A weird dream (A Discussion on FFXI's future)Follow

tl;dr - SE should re-release FFXI for XBox 360 at least, if not also for PSVita


So I just got up about 20 minutes ago, waking from a really odd dream.

inb4OMGLJ

In it, I was walking through a parking lot of some big box store, and passed two guys talking about games they were looking forward to play. For some reason, one guy stopped me and asked me what I thought of Final Fantasy XI. The question caught me off-guard, since you never normally hear talk of this game, so I glanced around and saw on the back of a delivery truck that FFXI was releasing in 2013. The picture on the back was of the classic FFXI logo on an XBox 360 package. The dream goes on but I'll stop there, the rest really isn't important to this thread.

So, you are likely asking yourself why the hell I bothered creating this thread. Well, it's because I've been thinking about that dream, why I had it, and what it could mean. Now I'm not saying I'm seeing the future here, but the more I think about it, the more sense it makes to re-release this game for XBox 360.

Let me explain.

First, Square-Enix is the company of the re-release. Let's face it, they've probably released every game they made in the 90's about 4-5 times. Hell, if you check out their YouTube channel, they have an ad there for the release of Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions for iPod Touch and iPhone, and they are reworking the game to run on iPad this fall. If they feel they can make a profit from it, they will release it again.

Second, there's a ton of renewed interest in FFXI. After all the new changes, players are returning, and new people are starting the game. Sure, it's not the numbers they saw in 2004, but more subscribers means more money. If they can generate a little buzz and release a complete XBox collection set with Abyssea on it, they might gain both new sales and new subscriptions.

Lastly, they need the money. The company hasn't had a really huge hit since XI. XII was a good seller but didn't reach the iconic level of X or XI, and XIII was so critically panned that it's shocking they are bothering with XIII-2. They are making decent money from remakes and releases on the PSP and Gameboy, but nothing as huge as their multi-million sellers of the past. Right now SE is in a game of inches, and having bled money for a year on an MMO that is essentially dead in the water, it would not surprise me that they try to resurrect XI.

Now, why 2013? Well because 2012 will be the year of FFXIV. Honestly, it's not getting released this year, there's no hope in that. The "Golden Patch" hasn't truly come, and they have yet to hit a happy medium that players are truly loving. Honestly, I haven't played in forever, and just watched as an outsider to see if the game can ever be made into something approaching good. But fixed or not, SE has to get it out the door and into subscription mode soon, or risk further angering their investors. So they will need to release the game next year, like it or not. The updates to the billing system of XI make that more likely, as they are trying to get players accustomed to using these services as opposed to in-house billing.

So I can see them making one last push next year to get players into Eorza before realizing that the game is a failed endeavor. Likely it will lapse into F2Pw/Cash Shop or a two-tiered Free and Paid system. So they still need the infusion of cash XI offers.

Honestly, FFXI should be re-released, and not just on XBox 360. It should come to PSVita. With mobile gaming becoming a bigger market, no MMO has really stepped up to become the mobile WoW. There is a few games out there, most notably Pocket Legends, but none from a major developer. If they were to take the risk, re-work the game's UI to be scalable independent of the graphics settings, and release it for the handheld, it could make them a dominant force there, and perhaps even inject new life into this game.

So, after writing this mini-novel... What do you guys think?

I just got an Android phone yesterday. (My short-bus phone was recycled.) You know how we always joke that FFXI can run on a modern cell phone, right?

FFXI needs to be coded into a platform agnostic version, such as Java. It'd be a labor intensive project at the start, but they would guarantee that it could run on everything from Androids to Apples to Linux distro knockoff tablets. Do it right the first time, and you only have to make minor cosmetic tweaks to get it to run on everything else.

Completely off topic but I'd like to welcome you to Team Android ^.^ *throws confetti*
Now download Angry Birds and be forever addicted lol

one would think they would allow you to just play with ppl on ffxi v2... or would hope they would

No, any portable version of FFXI should be on Game Boy (the original). Then they could focus on gameplay over graphics. How well would FFXIII port back to Gameboy? It would get SE back to making good games. iPod Touch makes me think of that '90s song with I & touch in the title. The DS totally should have made that their theme song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JrDCSHbLk



Looks like you need to level up your Guard Skill.



2012 won't be FFXIV's year. 2011 wasn't. 2010 wasn't. It's as memorable as those seasons the Tampa Bay Buccaneers & Detroit Lions couldn't win a single game. It's a gigantic debacle and SE is likely to get a better return on (sum of investment they will pour into FFXIV from here til the project ends) by gambling it at a pachinko parlor rather than on developing FFXIV. The fact the golden patch hasn't come in a year and the patches that have been improvements are baby steps and there's still a mile to go... over spiky a'a lava to make it playable makes it seem like a glorious FFXIV is a mirage in the sun.

I would say FFXI doesn't need a golden patch, just a few silver patches. FFXIV needs more than a golden patch. Not even a platinum patch and air freshener would cover its flaws. It needs an infusion of quintessence.

And to re-release FFXI, they need something big. Ahem, something B-I-G. A true new expansion, new lands, and at least 1 new job (something new to play with), a few new beastmen. Basically, what ToAU was. New lands need to be totally new. Abyssea is familiar lands viewed through a lens darkly. SE is Sega now, becoming very fickle. They need to show they are going to support their consoles/games fully to have the confidence of their players.

