Random Thoughts.....What Are You Thinking?

It's 2025 in a 23 y/o game on maintennace mode. The devs decide to give everyone a free ultimate weapon as a nice gesture to enjoy whatever is left of their stay.

What do people do? They get busy aruging over which weapon is worth picking & trashing others' choices. Because what's FFXI without arguing over every little detail in the endless quest of absolute theoritical efficiency!

Same old discussions since VW days lol

But this is people talking video games on the internet, what else to expect?

It's 2025 in a 23 y/o game on maintennace mode. The devs decide to give everyone a free ultimate weapon as a nice gesture to enjoy whatever is left of their stay.

What do people do? They get busy aruging over which weapon is worth picking & trashing others' choices. Because what's FFXI without arguing over every little detail in the endless quest of absolute theoritical efficiency!

Same old discussions since VW days lol

But this is people talking video games on the internet, what else to expect?

Welp I haven't logged into FFXI for like....3 years? Didn't log in during past free campaign either.

This time I did logged in, got my boots +1 and the weapon. I honestly wanted boot +1 more than the weapon because free 3k TP for parse competition. But I picked up the weapon since it's free anyways. Then I immediately logged off.

It is kinda nostalgia to travel to different locations for boots KI for the +1, but nostalgia is not strong enough to make me resub unfortunately.

I made my choice on the weapon immediately, I thought it's an easy choice without even need an internet argument. Not because the weapon is game changing in the hardest endgame or something, but because COR only has 2 options and one of the is noticably worse(function wise) than another lol.

Maybe one day I'll finally resub and do melee only self light with melee buffs since it has been my FFXI dream for years.

Most mmorpgs are around 20 years old, this is not abnormal.

FFXI is not on maintenance mode anymore, Fujito specially said this. People really don't know what the world maintenance means I guess.

They are not ultimate weapons, they are very fun toys.

Making people happy on an anniversary is a good thing, and this years was massively successful cause it peaked interest.

People on XIAH are mostly serious endgame players, and it makes them happy to argue about stuff like this.

It's not negative, people are having fun. Even if having fun is arguing about the tier of the toys.

This is like wow adding a new raid, and going to a serious endgame discord and asking why people are arguing about a strategy instead of just having fun.

Other MMOs are irrelevant here. FFXI is old and lost most of its players, and hasn't been getting frequent worthwhile updates. That's the point.

Not on maintenance mode anymore.. meaning it was? For how long? And has Fujito's statement been reflected on actual additions to the game?

And to say on one hand that these weapons are "just fun toys" (downplaying them) while at the same time justifying all the endless arguing (& name-calling) over them with being "serious endgame players" isn't making sense. There is fun in having discussions and then there is that.

And that's why the WoW example isn't relevant.

The game was literally about to be shut down entirely, I don't think enough people appreciate that Fujito really did do something to convince them otherwise. Whatever he did seems to have stuck for the time being.

--First, let's look back on last year, 2024. What kind of year was 2024 for FFXI? Fujito:　This was discussed before FFXI's 20th anniversary, but 2024 was the year when FFXI updates would end and there was a good chance that we would move into a so-called "maintenance mode" where we would only maintain the system. 　However, at the time of the 20th anniversary, we received requests from various quarters to continue long-term operation, and above all, stopping the service would lead to the destruction of daily life for active adventurers. 　For those who have supported FFXI up to now, we consider it the mission of the current members to continue operating FFXI as a living game, and this year we proceeded with server replacement (※) so that we can continue stable 　operation in the future. In addition, the current development team is quite small, so we once again identified "what the current staff can do." 　It is difficult to implement completely new content every patch, but we decided to prioritize by saying, "Let's implement a higher-level mission battlefield this time," and while securing the amount of work and time for that, we made various updates to existing content and systems, and steadily prepared for future patches so that players could continue to enjoy the game. This was the main move we made last year. *Replacing aging servers with new ones -- Did you mean that the end of updates in 2024 would end when the implementation related to "Embryo of the Eclipse" was completed? Fujito:　That's right. Looking back briefly at the history of FFXI development so far, we released expansion discs and the like every few years, and after we had completed them with all our might, discussions began on "So, what should we do next? Should we continue?" ... It was a repetition of that. 　It feels like we were always trying and testing how MMORPGs should grow. It was fine 　as long as there was a lot of room left for servers and clients, but around 2022, when we would celebrate our 20th anniversary, we had long since passed the stage where we were releasing expansion discs and the like based on a long-term plan. --If you recall, the "Vana'diel Project" was announced on March 19, 2015, and it was announced that major version updates would end in November of the same year when "Rhapsodies of Vana'diel" was completed. Fujito: The　following year, in 2016, service for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox 360 versions also ended, and the producer at the time, Matsui (Satoshihiko), also announced a policy of "We will continue the service as much as possible, but we will not make any major leaps from there." 　So, from then until the 20th anniversary in 2022, the whole team decided to "do as much as we can, as much as we can, with only what is possible at that time," and we worked on it as a team. 　In that situation, the mechanical lifespan of the server was finally approaching, and we had many discussions about "Should we replace the server and continue operation? Or should we prepare to close it down?" as we reached the milestone of the 20th anniversary. --So, was there a possibility that not only would updates end, but the service itself would end? Fujito:　It was a possibility, but when we reached our 20th anniversary, we received a lot of voices from many people saying, "We want you to continue the service in the future." 　Above all, players were logging in and playing the game. 　So I discussed it with Matsui and decided to continue it on the premise that we would update the servers and development equipment, and consider the careers of the staff, and proceed with concurrent roles and transfers for learning. As 　part of that, I decided to take on the role of producer in place of Matsui. 　At that time, I was thinking that if the excitement for FFXI was on a downward trend when Eclipse of the World was completed, then I would really prepare for the end. 　...But that didn't happen. I took this as an oracle to continue operating it in the future, and decided to continue.

This was discussed before FFXI's 20th anniversary, but 2024 was the year when FFXI updates would end and there was a good chance that we would move into a so-called "maintenance mode" where we would only maintain the system.

They are perfectly relevant

(and those that are not, will get to be)

age of the game means nothing

But you don't need to get riled up when someone calls it "a 23 y/o game on maintenance mode" and try so hard to disprove that as if it's receiving regular, significant updates like, say, FFXIV.

You're like an old woman telling kids to play nice, quit bitching.

No it wasn't.

It was. There was an article about that in the last week or so.

Final Fantasy 11 Nearly Shut Down But Was Saved By Fans
Gamerant

He just misses getting tempbanned from RT so hard that he is being a tryhard troll.
Probably will make his day if he can get others banned along with him.
Explains his take on the "fun toy" topic

Welcome to dealing with RA.

You're like an old woman telling kids to play nice, quit bitching.

Old woman, go do some knitting.