Fujito 4gamer Interview

If private servers can have dozens of people volunteer hundreds of IRL hours each month to keep their version/dream of XI alive, surely SE can too with an NDA.

The issue here lies in people coming up with cynical responses to "glass half full" POV's of the game.


I never understood why people always say "just let it go", "oh well good times passed" or whatever to something other people still retain sentimental value for. Honestly, there's things we all value, regardless of their current state or origin, and we should understand that some value things more than others and respect it.

Lastly, the FFXI dev team has a horrific track record, in writing, on the national stage, and again almost leading the company to the point of bankruptcy. If there is someone to blame, we should start there.

Private servers have always had a lot of drama surrounding them. A lot of that is to do with these 'volunteers'.

It just wouldn't work. 11 is not a charity and neither is SE.

The game, whenever official service does get shut down, will live on through private servers though, yes. Just like with other games.

This is somehow the most misguided post in this whole thread, holy moley.

As someone who has churned through TONS of volunteers while running a private server, trust me when I say that finding volunteers who are just doing it out of the kindness of their heart is incredibly rare. Most people just do it to either power trip, cheat, or some combination of both.

There are some good people out there for sure, and I was blessed to find a few of them in my time running my server, but there are also others who starkly contrast these wonderful folks to the point that it really makes you jaded. We had to ban way more people than we should have for abusing their powers. Its pathetic that grown-*** adults stoop so low for such low stakes.

Even if SE gave every FFXI player a million dollars IRL at this point, nothing seems to persuade you to say a positive thing about XI at this point.

Hence no point in even continuing the conversation.

Like many, I love this game, not simply due to my childhood but because it's one of the few sandbox mmo's still in existence.

Sadly, any positive, optimistic, or otherwise wishful post about the good times or future of the company seem to be shot down without rhyme or reason even if we otherwise welcome and respect your opinions too.

But you were selling Gil for IRL $$$ as the owner/CEO of your private server though? Respectfully that cancels out any other point.

What are you even talking about? I've absolutely loved my time with 11, the game I've played for the longest. If you check my posts my issue is more with the state of the game now and how SE is very much looking to run the clock down on the game.

If you enjoy Ambu rotations each month and nothing else of real note for the next however long then more power to you, keep enjoying.

Even if that were true, which it isn't, I'm not sure what that has to do with what I said.

I think the only person here arguing in poor faith is you. You're now doing it on multiple fronts, too.

Again, with the utmost respect, you sold Gil, causing a splinter in the dev team of WingsXI leading to HorizonXI being formed, and yet you discredit the authenticity of volunteers, specifically mentioning power trips, cheating or otherwise greed, but here we stand.

All I'm saying is, if money is of concern (which it is) I'm certain amongst the thousands of non-rmt players, SE can find genuine volunteers to help them keep FFXI alive in some capacity.

I don't speak poorly about the community because despite the rmt, the medal doopers, the Tako daily users, etc, there's great people all around it, and from that pool of kindness I'm sure someone with a solution for SE exists.

In an attempt to not make the mods here mad, I'll simply leave my conversation with you at "Nothing you've said about me here is true and there is an overwhelming amount of evidence already on other forums that proves what you're saying is false."

People make up and proliferate wild claims about private server owners all the time that aren't true because they have a natural inclination not to trust them. It happened to me, happened to the servers before me, happens to Horizon right now, and it will happen to whoever comes after Horizon too. There's a whole darned subreddit dedicated to it, lol. A tale as old as time.

But hey, go off, volunteers are obviously a great idea. Surely people will be willing to put up with the abusive community for nothing in return, haha. That's historically shown to work extremely well on private servers, right?

I'm sorry you feel that way. Thankfully this isn't a private server and there's tons of people like myself who love and would do what they could to help SE preserve Retail XI. I will also continue to respect and give the community the benefit of the doubt too.

I'll continue to stay optimistic and hope Fuji's 30th Anniversary comment from the interview becomes a reality for all of us to enjoy.

