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How long does FFXIV have left ?
So i just bought ff14 and im actually really liking it, reminds me of ff11 with updated graphics, that being said how long does it have left, will it have the same success and longevity ff11 had/has ?
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FF14 is nothing like FF11, at least in it's current state.
What do you mean when you ask how long they have left? If you mean the 2.0 stuff, it'll be awhile yet, least a year or so. Been awhile since i played, so have missed most news on it.
As for success....doubtful. MMO's don'jt just fail and magiclly turn around. They are reworking the game, and will re-release 2.0 with those changes.
It currently has no where near the success of FF11.
The Deep Web is sca-ry.
when i say howe long left i mean, how long until they pull the plug on yet another mmo.
IMO it has years and pretty sure once they get it on track by the end of th year SE estimates should pickup a lot. My free trial is ending in a few days and I'm willing to pay the $10 monthly for it for the simple fact I have fun in it and don't feel the need to be on everyday like I did in FFXI.
Well it came out over a year ago as a steaming pile of poo -- it was so bad the game ended up being completly F2P -- and has since gotten quite a bit better -- or so I hear I haven't played it in a LONG while -- and just this month has started its paid services. I think the game will be around for a while. I'm thinking about resubbing and seeing how it is now. I remember when I started playing it was pretty bland and boring, but there was still something about it -- probably the graphics and the neko chica -- that I really liked.
I'm thinking it might stick around a lot longer than other people are anticipating. Many say MMOs never rebound from a horrible launch and to this day they are pretty correct. Yet many people are forgetting that this game will get a "second release" many people have been waiting for the PS3 release and if they make the needed changes before then those people won't have the bad taste in their mouths that many of us who purchased it on release have.
If this second release is a success or even a semi-success it could bring back some people who didn't like it. This idea of mine all rests of the idea that they do in fact fix all the crap and add enough content for the playerbase. If they do not do those things by PS3 release then I have no hope.
It's going to largely depend on what 2.0 is like. They're going to have some stiff competition before then, swtor, gw2, tsw, among others. I'm thinking it'll always have some sort of following, enough to keep it alive for some time to come.
well im only very early on in this game but i hope they do improve it to bring in more players
They have a tight schedule ahead of them (a year and a half-2 years for a complete remake barring some assets) but so far almost a year in things seem to be progressing as planned. The new director/producer has shown the kind of understanding of modern MMO's that the old producer never did, addressing similar concerns to people here such as the fact that no MMO has ever managed to rebounce from the initial blunder.
He is at the helm of a 250+ person team with management consisting of directors and producers of recent titles such as XII and TLR.
All that said no plug will be pulled before 2.0 hits the shelves and even in the worst case a small population will net them enough profit to justify the game's existence afterwards. A small stagnant population won't justify developing content though, so in the very worst case the game will float around for a while and the population will slowly drop below the levels where keeping the service live becomes unprofitable.
How many MMO's you see pulling the plug nowadays? SWG is probably the most recent case and that games population was most likely much below XIV's current population. Companies don't do it that often even when the game has dropped under the radar.
I played if for the first time this month.
I was pretty surprised how much i liked it.
I can see where many would hate it, but if you're looking fo something different, and a bit slower paced combat than your normal mmorpg, i think many will like this.
Note, my play experience is based of playing with an xbox controller, and alienware laptop with an nvidia GTX 580 video card. /
The craziest thing about this game is actually trying to pay for it... they really make you jump through some hoops to give them your money... (puts a bad taste in your mouth right from the get go)...
Havign said that, what i hate most is that with tall the running around you have to do , the environment feels very small to me... like all navigation from one area to another feels like i'm running through a tunnel or something... the terrain does't allow a lot of deviation. The other annoying thing is the slight "menu lag" when i do anything... it seems like every little thing you do must have to hit the server to see if it's OK before proceeding...
just my 2 cents...
The game may be doing really rough right now, but it is still full steams ahead for Version 2.0. If that fails to bring in a considerable amount of people to try it as well as maintaining them for the long haul then chances are might fall to similar numbers we have now. Usually that means a "dead in the water" type MMO or becoming yet another statistic in today's MMO market. Worst case it will might go F2P or become a hybrid model if it does not become profitable or barely above the breaking even point. And pretty much almost no chance of coming out with major expansions with dwindling sparse content updated once in a blue moon as a best case scenario if it reaches that point.
SWG had around 40k users back in 2010 and the last I heard was around 20k mid 2011 with no end in sight of it decreasing. It still might have had a chance to make some money had they chosen to make it a hybrid model or a F2P model and lengthen the life of the game by a couple of years. But as usual is life, probably the top 1% who make the final decisions didn't see it worthy enough of a cause to keep the game alive just to make "modest" gains and decided to close it.
Of course in some interviews John Smedley downplayed any speculation that had to deal with recent hacking attempts, layoffs, direct competition to SWTOR. And considering that the team was pretty huge, the higher ups above him probably just didn't see any justification with all the numerous departments to take care of just for a mere modest gain above the breaking even point. Some MMOs in the past have shut down prematurely in the past as well even though they could of kept it for several more years (this usually happens to large sized companies/teams, but it is not always the case).
