From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

[Yellow Mage]

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This. Just this.

[Mhurron]

Re: From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

No one in their right mind thinks it is ending. The profit argument however is a little disingenuous though.I doubt XI will continue to be as profitable after XIV is released. I also think that a lot of people that otherwise would have been excited about WotG finishing no longer are, they really just drug their feet far too slowly.

Server consolidation in 2011 won't surprise me at all.

[Karinya]

Re: From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

No one in their right mind thinks it is ending. The profit argument however is a little disingenuous though.I doubt XI will continue to be as profitable after XIV is released.

Why? Lots of people don't even have a system that can run XIV - PS2s, any PC older than a year or two, and I don't remember if XIV is coming to X360.

Even among people that can play both, have you ever played an MMO with less than a year of content? Some people get a new game rush but after that wears off, if there's not much there, then it won't hold people's interest until there's a few more years of content development. (And *that's* assuming the basic concepts and system are solid and fun, which we don't know yet.)

I also think that a lot of people that otherwise would have been excited about WotG finishing no longer are, they really just drug their feet far too slowly.

I doubt that. It's hard to be enthusiastic when nothing is happening, but once they start announcing what is coming in the future, people will regain interest.

Server consolidation in 2011 won't surprise me at all.

Maybe, but I hope they're willing to let server populations decline a bit first. Overcrowding has been the worst thing about HNMs forever, and a recurring problem with dynamis on some servers and time slots (to say nothing of exp camps). And of course it means more lag in Besieged and Campaign.

If a world starts actually suffering from low population (hard to find parties/LSs, lack of goods at the AH, whatever) people will start jumping off it and then SE should take notice and do something, but Carbuncle, at least, is nowhere near that point.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

Maybe, but I hope they're willing to let server populations decline a bit first.

Have been doing /sea all inv for the last week and the number has yet to rise above 50 at any point from morning through to late evening EU time. Populations are already declining. At the time of the post there were a total of 38 people on all level ranges searching on Fenrir, 6 of which were 75 at prime time on a Saturday.

[Firewind]

Re: From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

Why? Lots of people don't even have a system that can run XIV - PS2s, any PC older than a year or two, and I don't remember if XIV is coming to X360

Lots of people don't even have a system that can run Mass Effect 2 or Dragon Age but the games still sell very well...

And I can name twenty five people I know personally who still have a PS2...

Have been doing /sea all inv for the last week and the number has yet to rise above 50 at any point from morning through to late evening EU time. Populations are already declining. At the time of the post there were a total of 38 people on all level ranges searching on Fenrir, 6 of which were 75 at prime time on a Saturday.

Kujata was like that back in July. I once went an enitre three week period of running around with my flag up on CORSAIR and didn't get a single invite. No idea how it's been since then since I only really logged in to talk to my linkshell after that and the linkshell kinda imploded at around the time Aion came out so I just stopped bothering to pay for FFXI to just log on once a week to find nobody but bots left to chat to.

[Mhurron]

Re: From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

Why? Lots of people don't even have a system that can run XIV - PS2s, any PC older than a year or two, and I don't remember if XIV is coming to X360.

What MMO requires the latest and greatest? FFXI didn't. Processors have been very fast for much longer then 2 years, RAM is cheap and 8 series GeForce cards are under $50. A MMO gaming machine can be made very inexpensively.

The way that the general population of FFXI whines about graphics I fully expect a bunch to leave XI for XIV based on it's pretty graphics, they might even be dumb enough to not even notice there is no content.

I hope they're willing to let server populations decline a bit first. Overcrowding has been the worst thing about HNMs forever, and a recurring problem with dynamis on some servers and time slots (to say nothing of exp camps). And of course it means more lag in Besieged and Campaign.

If a world starts actually suffering from low population (hard to find parties/LSs, lack of goods at the AH, whatever) people will start jumping off it and then SE should take notice and do something, but Carbuncle, at least, is nowhere near that point.

They are declining and people are jumping. Campaign is lagging, not because of the 15 people that showed up, but because of the 3 waves of beastmen that came at once. Many people now only log in for their Dynamis run or their sky farming or whatnot, there is less and less going on that isn't scheduled end game activities.

[Firewind]

Re: From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

What MMO requires the latest and greatest? FFXI didn't. Processors have been very fast for much longer then 2 years, RAM is cheap and 8 series GeForce cards are under $50. A MMO gaming machine can be made very inexpensively.

That and it's rarely advisable to run any sort of online game with all the bells and whistles activated even if your computer can handle it.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

The way that the general population of FFXI whines about graphics I fully expect a bunch to leave XI for XIV based on it's pretty graphics, they might even be dumb enough to not even notice there is no content.

(1) The "general populace" you refer to are PC gamers
(2) It remains questionable if they are indeed the "general populace," even in a declining population

PC gamers are vocal. They are more vocal because they have an emotional investment in the "superior" platform they have built. When you buy something, that's one thing; When you build something, emotional investement - let's just call it "pride" - is inevitable.

