The death of FFXI?

[FFXI_Jay]

I am just trying to get an idea of how long everyone thinks FFXI will be around... What is your input?

[BUTCH]

With the new level sync system set in place, I think you will see a vast increase in exp pts of all ranges . All in all though it's just a temporary fix.

[FFXI_Jay]

It does sound like an honest solution to the leveling problem. But I am wondering how much life there is left in the game. 1 year, 2 years, 3 years or even more??? Do you see SE even releasing another expansion?

[kendrah1]

So long as there remains interest, the development team said they will continue with expansions.

This game doesn't have a set shelf life, it's just as long as there's enough people left to still find it interesting. Currently there's usually around 2,000 people on at any one time, so there's still money being made. If I had to guess, maybe there's 5,000-10,000 per server still, possibly more.

When the Sims online shutdown, I think there were 10,000 subscribers game wide. We're still beyond that point by far. It might be interesting if game interest dwindles and they have to bring together server populations.

[Monarch]

Originally Posted by kendrah1

So long as there remains interest, the development team said they will continue with expansions.

This game doesn't have a set shelf life, it's just as long as there's enough people left to still find it interesting. Currently there's usually around 2,000 people on at any one time, so there's still money being made. If I had to guess, maybe there's 5,000-10,000 per server still, possibly more.

When the Sims online shutdown, I think there were 10,000 subscribers game wide. We're still beyond that point by far. It might be interesting if game interest dwindles and they have to bring together server populations.

If they merged servers the game would really kick off. Now that's an idea.
More players online would definitely build up more interest and hype. WoW is so popular, for example, because of it's high player base.

Square-Enix does have too many servers, now that I think about it...
They shouldn't need the amount that they have, especially now. Perhaps they once did, but they can definitely upgrade some servers etc and merge the players etc. It's more than possible.

[Monarch]

Originally Posted by kendrah1

So long as there remains interest, the development team said they will continue with expansions.

This game doesn't have a set shelf life, it's just as long as there's enough people left to still find it interesting. Currently there's usually around 2,000 people on at any one time, so there's still money being made. If I had to guess, maybe there's 5,000-10,000 per server still, possibly more.

When the Sims online shutdown, I think there were 10,000 subscribers game wide. We're still beyond that point by far. It might be interesting if game interest dwindles and they have to bring together server populations.

If they merged servers the game would really kick off. Now that's an idea.
More players online would definitely build up more interest and hype. WoW is so popular, for example, because of it's high player base.

Square-Enix does have too many servers, now that I think about it...
They shouldn't need the amount that they have, especially now. Perhaps they once did, but they can definitely upgrade some servers etc and merge the players etc. It's more than possible.

[FFXI_Jay]

If I remember correctly, I believe there is something like 30 server (31 is you include the test server). If there was a minimum of 4000 players per server... That would be a minimum of 120,000 players still. 2 $12.95 per player... That adds up. But I have been reading where the same dev team is making a new MMO. How many people will jump ship? 60,000? Heck, even more? My problem is, I want to buy an account and I would hate to drop $1000 on something that I could only use for six months. But with 120k people, I doubt it will end soon. Whats everyone else think?

[Legionz]

It won't be dying anytime soon.

As for merging servers, definitely not a good idea, competition is already bad enough with servers the way they are. Bots would ruin it further than they already have, the only good merit spots would be impossible to find open, regular exp camps would be tough to come by, and the economy would go to shit. Not something I'd like to see.

[Monarch]

Originally Posted by Legionz

It won't be dying anytime soon.

As for merging servers, definitely not a good idea, competition is already bad enough with servers the way they are. Bots would ruin it further than they already have, the only good merit spots would be impossible to find open, regular exp camps would be tough to come by, and the economy would go to shit. Not something I'd like to see.

You are out of your mind.

Square-Enix has set some really good protocols up for bots. There's hardly any bots available that work for FFXI that won't get you banned compared to other leading MMORPGs.

Competition would be a lot more fair, ideally. There's a HUGE inflation of gil between servers. I've seen the Scorpion Harness for 20M-30M gil on some servers and 300k-500k on others. It is ridiculous.

[kendrah1]

MMO competition is fine so long as the new MMO isn't an addition to this game. It has to be so unique that it can't really rival this one. That will retain the membership.

Also bringing servers together would work if only they could find a way to instance exp locations. They could probably do that with zones somehow.

Also with the addition of ffxiah, there's not too much difference in prices across servers these days. You can still make some cash jumping servers, but it's not significantly different like it use to be back in the day.