All the best.

Obviously there isn't major new content coming, but to say it's Ambu rotations and nothing else is to blatantly ignore the other primary endgame content: Sortie and Odyssey. Maybe you don't care to do that, maybe you've already maxed out all your Odyssey gear augments (most people sure haven't), maybe you're not down with the Prime weapon Sortie grind. All reasonable positions to take, but let's not act like Ambuscade is the only thing left to do.

I kinda enjoy just building more RMEAs too. Or doing Dyna with LS friends.

None of this is important at all to actually clear the existing content, but that's not the point. I still have fun hanging out with people on XI, the events are just an excuse to do that. And there is plenty more stuff to do with people besides only Ambu.

This.
I don't understand people asking for more content after 20 years.
There are already tons of things to do, now it's about "personal taste."
If one thinks they've done everything they were interested into, good for them, it means, in their way, they won the game.
Just because it is online, doesn't mean you've got to keep playing forever.
Plenty of people enjoy the entirity of the game, chocobo raising, monster rearing and mog garden, monstrosity, crafting, colleting remas etc.

Marvel's Avengers is made by Eidos Montreal.

Balan Wonderworld is made by Arzest.

Outrider is made by People can fly from Poland.

Babylon's Fall is made by Platinum games.

Chocobo GP is made by Akira.

Stranger of paradise is made by Team Ninja.

DioField Chronicle is made by Lancarse.

Harvestella is made by Live Wire.

Forspoken is made by luminous production: that company is a Subsidiary of SE though so I'll give you that, it can probably be counted as games made by SE kinda? That studio is already gone after Forspoken fail so whatever.

You never set the criteria that games made by a different developer counts too. You only said "SE games" suck. That's why I ask if you meant games developed by SE, or games developed by a different studio but published by SE.

I didn't cherry pick anything, we just used different metric to determine what "SE game" really means.

But yeah, if you want to extend the criticism to SE publishing business a lot of games suck. 99% of video games in the world are 5/10-7/10 games. If you are a big publisher publishing 10-20 games per year then some of them gonna be 6/10 game. This can't be helped, we don't have that many 9/10 games produced per year.

I would be super impressed if any big publisher in this world publish 20 games per year and all of them ended up being 9/10 games tbh.

Do you have evidence for this claim though? Unless we get to see internal financial statement it's impossible to know if one project is profitable or not. We don't know the real sales figure, we can only guesstimate the budget.

Essentially any "this game is not profitable" discussion on the internet will be a waste of time. Just a few weeks ago people on this site claimed FF16 cost 1 billion to make and market...at this point we may randomly type a number in any of the budget/sales discussion and it'll go nowhere.


if you play a game and expect it to be the same as your childhood memory you will always be disappointed, 100% of time.

This is because the time is different now. We have more games to play now, we will compare modern games with different modern games. We have more money and less time as an adult. The technology changed: the awesome technology back then is less awesome now.

when I played retro games like Golden axe in 2023 it was a drastic different feel from myself playing the same game in the early 90. Because I have changed.

Hence I find it difficult to agree with the criticism about SE changing FF. Let's be honest, even if they keep FF turn based, our childhood experience won't come back as an identical experience. Because we are not a child anymore. Haters will probably find 20 other reasons to complain because something feels different from what we expected. It is impossible to please everyone.

If you are dead set that dmc battle system isn't your thing, go play bravely default and Octopath travelers and move on. It is more healthy this way.

Wisest thing ever said in this thread


User scores:
PC: 8.1
PS4: 8.2
Xbox One: 8.6
Xbox Series X: 8.0

Only the PS5 user score is 7.2 (with lots of 0s skewing the result)


I won't say you intentionally cherrypicked the PS5 result; you probably just googled the metacritic score, and the PS5 one happened to be the first result you encountered, and since it fit your narrative, you didn't feel the need to check the 4 other platforms.

That's still not discussing in good faith, and is an indication that the discussion won't move forward.

