New Year 2024 Event

Draylopatra, queen of denial.

He comes across as someone who missed out on the glory years of FFXI. Someone who desperately wants current retail to be better to fill that void, but doesn't realize that era of gaming is over.

Its best for all of us to realize that dropping sub numbers in XI is exactly what the past two years have been aimed at. They want people to leave this game, as clearly SE views maintaining XI as an annoyance. If those numbers drop far enough, then it justifies not only putting the game on ice, but eventually pulling the plug.

Their plan was for us to transition to XIV back in 2010. The lack of endgame/story in WotG was the initial writing on the wall, but many weren't around to notice it back then. It's not coincidental that they're here again mentioning XIV as the catalyst for future content regarding FF in an MMO.

Why not just pull the plug now and get it over with instead of investing in new server equipment? This isn’t the first time we’ve entered a so called maintenance mode. SE had the opportunity to do this before. That plan just doesn’t make sense to me.

It does seem like there is a lot of new and returning players due to the FFXIV promotion. There are also a lot of current players who don’t play enough to be caught up to recent content. Others have posted that it makes sense to focus on those guys instead of end game players and that seems to be the direction they’ve taken to me. I enjoy the little updates here and there like Peach Power and Vanabout and I also hope they continue to do more of that even if it’s not the next Sortie or Odyssey.

I don't think they are going to pull the plug by choice and, if they do, it'll be because the game has become unmaintainable due to technical reasons. IMO if we see the game die, that'll be the main reason.

I doubt it costs them much to keep the whole thing running especially with subscriptions still funding things and people still coming/going every couple of months. The move to new hardware will presumably make this more reliable and sustainable in the long run. The veteran playerbase is bleeding out from quitting or being banned, but there seem to be a lot of people coming in that are either returning or new players, so in the end I don't think the loss of vet players is really hurting their bottom line much. If you watch the assist channel, subreddit, or basically anywhere this game is discussed, it's a lot of new or returning players asking about doing stuff.

I also know it's anecdotal, but I was running around doing AF for RDM about three weeks ago (before free login started) and was surprised to see how many actual players were in all the zones doing stuff. I can't recall a time when I've seen non-99 characters doing stuff in those zones and they were all players (not bots). It gave me some hope that we have more people coming in, although whether they stick around is a different story. The upside to this is that we'll likely see the game stick around a while if this continues, the downside is that there is no hope for content that interests the majority of the players posting here.

The game generates enough revenue that it's worth keeping alive, but not worth overhauling to get it to a state where they could implement new content. It would make more sense to just create a new game. That was the idea with XIV.

XIV is currently in the patch lull between content releases and cycles and a big XI reference is the theme of one of the game's pillars next expansion. There's a decent push from some XIV content creators to go back and play XI to both kill the time and have the knowledge needed to appreciate the references coming. I think a lot of either new or long-gone returners are in this camp, and with the giant cliff between wrapping up TVR and maybe doing some Ambuscade V2N to participating in modern endgame like Odyssey or Sortie, I wouldn't expect most to last. That's probably where the idea of a museum comes from. Stop in, do the stories, grind the low-hanging fruit, and then likely stop there unless something about the game's battle system grips you hard enough to get you stuck in to try and overcome that cliff.

I mean, I totally get Draylo's perspective. He's loyal to the game he's invested a large part of his life to and wants to see it shown some attention. The reality is, this game is part of a business, and its 20+ years old. The strategy for the game in 2004 is not going to be the same in 2024. No business operates in that way. I just think Draylo and people like him are setting themselves up for further disappointment by thinking maybe SE will reverse course, instead of just accepting the game's current state and future as maintenance mode. At some point, hope ends and delusion sets in. It's time to accept that there is no hope in FFXI anymore. Thankfully, though, FFXI is a very good MMO, so even if they never invest another piece of content into it, it still has a lot to do and will continue to get many hours of play.

I actually respect SE for just coming out and straight up telling us to temper our expectations; In the past, they've not been able to keep their promises they have made with things they would like to do. Many people, myself included, would continue to play the game and stay current, maxing out everything, just in case the day came where they added something new, we were prepared. Now, they are just being honest about things, and if we do happen to see anything additional thrown into the game, it was totally unexpected and should just be seen as a bonus. But at least as a player you know, if you want to keep playing this game and work on individual projects, go for it, but its on your own terms. Nothing (planned) is coming in the future. And if you choose to move on, so be it. Thanks for playing all these years.


