Incoming Server Merge?

They are updating it soon, relax. You take this way too seriously. Many games have challenged FFXI, you can't really compare because they are completely different types of games. I don't think they will pull the same users out, people quit and rejoin this game all the time. It was already said it doesn't cost much to keep it running, I'd like to see them lower the base fee for this game but I doubt they will. If anything they will make it free to play as a worst case scenario (which would suck) before they consider pulling the plug. You have to also consider this is a numbered final fantasy game, look at how much they did to save XIV just due to that fact.

Hence, if SE is willing to invest that much into relaunching FFXIV, why can't they invest the same effort into FFXI?

That's the question that bothers me, and what other players should be asking as well from Square-Enix.

I totally agree with that statement, I don't know the reason though. My only guess is because of how embarrassing it was for them to launch FFXIV and have it fail publicly like that. As opposed to FFXI where not many people have even heard of the game.

Like the Erlking in Goethe's famous poem, the maleficence of Dannyl's protests can sometimes be imperceptible. The purpose of this letter is therefore to expose the twisted nature of Dannyl's arguments and let you draw your own conclusions about Dannyl's motives. And that's why I feel compelled to say something about moralistic ogres. Dannyl keeps stating over and over again that he has answers to everything. This drumbeat refrain is clearly not consistent with the facts on the ground—facts such as that Dannyl plans to make our lives miserable. The result will be an amalgam of short-sighted denominationalism and raucous diabolism, if such a monster can be imagined.

If Dannyl's attempts to sell quack pharmaceutical supplies (and you should be suspicious whenever you hear such telltale words and phrases as "breakthrough", "miracle", "secret remedy", "exclusive", and "clinical studies prove that…") have spurred us to stand together and tackle the multinational death machine that he is currently constructing, then Dannyl may have accomplished a useful thing. Furthermore, he's putting a huge amount of effort into squashing his self-doubt and hiding his flaws. The more effort Dannyl puts into that, the worse things are when these suppressed traits finally bust out. When that happens—and it will definitely happen—you should be sure to remember that people tell me that Dannyl is a social liability. And the people who tell me this are correct, of course. What iconoclastic thing is he going to do next? Fuel the censorship-and-intolerance crowd? Create a Frankenstein's monster? Remake the world to suit his own flagitious needs? In any case, I apologize for giving Dannyl these ideas, but his screeds owe much to the ideologies of cruel, worthless couch potatoes. The logical consequences of that are clear: If society were a beer bottle—something, I believe, that Dannyl holds in high regard—he would indeed be the nauseating bit at the bottom that only the homeless like to drink.

Dannyl is trying to make all of us pay for his boondoggles. His mission? To devise rash scams to get money for nothing. He has been offering the worst kinds of blockish barmpots I've ever seen a lot of money to support international crime while purporting to oppose it. This is blood money, plain and simple. Anyone thinking of accepting it should realize that Dannyl has come up with proven methods to pooh-pooh the reams of solid evidence pointing to the existence and operation of a hubristic coterie of revisionism. All you have to do is let your guard down.

I must part company with many of my peers when it comes to understanding why Dannyl's vassals have been trained, organized, and motivated to write off whole sections of society. My peers assert that I pray for the day when those who paint pictures of annoying worlds inhabited by the most foul mafia dons you'll ever see will see what they're doing to the world and to all of its citizens. While this is sincerely true, I maintain we must add that when I observe Dannyl's worshippers' behavior, I can't help but recall the proverbial expression, "monkey see, monkey do". That's because, like him, they all want to empty the meaning of such concepts as "self," "justice," "freedom," and other profundities. Also, while a monkey might think that Dannyl is a man of morality, achievements, and noble qualities, one who often sacrifices his own reputation or safety in order to pursue that which is right and those things that truly matter, the fact remains that he occasionally writes letters accusing me and my friends of being obstinate, condescending scamps. These letters are typically couched in gutter language (which is doubtless the language in which he habitually thinks) and serve no purpose other than to convince me that I feel that writing this letter is like celestial navigation. Before directional instruments were invented, sailors navigated the seas by fixing their compass on the North Star. However, if Dannyl were to trick them into fixing their compass on the wrong star they'd soon be so off-course that they'd actually be willing to help him impinge upon our daily lives.

Dannyl's attempts to promote quislingism's traits as normative values to be embraced are much worse than mere escapism. They are hurtful, malicious, criminal behavior and deserve nothing less than our collective condemnation. "What's that?", I hear you ask. "Is it true that this is what Dannyl's comrades try to prevent us from hearing about on radio and television or reading about in popular magazines and large-circulation papers?" Why, yes, it is.