The other primary content isn't getting any new updates so hence me saying Ambu rotations. Ambu rotations and keeping the servers running is basically what our monthly fee is going on now.

Sortie is a ridiculous grind for a reason and the Odyssey higher levels are basically just luck at a point. Neither content is getting any meaningful updates moving forward either.

And like I said if you enjoy what the game has to offer moving forward, more power to you. Just because I'm criticising what the game has become and my own opinions it doesn't alter your enjoyment of the game does it?

Exactly, XI especially now, is more of a community sandbox than content supplier, then again it always has been.

Yoshi-P himself admits that players should take breaks from SE's MMO's from time to time, mostly because they take forever to push any new content even for their poster child. Last patch raid tier lasted 8-9 months and the 6.4 tier which came out early summer, will last until NEXT summer.

In the end, people should just be respectful of others opinions or enjoyment of the game, even if they don't enjoy it themselves anymore, instead of attacking the "content' of a 20+ year old MMO on a PS2 engine.

People should also respect the opinions of those that have criticisms and concerns about the game and the direction we are now heading into. This isn't an echo chamber.

I fully respect and welcome yours 100%, and realize the legitimacy of some of your concerns too. We just don't need targeted hostility.

You have no idea how many old BG fans complained about the turn based battle system change and "Larian style" in BG3 on the internet when it was announced years ago, lol. Old BG fans were spamming "I want my real time battle system back" "turn based suck!" "This is not real BG!" everywhere.

BG3 is actually a bad example to be used in the discussion here as the entire game feels so different from the BG1 and 2. Larian studio picked turn based system in BG3 because they are more comfortable with it from making their previous games, not because they put OG audience's feel on the highest priority.

It's double standard to use BG3 to bash SE for ignoring OG audience feel if BG3 dev never cared about OG audience feel. People just want to use the "turn-based" part which is cherry picking too.

This kind of complaint will happen to every old series with a modern release from every company, it is not even a SE only problem.

You miss-interpreted my example. BG3 is here to show that you don't need flashy DMC-Ubisoft mechanics to create a successful game. You spilled a bunch of opinion to argue agaisnt the fact that BG3 is successful, FF16 isn't. One use table-top dice rolling mechanics, which is extremely OG, the other decided to adopt flashy DMC style that has absolutely nothing to do with FF mechanics.

I'm pretty sure there are far bigger hurdles than simply having someone sign an NDA. Physical location is one possible concern. Even in a post-covid world where businesses are more open to teleworking, it's common practice for every business to expect their employees to be able to come into the office for one reason or other. S-E isn't going to contract out volunteers from all around the world and never keep close tabs on them. Not happening. And I highly doubt many would be willing to move to Japan just so they could volunteer to help the FFXI project.

There are tons of other possible stipulations that could get in the way. There is a big difference between a community based project and an officially endorsed AAA title. S-E is a big company and any corporation of their size has all kinds of legal red tape and infrastructure that they will not depart from. Their own ego could even play a role. It might look bad on the company if volunteers were more successful at designing content than their own staff, henceforth that could be a risk they'd have to ***. You never know what goes through the heads of corporate executives. Volunteer work is never going to happen.

By what metric? I can't find the newest sales data for both games anywhere, the only one that I have access to is FF16 sold 3m 3 days after release. And BG3 sold 2.5m copies after 3 years of EA.

https://www.denofgeek.com/games/baldurs-gate-3s-sales-prove-what-rpg-fans-already-knew/

We don't have any FF16 sales data 2 months after release, nor BG3 sales data post EA. the old data that we have now is roughly the same. It's impossible to draw such conclusion.

Hell, one is available on PC and another one on ps5. Even direct comparison now will be meaningless. You need to wait until both games release on both platform to get a meaningful comparison.



But you asked for "OG feel" from FF1-9 too no? So exactly what is this OG feel? It can't be just turn based system right?