Why else would they incessantly complain about FFXI moving up to DX 9 or 10? PS2 and 360 gamers got nothing to talk about there, only PC gamers do. And so they bitch, cry and talk about how other platforms are holding them back.

Pride.

Also, its difficult for us to know the level of content that will be available to us. Plus, its not like we'd be short of things to do given the ability to be any job will be a part of that game, crafting more integral. We also don't know what - if any - new elements are being added to the mix. I know I see some Monster Hunter in there, at least.

No one in the Japanese market ignores Monster Hunter's impact anymore. Bandai-Namco has God Eater, Sega is cooking up one (though they could just modify Phantasy Star to fit the model, really) - why would SE overlook its appeal. I think Monster Hunter is what weapon upgrades are inspired by.

If they're even only partically including that element, its going to keep you busy for a while.

As for server consolidation - its coming. There's no getting around that.

As for endgame getting too crowded as a result. Well, based off my experience with Odin and what I know of Bahamut - a crowded endgame forces people to play nice with each other. See, if your server is crowded, a bad reputation gets around a lot faster.

You guys on low-pop servers who think you have it bad now? Actually, you have it bad because because thanks to low population, particular jobs remain in high demand and you can be a total prick if you have those jobs. And if your LS feels they're the only real game in town, they're not worried about the consequences of bad behavior because they're not going anywhere.

But be a bunch of dicks on a crowded server and no other LS will feel sympathy for you if someone else decides to move in on your Dynamis or Einherjar times. They'll just remove you from the discussions to organize such things around other groups.

Of course, the downside to crowding the server is that eventually a packed server is only about endgame. FFXI has too much of it and everyone only cares about their own agendas within it, so it becomes harder and harder to get the more "casual" things done (unfortunately, this seems to include difficult missions, because Airship and Alexander are totally casual ).

[KingOfZeal]

Re: From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

As for endgame getting too crowded as a result. Well, based off my experience with Odin and what I know of Bahamut - a crowded endgame forces people to play nice with each other. See, if your server is crowded, a bad reputation gets around a lot faster.

You guys on low-pop servers who think you have it bad now? Actually, you have it bad because because thanks to low population, particular jobs remain in high demand and you can be a total prick if you have those jobs. And if your LS feels they're the only real game in town, they're not worried about the consequences of bad behavior because they're not going anywhere.

But be a bunch of dicks on a crowded server and no other LS will feel sympathy for you if someone else decides to move in on your Dynamis or Einherjar times. They'll just remove you from the discussions to organize such things around other groups.

I wanted to make a point on this:

Bahamut has since become somewhat of a small server, at least from my perspective. Obviously many people have left (which is sad) and the effects can be felt in many places, most notably in regards to xp parties. And, you are very correct on the point of how Bahamut has had to play nice with each other in order to do anything. But, when you combine both these things (everyone leaving and a well-established protocol when it comes to many end-game events), you find that you can do whatever you want while at the same time NOT having any drama.

Case in point: Dynamis. I'm sure many servers have dynamis schedules, but I would be willing to believe that Bahamut has one of the most visited and used schedules, even with it's diminishing population. Why? Everyone is used to looking at it. My shell did a run a month or two back, and whoever was in charge forgot to put it on the schedule. When we looked that weekend, someone else took the spot. Now, we were planning it for quite some time, but we decided to go to a different zone.
Frankly, in closed servers you won't find anybody who is new to the end-game scene... 98% of the people have touched it in some form, and the remaining 2% are essentially born into the system that the other 98% use, which is the same system used back when we were heavily populated.

Of course, the downside to crowding the server is that eventually a packed server is only about endgame. FFXI has too much of it and everyone only cares about their own agendas within it, so it becomes harder and harder to get the more "casual" things done (unfortunately, this seems to include difficult missions, because Airship and Alexander are totally casual ).

I'm going to have to argue this point, but on a technicality. Again, looking at Bahamut, we are no longer a crowded server. As I said before, almost with exception I can walk up to anything I want to get or do end-game wise (Sea, Sky, Dynamis, Einherjar, Limbus) and not have significant competition, and there isn't a whole lot of drama when there is -- no trying to mess with other people's claims, no pre-reserving battlefields etc. But, I think that was because we were once populated, and so we're stuck with the 'play nice' mentality.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

Odin isn't a crowded sever anymore, either.

And because these aren't crowded servers now, people can regress from having to play nice. If they have a "needed" job, that's a card they can play and exploit with no regrets. Consolodation might push things back in the other direction.

[KingOfZeal]

Re: From LBR: You Spoony Bard! Final Fantasy XI Isn't Done Yet!!

Yes, and I would agree it would. However, I haven't seen any evidence on Bahamut that there has been much of any regression (at least, none that I have observed). It seems as if all the people who were initially like that just haven't moved, while all the good people have, so there's more 'jerks per capita' if you will.