They're also doing it for the players' sake. The players keep this game alive, not the devs. The devs are doing bare-minimum at most, but they players keep it going. It's really a community-driven game at this point. Without players to adventure along, the game wouldn't be worth playing. Besides, they've invested a lot into the game, they still care about it to some degree, just not enough to make it their main focus. That's why they do all these goofy Vana'spin-off events and community pop ups in Japan, because FFXI is still extremely popular, at least from a cartoonish lore/world perspective. It's something the community still participates in and loves (kind of like a much smaller version of pokemon fandom). So while they could just pull the plug on it and move on, I think that would leave a worse taste in fans' mouths vs just letting it ride off into the sunset and die off organically, whether that be in a year or 5 years or whatever. People can move on from the game on their own terms, instead of the company forcing everyone to. I think that's the better decision anyways.

I agree. I just never understood the orchestrated destruction theory. If they want to kill it just get it over with and put the resources into something else.

I will say it is tempting to hold out hope since we’ve been through this so many times before. Ie: Abyssea was supposed to kill the game to move players to FFXIV 1.0 (obviously more to the story due to 1.0’s failure). Then we went into maintenance mode before when they announced that mobile adaptation of FFXI. Then we got ROV, which was supposed to be the end, then TVR.

Obviously the chances of this happening again and again are diminishing, and I don’t expect it to, but I can see why it’s tempting to think something will happen. I personally think we’ll only get content like Peach Power, Vanabout, and master trials, which is acceptable given the state of things.

Unironically I think in era Abyssea was one of the best periods of the game.. it was such an enormous amount of content and really streamlined the leveling experience, was lowman friendly barring some fights, and the level increase at the time added tons of exciting new sub combos... not even mentioning the empy gear which was hype.

If they intended that to kill that game I think that's pretty foolish. If we were to compare that era to this one, they're giving us barely anything substantial, with artificial grind and timegates to cap off our content, rather than something expansive.

I didn't miss any era of this game, enjoyed all of them.



The last content they added was only months ago lol. It isn't unreasonable to assume they will add something else after that. This won't be the first time they've claimed to be putting the game on maint mode, and last time the exact same thing played out. People were doom and gloom after RoV and eventually we got new stuff. Don't see any reason not to have some hope they will do something later, I don't lose anything.

I see it more detrimental to be so doom and gloom when we still have the game to play and enjoy. This just seems like some weird misdirected anger. I'm not SE, why don't you direct it at them lol. I don't get what you gain by being so negative, we've been in this situation before and ended up getting new content after they said there would be none. Drop in sub numbers will be inevitable, so its probably logical to assume they will do something to counter that. If not, they will just continue hurting their own business.

I guess I should clarify that Abyssea did not feel that way to me either. But it seems like a sentiment a lot of people shared. People thought it was supposed to send people off but again I never understood the theory that SE wanted to kill the game by some elaborate means.

If anything felt more like they were preparing the game for a smaller community. Like they were anticipating everyone to move to FFXIV. At level 99 you could do all of the old content virtually by yourself, and then all of the new content was also low man friendly.

But again that never panned out both due to people preferring FFXI and because of XIV 1.0’s failure. So we got post Abyssea content.

I fondly remember Abyssea and was hoping to see the atma system reintroduced for Shinryu HTBF

It was a solid resurgence sure, but the biggest issue with aby is that you could finish it quickly, and once you finished aby that was basically it as the rest of the game was made largely redundant, especially by the last aby expansion as atma combos were already busted but then a 3rd got added with even more busted combo options.

Adoulin to me was one of the last peak periods this game had, despite all the annoyances ilvl brought with it the game felt pretty alive again for a good while.

And yeah imo the idea was to let everyone be busted, get bored and move to 14, now if only 14 wasnt a hot mess out of the gate that might have gone better

Everyone goes from Abyssea to Adoulin, but Voidwatch AND Meebles both popped up in that period. Both were repetitive and gated, kinda like what we're doing now. I personally hated both content, but I did them because it was something to do with other people and that is good enough not to be bored.

I'm forgetting Legion, Dynamis rework, and Neo-Limbus. Those were fun. Salvage rework, NNI meh.

Most games just don't keep my attention for long or have enough to do. I don't think the sub cost is worth what they put into the game currently, certainly, but I do think it's worth not being bored. Yhe niche market for FFXI is having something to fall back on when there just isn't anything new and interesting.

Knowing that there is no rush to stay current means I can play jobs I've never had the time to play before. Wardrobes and Odyssey pretty much enable you to gear whatever and that's actually a plus with them coming out and tempering expectations. Maintenance mode would be very frustrating if I was done with everything for every job I want to play, but I still have projects I want to work on.

I finally got around to playing with my stage 3 prime greatsword because RL drama, and I really like it on my RUN and DRK. I haven't played with it on my WAR yet but I assume it will be much the same. I feel like a lot of the pessimism around prime weapons was just because Sortie is poorly designed. Or I just picked a good one?