If new FF is turn based, but it has a map with 20 ! labeled on the map and tell you where to go for the next side quest like a modern Ubisoft game, would you still hate this game for ditching OG audience for newer audience too? Since FF1-9 never have this kind of QoL features. Or would you happily embrace the modern QoL design like this?

Expecting a 2023 modern game with OG feel is just unrealistic, period. Having a turn based battle system doesn't mean FF1-9 feel would come back.

If SE release a modern turn based rpg, I would expect it to have modern gameplay mechanics from every other modern turn based games. But implementing all of these means OG feel would be gone too: Trust me, modern turn based battle system is WAY different from 90s FF.

Finally, if you actually read BG3 community reviews it mostly isn't praised because of turn based battles. People love it because of the insane amounts of details in the world.

Framing the success of BG3 on turn based system alone is completely missing the point.


If SE make a new FF with FF1-9 gameplay I will be the first one who post negative review for them. Not because I hate turn based, but because FF1-9 gameplay is outdated compare with modern turn based games.

Modern turn based games has plenty of mechanics that never existed in FF1-9. Things like damage and targeting indicators, mechanics that focus on enemy interruption and offense/defense change, stacking different status ailments for different results etc. Complicated game mechanics like this never existed in 90s FF but I will expect modern turn based games to have them. I don't see how 90s FF gameplay can be a main selling point in 2023 personally.

FF16 is all but unsuccessful. It's not an insane success either but it's not a flop alltogether.
I'm not sure this is a right metric to tell wether a game is "good" or not though.
I mean FFXV sold a ton and is the most sold FF outside of MMORPG FFs, yet most people in here hated it.


If you compare FF16 to previous games it didn't sell insane numbers, but the culprit here is more that the game is currently an "exclusive" to PS5, and there really aren't many PS5 around, yet. Not because PS5 isn't liked/wanted but more because for years it's been a pain being able to even find one.
We'll have a clearer idea of FF16 after it gets released on multiple formats.

We can already say the public response has been a bit cold in Japan though. Not insanely cold, but definitely much colder than expected.
It's doing pretty nice in the rest of the world.

Again, this says absolutely nothing about FF16 being "good" or "bad", just wanted to clarify that atm despite sales that could surely have been better, it's not selling bad at all.

You are the one stuck on turn-based, brother. If you think that what made FFs special is the turn-based mechanics it's because you haven't played them. It's common to see people mentioning how much they hated FF8 draw mechanics but absolutely loved the game.

FF is about storytelling. Building up to amazing moments that you will remember forever. Ovelia finding out she is not the real princess. Delita's transformation after watching his sister die by hands of his own allies. Garnet watching Lindblum being destroyed by her mother.

You cared for these characters. You watched them developt according to their surroundings. Making tough choices. They had a soul. From ff13 onwards, characters are based on being skinny JCrew model, wearing tight clothes and being edgy. A lot of the budget is put towards making the game look good. It's like putting a super expensive coat on a turd.

THANK YOU! I am glad that you finally get it. :) FF is about story art, music, presentation, the world.

Turn based or action combat system? Who cares. So now can we finally stop argue about battle system because they aren't important to begin with? :D

Exactly my point! :D

Eeeeh
I guess?
But then there's Persona 5 which sold pretty well. I think Persona5 is more the exception than the rule though, so it really says nothing.

I love turn based games and FFs but I agree I don't think a turn based AAA main FF would be the right answer.
The best compromise they could strive for maybe is something similar to FF12? Where there are turns but they are more "hidden", it bears a lot in common with old turn based FFs yet it feels more real time, more modern.
Something new, fresh, but somewhat similar to FF12 is the best compromise I can imagine that could "work" in modern days.

On FF16 specifically I dunno what to say. It seems like a very good game, I'm more concerned with the semi-missing party more than the focus on action itself.
And on this specifically, while I do also love action games, I'm asking myself if they couldn't strive for a better compromise. Something that is action and real time, but slower? With more nuances? I don't know if that would've worked honestly but part of me wishes FF16 could've been an action game with slightly less focus on action.