SWG went straight from P2P to shutdown... no in between.
This isn't entirely accurate. SWG closed for a number of reasons, and while it was around profit, it was a case of profit vs. the cost of renewing the IP. If the IP hadn't been up for renewal, I'm pretty sure the money it was making would still have been enough for them to decide to keep the game going, especially considering they were still developing more content for it when the shop was closed.
As for games being closed down, you have plenty of games that have gone down regardless of the population and the money spent to purchase the license and/or make the game. Tabula Rasa is probably the most famous example, which when closed still had a lot of people playing. True, there's speculation the game was closed more for in-house political reasons, but that just goes to show that it's not all about money.
We've actually had a lot of games close down recently, some never even making it out of development. I will give you however, that the majority of them didn't have the resources SE does. That said, I still don't trust FF14's health enough to invest any time into it. One of the biggest issues with MMOs these days isn't the MMO itself, but how its perceived and the stigma they develop. It will be very difficult for FF14 to recover; it's not just the blunder of this particular MMO, but SE in general is alienating their customers. People thought FF12-13 were shallow, first they hated 11 because it was too grindy and now they hate it because, after finlly finding a balance, they ruin it again with the Goddess Expansion, etc., etc. The franchise is hurting.
I actually keep hoping this game will get better. It's beautiful and I still love Final Fantasy even after all the misteps. But this particular game has me, and a lot of people, wary. They'll have to do something pretty major to get people to be confident in their game again, and starting off be reinstating a sub fee ~before~ people have a chance to try the new patches coming and see if the game really has improved, is a bad way to start. Couple that with all the new MMOs due this year...I dunno...not looking good for FF14.
"Forums aren't for intelligent discussion; they're for blow-hards with unwavering opinions."
Yeah pretty much in agreement with most of the MMO comments you gave. Tabula Rasa was at the tip of my tongue hence why I said "Some MMOs in the past have shut down prematurely in the past" but I didn't want to add anymore examples since my posts usually end up being huge. It is interesting to note how so many P2P companies out there (even though they may be "vastly different" in ideals/ideas/way they operate/products released/what they think of a successful MMO/etc.) that they seem to make very similar mistakes over and over and over again. Lack of decisions/bad decisions/launch/release all hurt them in an almost unrecoverable way these days. I mean money "may seem" is up for grabs in the MMO market even though it is extremely saturated with what over 550 MMOs now.
The thing is the majority of them are F2P models usually made up of indie/small/middle sized companies with only a handful being really successful. And those companies may run fine with 10k or 20k folks. Large P2P companies/teams don't have that luxury. I mean just the P2P market ranging from $10-$15 only has roughly 40 games out of 550 or so (there are of course P2P MMOs ranging from $5-$9 as well). It's like even the few games that have prior history whether through books/console games/movies/online games (which allows them to have some sort of 'breathing room" in today's market with the sheer amounts of MMOs out there) end up screwing up one way or another and the effects are long term regardless of whether they are in house or backed up by investors.
One thing to remember about FFXIV is that there are no impatient investors demanding they be paid like most MMOs have. SE funded XIV entirely themselves, its just them eager for subscribers too get their development costs back, so you can be asured that it'll be around until they do and then some.
They've done a rather good job turning this disaster around, but it still needs a ton of work ~ that being 2.0, so if they can pull that off by early 2013 along with the PS3 launch as they've annouced, I could see it gaining quite a bit more steam and doing fairly well there after...
That kind of talk has been around since FFVIII. There was nothing wrong with FFXII (aside from being unorthodox to the franchise). People hated 11 because it was an MMO during the time when MMO's were not popular- and it still got a loyal following peaking at 800k. Now they hate it because the game gets the attention it deserves (so, not much).
Then again, it's not just XIV that has to do well. Other upcoming MMO's need to underperform too. That should be easy to accomplish as long as the games are released before XIV. After GW2 and TERA what's left, nothing really before Titan and I don't see that one coming before 2014 at the earliest, knowing Blizzard 2015.
You are right about the other MMO's though, they do get closed down. It's surprising, but it happens.
Companies like SOE, Funcom, Mythic, Sigil, and Turbine shut down MMO's who do not "perform to expectations of their investors" (or make them F2P, in effect killing them as legit MMO's in my opiniion at least).
FFXIV's development was not hedged against money from investors, money Square Enix didn't have like these other jokers. It was developed off of solid revenue from their online division alone. They are revamping the game for 2.0 next year at great cost to the company and are determined to keep it alive, if after that point it has no subscribers yes it might be shut down.
The difference between FFXIV and pretty much every other major MMO on the market is SE is at least going to try to do everything they can, short of completely selling out and scamming their existing subscribers (F2P) to turn the situation around.
In the end it is a business decision whether to shut down an MMO or not, and Square Enix is not a weak MMO developer being lorded over by a greedy cut and run publisher. They are a major media company who sees FF14 as a project worth salvaging. I've never played an MMO in such a situation before, Vanguard/SWG/EQ2/LotRO/AoC certainly weren't in the same boat at all before they went belly up or sold out (or were left out to die).
It is silly to compare FF14 to those games, they are not run by the same companies or people.
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