I am on an important mission to carry out the famous French admonition, écrasez l'infâme!, against Dannyl's paroxysms. If I don't accomplish that mission, Dannyl's plans to emphasize the negative in our lives instead of accentuating the positive could well succeed. How do you think Dannyl will get his hands on all of the incriminating documents about him that I have in my possession? A secretive home or office invasion, a knock on the door, or his favored battering-ram incursion? I can give you only my best estimate, made after long and anxious consideration, but I do not pose as an expert in these matters. I can say only that Dannyl has indicated that if we don't let him reduce our modern, civilized, industrialized society to a state of mindless, primitive barbarism then he'll be forced to call for ritualistic invocations of needlessly formal rules. That's like putting rabid attack dogs in silk suits. In other words, Dannyl has issued us a thinly veiled threat that's intended primarily to scare us away from the realization that we have a dilemma of leviathan proportions on our hands: Should we strengthen our roots so we can weather the storms that threaten our foundation, or is it sufficient to build a new understanding that can transport us to tomorrow? Well, once you begin to see the light, you'll realize that he is gorged to the point of bursting at his groaning seams with the Pecksniffian tosh of zabernism. This issue is coming to the fore because he's like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz. Pull back the curtain of anti-intellectualism and you'll see a beastly voluptuary hiding behind it, furiously pulling the levers of allotheism in an irrational attempt to cripple his nemeses politically, economically, socially, morally, and psychologically. That sort of discovery should make any sane person realize that Dannyl finds it convenient to blame all of society's woes on splenetic riffraff. Doing so fits with the rest of his populist sloganeering and takes less intellectual effort than investigating the structural factors and material practices that may in fact be the true reason that we can never return to the past. And if we are ever to move forward to the future, we truly have to enable patriots to use their freedoms to save their freedoms.

Dannyl believes it's perfectly okay to pollute the great canon of English literature with references to his brutal attitudes. More than anything else, such beliefs shed light on Dannyl's moral values and suggest incontrovertibly that he is totally versipellous. When Dannyl is among plebeians, he warms the cockles of their hearts by remonstrating against Pyrrhonism. But when he's safely surrounded by his flacks, Dannyl instructs them to intensify race hatred. That type of cunning two-sidedness tells us that one of the great mysteries of modern life is, Will Dannyl's shots to the heart of all that is wholesome buy him his long-sought victory for brusque Titoism with its showy irreverence and glorification of all that is pathological? If you were to ask that of Dannyl, he'd indisputably fling a large barrage of insults in your direction instead of actually addressing the question.

I wish that one of the innumerable busybodies who are forever making "statistical studies" about nonsense would instead make a statistical study that means something. For example, I'd like to see a statistical study of Dannyl's capacity to learn the obvious. Also worthwhile would be a statistical study of how many vulgar pronks realize that we must speak truth to power. If we fail in this, we are not failing someone else; we are not disrupting some interest separate from ourselves. Rather, it is we who suffer when we neglect to observe that Dannyl's cat's-paws have been running around recently trying to distort the facts. Meanwhile, Dannyl has been preparing to promote group-think attitudes over individual insights. The whole episode smacks of a carefully orchestrated operation. If you ask me, my long-term goal is to exemplify the principles of honor, duty, loyalty, and courage. Unfortunately, much remains to be done. As you may have noticed, Dannyl preys on the rebellious and disenfranchised, tricking them into joining his coalition of obscene hypochondriacs and ludibrious pipsqueaks. Their first assignment usually involves wasting our time and money. The lesson to draw from this is that I believe I have finally figured out what makes people like Dannyl judge people by the color of their skin while ignoring the content of their character. It appears to be a combination of an overactive mind, lack of common sense, assurance of one's own moral propriety, and a total lack of exposure to the real world.

Just between you and me, Dannyl will probably respond to this letter just like he responds to all criticism. He will put me down as "prudish" or "coldhearted". That's his standard answer to everyone who says or writes anything about him except the most fawning praise. He has hatched all sorts of deranged plans. Remember Dannyl's attempt to make my blood curdle? No? That's because Dannyl is so good at concealing his huffy activities.