Maybe I just needed a small break to get some perspective to be able to enjoy playing again

i truly beleive that too, not only you can solo, the solo with your time in abyssea rewarded you with key items to do fights.

"Pulling the plug" seems to be what Fujito is trying to prevent. He's trying to get to a state where sub numbers don't matter to the long-term future of the game.

If you don't like it, or have run out of things you want to do, unsub. I did. It doesn't make me happy, but if Fujito realizes his vision for XI then it means we'll have the option to re-sub next year or ten years from now.

It has more to do with Matsui, but the decision was already made. They cut off the content for the sake of immortality. You'd never have anything new, but you can experience the content you do enjoy for as long as you like.


Personally, that suits me. We've known for years that nothing legitimately new would ever reach Vana'diel. It makes more sense that they would transition to XIV to tell any future stories related to this world.

FFXI would be more fun if the developers cared about the flow of the game.

I only care about FFXI when my friends are on to finish V25. *** slaving away in Sortie and *** them for wasting our time expecting a turnover for our monthly sub.

If they plan on getting me back on after I finish V25 they would need to give me a free R5 Prime and a new endgame fleshed-out 18-man event, Neither they will ever do.

So I pirate their games and call them a ***developer.

Stupid ***developer who removed their ribs for the 20th anniversary so they could suck their own ***

Fujito clearly cares about this game, and what I have seen since he took over is him doing all he can with very limited resources to make this game sustainable. He wants this game to endure as much as the players do, because he has worked on this game for most of its life, and he isn't going anywhere.

He is dedicated to keeping the game alive, and while that means we won't get new content this year, I'm not worried about that. The only players it affects are those who religiously grind this game every day. If they aren't motivated, they should unsubscribe for a year and come back when new content is added. That's what I did, and it was a great decision. I'm behind the curve on content, but I prefer to be, because I have stuff to do. If it gets to the point I feel FFXI isn't worth paying for, I'll unsub again for another year.

This isn't about preserving a museum. It is about getting the servers to a point where Fujito can show upper management that FFXI is safe to invest in. It would not be smart of SE to pump anything extra in to a game so heavily reliant on rare PS2 dev kits. Now, if Fujito can find a way so they don't have to keep looking for and maintaining ancient tech, then they will naturally have more time and money to put toward the game. The Japan event mention is Fujito letting us know that JP players still very much appreciate FFXI, and that should be seen as a good thing. The more events FFXI can host, the better it looks to upper management.

It is painful that Fujito had to flat out say we won't get content, but at least it is for a very good reason. Anyone who cares about this games survival will appreciate his honesty. He knows it sucks, but he also knows it is better this game is still going strong in 10, 20, 30 years time. He clearly feels this is necessary, otherwise he would be giving us more things to do. So, yes it sucks, but his heart is in the right place.

if the wiki is accurate, everything attributed to fujito is terrible for the game and he's single handedly brought it to it's weakest point ever

I see no reason to kiss his behind. The guy has barely done anything beneficial for the game if you ask me. It is pretty atrocious how they've treated XI, thats why I hope when the inevitable sub drop comes (which it will with sparse updates/content) they will come to their senses. People can call that delusional, but this isn't infusing a ton of revenue into the game, its literally adding ***like HTB or master trials to keep people interested which I can't imagine taking that much in terms of resources to ensure longevity of the games life.

You saying only people who religiously grind the game every day is silly... everyone and anyone that plays an online game wants new/continuous content. Also those people who play every day are the ones keeping it alive for you to come back once every year... Without them you can see the doors closing on this game a lot faster so maybe you shouldn't discard how they feel so lightly. Some people are so weird with this "you should be grateful its even there!" when there are so many other older MMOs still around and getting new things, you guys just settle for anything at this point I guess.

I personally don't think they are 100% to blame, its mostly SE. I bet after the fail of FF16, which is constantly 50~70% off, they are cutting back resources to all their projects.

You're reaching critical levels of cope, you might wanna pull the mask away before you OD.

The spine is the issue bro, not the ribs. If it was the ribs, there would be rib removal clinics on every corner.

https://wccftech.com/square-enix-will-apply-ai-aggressively-to-create-new-forms-of-content-says-president/
TLDR - With no growth engine, CEO of Square Enix signals layoffs during 2024 and use of AI procedural generated art as a cost savings measure.


Imagine thinking this company isn't heading into the shitter.

Teach the AI how to develop ps2 games and you've just tripled... nay...... quadrupled the active manpower to disappoint develop new content for XI players