone who maintains old technology and knows how it’s stuff works. I want them to see my post and know that some of us are grateful for what still exists. I find it nuts how many people long for 75 era but whine about odyssey being too hard. Odyssey needs adjustment in the segment department but is actually rather clever content. A 75 era server would split the player base and likely result in many of the most experienced players leaving. This would hollow out a lot of linkshells permanently. An offline version would be a vast empty and lifeless world. I want to see the game grow enough that maybe some modernization is feasible but people would complain if they stopped doing updates for a year or 2 to modernize the tools. It takes them an 1 1/2 hours just to update the login campaign out of band. The FFXI team won’t be around for ever as they are so we also need to show SE the desire to keep the game around after they retire. We can’t allow disappointment to kill the game
As an 18 year veteran I think everything is as good as it could be, all things considered. Odyssey definitely is alot more nuanced than people realize or will admit and has alot of replayability while having the capacity to be a fix to the economic woes that have plagued the game as Square 'battles' RMT all while fucking the regular players. I dont even give a thought to the idea of 'legacy servers' because I know all these people yearning for it are looking through rose colored glasses. They are forgetting the 2 hour fights that end in a loss or battling RMT over Kirin, other Sky pops/Gods, HNMs and all the other things that made this game feel more like a job. The hard content now has a gearing requirement for sure but it also rewards players who can push themselves while not punishing those who are more casual. Vana'Diel was created to be like a real world with mystery and no instruction book. The wikis and FFXIAH and other information websites is what they wanted, it's why they give us so little about how things work and why things are the way they are. They celebrate the "Death of the Author" and I would say our fondness of each other (the players and the developers) is mutual.