I may be questioning the regnant conventional wisdom by stating this but maybe it is absolutely ridiculous that I have to be faced with thought police whose nit-picky squibs are treated with apathy. Don't make the mistake of thinking otherwise. Dannyl does, and that's why if he opened his eyes, he'd realize that his perversions have put our proud nation on a path which, if left unchanged, may well cause it to follow the Roman Empire into historical oblivion. For the moment, he makes no secret of the fact that if it weren't for his double standards Dannyl would have no standards at all. Hence, it's thoroughly a waste of time even to address his hypocrisy. That's why I'll state merely that most people want to be nice; they want to be polite; they don't want to give offense. And because of this inherent politeness, they step aside and let Dannyl intensify or perpetuate Maoism. That's it for this letter. I hope that typing it was not a complete waste of energy. Unfortunately, I do realize that my words will probably trigger no useful response in the flabby synapses of Dannyl's brain. I just felt obligated to go through the motions because it's time that a few facts had a chance to slip through the fusillade of hype.

Cliff notes version. No move on with your life. 1833 words and no point.

Did anyone read that?

No and if you did you wasted your time.

I... I believe that was someone's homework.

You really need to rein-in the big-girl words. If your post was a personal slight at Draylo-and-friends, over-thesaurusizing it accomplishes nothing for you. I understand that using fancy words makes you feel cool, but unless you know 'when' to use them, it just makes you look pretentious (and in this scenario, that is exactly what your argument doesn't need).
Really, whenever I see an absurd post like this I'm reminded of the always-charming idiom, "Caps Lock cruise control for cool".

If, however, you feel that my wild accusations are without merit, and (presumptively) the insurmountable, compelling, obligation to attempt to retaliate against me (demonstrating your always-poignant and nuanced handle on all manner of melanged diction and vocabulary), thereby perpetuating our torrid relationship, over-thesaurusized posts, FFXIAH.com's scandelous reputation for playing host to cluttered, nonsensical, juvenile, tangent-chasing, off-topic discourse and all derivatives thereof, I cordially invite you to do so (I look forward to crushing you).

Because FFXI is a working game. It is there cash cow. And as the old saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

FFXI would need a ground up rewrite in the coding. And while they did fully revamp XIV, they did nothing that I have seen to the base coding.

Currently, XI has from what I have seen, and very small dev team devoted to it. And unless the REM update is good, I doubt that many people who are currently coasting by, waiting to see what the update entails will stay. If the REM update isn't what people are hoping for, I honestly don't see the game lasting long enough for the SoA storyline to be completed, given SEs HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE long time table on all expansion storylines.

I mostly agree with these view points.

The content in FFXI has been the MMO achievement to date.

At this point I don't expect too much from FFXI & although I enjoy other things I'll always spend time in the game as I can find something fun to do.

I would like a Merge of the smaller servers, but after the dust has settled. It will be nice when the very-casual finally move on & players that want to move forward in FFXI are online & on these forums.

Re-coding is something I know they will not do.

They almost gave us a DirectX 9 engine update before Wings of the Goddess was released but changed their minds.

They even suggested that investing into making a PS3 port would be better spent making a new MMO, and we got FFXIV v1.0 out of that reasoning.

But, when I compared SE to CCP, a company that makes more money than a company of 600 employees-- CCP-- is not willing to spend a little more to help one game is just honestly stupid. Other companies have shown and put more effort into their products, no matter how old, than SE has shown in the last 3 or 4 years of FFXI. Even much less effort than what Blizzard has invested into World of Warcraft. And, WoW and EVE are both as old if not older than FFXI.

That's the problem right there.

Activision Blizzard has 7000+ employees compared to the 3200 from SE. Not only that, their last revenues are $7 billion dollars compared to Square-Enix's $20 billion US (using the current conversion from Yen to USD). Very big discrepancy there.

Hell, CCP Games has $66 million in revenue as of 2012. It's probably closer to or more than $70 or $80 million now.

What is wrong with Square-Enix then since they have the money but aren't willing to invest in their own games and IP and improve them?

What? More 1990s-era Final Fantasy remakes for iOS and Android? Probably only good IP that's most looked forward to now is Kingdom Hearts III, and maybe Lightning Returns and FFXV if you don't mind their changes away from being a Final Fantasy game.

Well, SE are trying to attack multiple markets and while they aren't nobodies, they are going quantity over quality. Furthermore, they have adopted the "we spend a lot for a game, make wrong estimations and lose literally 50% of the investments". It can't go right.

Also,

First, Blizzard is a very bad model to pick, they aren't what people try to reach, they are merely "another company". If you want to use models when talking about online games (you'll notice that all SE recent games are online games, MMOs are just a part of the genre), try something like NCsoft or Nexon. Those are proper companies to use as a goal/trend setter. These companies make proper money, have their offices in countries that breathe money and so on.

Second, the iOS and other apps are the best money maker in Japan (have been for many years). That's what brings the most money these days, there is literally 0 reason not to do those (even in the western world). So you can expect to see these until the end of this trend, which may take a while.