The current multipack that contains everything plus Abyssea is download only, not a boxed copy. From the likes of Steam and Direct2Drive.

Seeing it in a shiny new box on shop shelves again would definately get a new generation interested. Whether it was just a reprint, a new multipack of existing content, or a whole new expansion. I'd certainly welcome it.

You realize that the Playstation Vita's hardware specs are almost exactly the same as Apple's A-5 mobile chipset right? The only real difference in specs between them is that the Vita uses a quad core version (SGX543MP4+) of the same PowerVR series 5 GPU instead of the dual core version used by Apple.

Any ARM Cortex + PowerVR Series5XT based mobile device (even ones using a single core GPU) should have no problems running FFXI because it's more powerful than the PCs that were out when FFXI was released. The only real problem would be compiling FFXI for ARM and rewriting it's renderer to use OpenGL ES.

Edited, Aug 14th 2011 7:19pm by Lobivopis

Still not as weird as the dream I had a few months ago about being asked by a couple Chinese guys to beta test FFXI on the Nintendo 64.

What's so bad about FFIV? I'm not a PC guy, so I haven't played it. I was looking forward to its release on PS3, though. Why does everybody say it sucks so bad?

I think it could work on Vita, because FF11 was made for 56k modems, so even if you were playing with the high latency 3G one, you could still play FF11. Although I would probably just use the hotspot on a 3G/4G phone, then drop an extra 50 bucks.

I'd be happier if they just pulled the plug on FFXIV finally and gave us FFXI-2 like so many of us wanted in the first place.

Ah yes, FFIV. I would think a game based on SNES hardware, no matter how steep its hardware requirements for its 16-bit graphics features, would offer negligible difficulty in running since the technology is 20 years old. Even 10 year old computers can run an emulated SNES just fine.

Given the user unfriendly interface for FFXIV which has gotten only mildly better ("but where is the fun? 'looked all over Eorzea and couldn't find it. Does fun have a 1:256 drop rate or something?"), should the FFXIV dev team be looking to port FFXIV to the Virtual Boy, (in)famed for its user interface being akin to a crown of thorns? It'll hurt your eyes and your neck.

Midgets and Manthras is the only thing the two games share. I can't enjoy FFXIV because there is nothing fun to do, and no uber gear to aspire to obtain. Easy mode =/= a more satisfying MMO experience. I tried coming back to XI recently but it's just not the same, and my RL friends no longer play. *sigh* Maybe in another year.....

Because it sucks so bad...



My cell phone runs a SNES emulator just fine. And no, I'm not kidding.

Edited, Aug 17th 2011 1:03am by Turin

Well I think the graphics for FF11 were def ahead of its time. I honestly don't think a graphics update would hurt the game.

For a moment (and very recently), I tought about reactivating my FF11 account for the 4th time.
Then I realised parties aren't what they used to be (heck, even in 2008 all that ppl wanted to do was to Level-Sync in Qufim Island). Oh it worked allright, but I never got the chance to see the Boyhada tree and "Classic Zones" pre-Treasures of Aht Urhgan.

So I again decided NOT to get in; which you could say is my loss. Maybe one day I'll come back again.

- - - -

Then there's the matter of FFXIV, which took my beloved Mithra/Miqo'te to a whole new level of graphics that almost made me drool. Unfortunately the game was really bland, with crafting skills worse than FF11 (not kidding), no AH, and Crappy world (West Ronfaure wins hands-down versus Gridania Forests, to only name that). That was a real bummer because I really wanted FF14 to be good, I wanted to spend another 4 years playing my character. Maybe it'll taste better with age.

- - - -

And now I read that dream of yours, I must say it's an interesting Idea. Assuming we could get FF14 graphics into FF11 zones, and that a complete FF Restart is mandatory on the new Servers, I *really* see myself and a lot of other re-joining to repeat the experience over again. Re-leveling, getting to do artefact armors again for the fisrt time without having level 75's (now 90 I hear) bail you out if you make mistakes. It has a definite appeal to me.

I would also kill all of the easy XP that was introduced in the recent year, Since I haven't been playing I do not know how it is called and stuff (Abyssea?), but my sister is still playing and saying there is that zone that can easily net anyone 20k/hour or more. That's insane, I want to play FF11-upgrade, not an easy-XP WoW (which I just can't stand anymore).

Bring back classic FF11 :
- With the book quest thingies; usefull for getting thru early levels for most classes
- Keep all the class and UI/mechanics upgrade we got over the years
- Keep level sync alive, but limit it so (for exemple) after level20 in the Dunes, you have to go to another zone, no free ride to 75. (Note: you can still play with your newbie friends, you just wont gain any XP or skill past level 20 in this example).
- I don't mind keeping all the expentions in (up to ToAU anyways), but balance it so it is still worthwile to go to classic areas. I remember all there was was colibries, which are fun, but when no one wants to go anywhere elses, it sucks.
- Heck, if they wanted to, they could recreate FF14's Ezora into FF11-Remake's as a destination or another beginner's nation.

Let's just say I would be extremly interested to re-do it all with the knowledge of the game I have today...
You, sir, would certainly be getting my money for a long long time.

Thanks for that post, and Cheers !
-- FrancoisX


Edited, Sep 8th 2011 4:56pm by FrancoisX

Edited, Sep 8th 2011 4:56pm by FrancoisX

Edited, Sep 8th 2011 4:57pm by FrancoisX