Off Topic - FFXI newsFollow

I'm tempted to return to finish the story, but I seriously can't deal with all the down time needed to find people for events and missions.

I'll keep an open mind, but I'm just not sure I could do enough in FFXI to finish the storyline without an existing social network, even if I just try to do the bare minimum.

Edited, Mar 20th 2015 10:41pm by Thayos

It's worth noting that while XI might not be drawing millions of dollars a month currently, it still remains SE's highest grossing FF title to date.


Even if XIV hadn't stumbled at the start, it would've made more sense to me for SE to drop PS2/360 support for XI instead of announcing XIV. I really don't have anything against XIV in it's current state, but I still feel like if SE had focused much less time and resources into their already successful MMO; FFXI would have continued to grow.

I can't help but feel like I'm being trolled here.

"We're going to put ourselves in position to make much needed UI and graphical changes to update the game to modern standards, but only so we can turn XI into a phone app for wallet warriors"

If it dies*, do you think there is hope that they'll sort of release a dumbed down version to make it offline? I think it'd be a neat idea, and it would at least make sure a number FF title doesn't fall into the abyss of history so no one else can experience it.


*meaning it goes offline.

Edited, Mar 21st 2015 11:16pm by Stilivan

The way I understand it they're not going to kill it off, they're simply not going to continue to develop story or gameplay content anymore. No expansions, no new jobs or job abilities and the like. The final chapter of the upcoming content will be the final chapter of vana'diel, at least as it relates to FFXI. That's not to say that they won't try to branch the lore of vana'diel into whatever the 'app' is they mentioned, but we won't see anything new on the PC version.

Flappy horsebird? I dunno what to expect from the app, but I'm not a huge fan of mobile. Maybe they'll monetize the app and shift the core PC game to F2P. I don't think people are willing to subscribe to a game that isn't getting any content updates at all. Then again, it wouldn't be the first time I was surprised by the lengths that fans will go to.

Time will tell...

Between this and the news about Nintendo going the smartphone route, I'm just feeling kinda empty. I'm not mad, I just feel sad. I think some of what I loved about gaming is fading away and dying and I just can't do anything but watch it go.

It feels helpless

Edited, Mar 22nd 2015 7:49pm by lass5

Most of the games that are promoted on Steam aren't even finished yet.

I remember I bought a PS2 modem for FFXI, only to find out a year later that it was not coming to PS2 in Europe. I don't think there are many people playing FFXI on PS2 these days because of eventually they stop reading discs or the HDD stops working. There are probably people out there that have played this game since launch on a PS2 and it probably still works which would be impressive. Kids born when the game was released are old enough to play it in some countries.

I don't find it surprising that SE decided to make a version of this game on mobile phones as they have ported most of their library over to iOS and Android. A FF title is on its way to mobile platform exclusively.

Don't forget the games like GTA V, though, which can make a billion dollars within a week after launch. Those kind of titles are very rare, but a handful of them do still exist. There will still be game companies who are willing to chase after that unicorn.

The problem is that companies want that kind of money but it comes with a HUGE investment and risk. The game has to be done at launch, perfectly polished out of the box. It has to be an AAA game from a studio you trust and a franchise that is famous. It also has to be fun, something a lot of games have trouble with as they pursue prettier graphics and cool physics, often at the expense of storyline. Final Fantasy XV might fit this tiny niche if SE doesn't ***** it up somehow. (Everyone has loved the demo so far as I can tell.)

I think the Wii U is the most fun system being made right now... LOVE playing mine! But we live in the COD era. :(

Then it's been spread out for a long time, since it's almost always been pretty standard each generation has had four to six systems to pick from. NES, Sega Master System, Gameboy, Game Gear, PC ...

Frankly, gaming has plateaued. The current batch of systems are only barely more powerful than the last generation, considering all the games that cross between PS3/PS4 and 360/XBone. I attribute that to the companies being more interested in creating multimedia systems instead of focusing on gaming. How many ways do I really need to access Netflix? Maybe two if you're a functionally retarded monkey.

Too much focus on graphics less on being an actual game. Back in my day we had to use FLASHLIGHT on our TV as part of our controller. I think the funny part is as consoles get more advanced, games get less advanced. GTA V for example is like Final Fantasy, it can sell on the name alone. While the game is good, they keep pushing it back to polish it, yet it still comes out a bugged mess, but at least it's the type of bugs that you HAVE to actually find aside the occasional gamebreaking save ones.

I'd still take Star Fox/Star Fox 2 over games of today, since comparatively, games in the older generation had far more entertaining games. The only credit I give to CoD and BF and such - At least they have actual gameplay to them. Graphics are nice, but no developer is really taking advantage of th system outside of that. PS4/One/WiiU etc should allow for some pretty powerful scripting..yet I've still had tougher encounters in Halo CE Legendary back on the Xbox and Goldeneye 007 back on the N64.

Then comes indie developers...while some are pretty amazing games like Binding of Issac/Rebirth and so on, the ones who make "Retro" style games that make them look just as bad as Atari games seem to have forgotten the entire generations of classic platforms between Atari > PSONEU.

There's also the leap that it takes a development team to really dig into the capabilities of a system. A big example is the graphical difference between Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XII. Same platform, but with 5 years extra development experience (and another major game) in between them.

I've previously classified the FF series into a set pattern for games on each console:

1. New platform, innovation (FF1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 15)
2. Experimentation (2, 5, 8, 11, 14 1.0, XIII-2)
3. Polish (3, 6, 9, 12, ARR, XIII-3)

XIV kind of messed up the pattern since it was released twice, and was thus both the failed experimental phase that never actually made it to PS3, and the final polished version. Since XIII also had three games released, it could be said that XIII-2 and XIII-3 also rolled down into the other buckets as well.

But the difference in the capabilities between each game on a platform, especially starting with the SNES, is almost as great as the difference between the games on different platforms. It was FF8 that introduced realistically proportional character models, but they dropped back to sprite-sized for FF9 before bringing it back in FFX. It was FF4 that introduced the idea of a named protagonist (which they retroactively applied to FF3 on the rerelease), but FF6 that pushed the SNES to its absolute limits.

I have a friend who was a PS3 developer and is now a PS4 developer (he works for Q games... still waiting for Tomorrow Children to come out. There is, um, a lot of math involved in the lighting they've done in that game. A LOT of math.) He said it usually takes 3-4 games before a development team has learned enough about a console to really push it to its limits. That matches the pattern that SE has for most of its FF games.

I'm hoping one day console makers will get over themselves and consolidate into one platform. Some might argue that's PC, and perhaps one day it shall be so (which will require a major overall price drop for tech--people don't want to shell out $1000+ every 5 years or so for a high end gaming rig), but I still can't help but feel some games suffer due to exclusivity deals or the need to cross-platform (and not always well) to turn a profit.

Handhelds are their own beast. In terms of visual real estate, I'd prefer a tablet over a DS, but in terms of control schemes, I prefer a DS over touchscreens. Playing on phones, though, just feels so bleh.