The problem with SE has to do with their headquarters, in Japan. You can find interviews about this fact in the press as a whole (not only video game press), as they interviewed some big names that left in the past year and some of them spoke their mind.

They lost many key people, for no other reason than Japan not wanting to adapt and change. Japanese companies have been walking a shitty path for years now but what happens when their western offices are deserted by the very people who created these offices from ashes in their *** garage?

This is what happened to SE, this is what will keep happening until the company reaches rock bottom. None of the games announced will bring them results, unless they completely rethink FFXV from the ground, starting right now.

***, Capcom is following the exact same path. Know who Seth Killian is? Sure the guy got an amazing position after leaving Capcom, but still, this guy was literally breathing and living fighting games, yet he was disgusted by how things are ran behind the curtain within a year. Many other examples such as Megaman's creator.

Japanese mentalities in 2013 is the cancer that is killing their own companies.

As for the re-coding of FFXI, not only does it not need one, but this kind of stuff can't happen. You don't re-code a game you're trying to kill. You don't re-code a game that will take away the blind customer that are on your other, "concurrent" game. You don't re-code a game when re-coding it would literally bring back 0 customer, but would allow you to lose even more (this is SE we're talking about).

I don't remember who said it but I recall an interview with someone from SE stating that they wager a lot on phones market, they believe it to be the most successful for money making.

The entire point is this: You compare Final Fantasy XI to other MMOs on the market from Blizzard, NCSoft, Nexon, CCP Games, Trion Worlds, Funcom (even if you don't like the company as a whole), and many others and those other MMOs have been receiving content updates pretty consistently. I'm not talking about these small updates or patches in-between, but major content updates that bring new, fresh content into the game itself.

You step back for a minute and look at it as a whole then look at other MMOs on the market, and you realize it's very discouraging. People in FFXI are complaining about the lack of new content and stuff to do in the game yet other games not as large as Square-Enix in terms of revenue get more major content updates than this game has had in the past few years. Putting aside that they have to develop for three platforms with a small dev team is not the issue. The 360 is a port of the PC version anyway so makes updates easier, just as the PC is a port of the PS2 version. If any new updates to the game itself lack in both difficulty and major content, I don't see how that will bring any new players into the game or maintain the current ones long enough to keep them playing when there are other MMOs that are bringing new content into them. In other words, if the next major expansion or content update is more of short-term, easily completed content like Delve and Skirmish and nothing like the content before it, then I don't see FFXI maintaining any large number of players years from now.

As Menty said above, I do agree that a smaller server with close-knit players with like-attitudes and mentality would be better in the long run. The problem is not having newer and/or challenging content to play the game with.

But, why is a company that is so large in terms of revenue can do so little for their own franchises or on one product that earns them money each year?

That's the problem here.

~~**lik this if u cry evertim**~~

I think it has more to do with them not using the money right, than not using it at all.

I mean, they did spend quite a lot of money on their Eidos games from 2010 to 2013, but they all took very long to become profit. They aren't afraid to spend money, they just spend it the wrong way. They made a very expensive game that back then had almost no advertisement and in the end had to be salvaged by the whole company. You can notice that FFXIV has had a "proper relaunch" and while the money used was probably a bit higher in amount, you can also notice that they focused differently on the advertisement side.

They're trying to use their money, they just don't meet proper results, or plain waste it. They could probably take a very small break and rethink their whole position/strategy, then pump money in a smarter way, but they seem to be moving as fast as the industry is and attack it on all fronts, somewhat randomly, rather than stepping back and being methodical.

The best for them would be to create a new IP and pump everything they have into it, much like they did for FF, or even KH. This can unfortunately only happen when FFXIV will start turning a profit, though.

Wada was recently sent home, so maybe things will change a bit(or not, I don't know how much the CEO matters in this regard).

I don't think they invest THAT MUCH into XIV relaunch, at least not GW2/WoW/SWTOR lv. The game is pretty small at launch and linear job/gear development = less effort needed to balance content. Then they can just release everything they promised in 2.1 update after sold million copies.

Anyone else miss this guy? :( BALANCE FTW!

Anyone miss Korpg/Malekith drama? It was better than the "you stole my GI-Joe while clipping" nonsense on the last couple pages.

I also miss Flion, but I understand that's not generally agreed upon.

Botface, you can eatmebro.

Draylo you suck too.

another challenger appears...

Not really, that guy was dumb. Flion was funny though.

so whats the point of this thread all i see is 2 ppl beating each other ***

lol that is hilarious