Is FF11 Doing Better Than We Thought?

Last I heard DQX had 500k subs. Might have dropped some since then, but yeah, FFXI would be in a distant third.

If you read again it doesn't really say how many players FFXI has... It is 3 games in the article (FFXIV, FFXI and dragon quest) FFXIV has 500k wich means the other 500k is for both FFXI and dragon quest...

Verda's number seems to be more right though :) (I wouldn't think this game has more then 150k subbers these days)... .

Even if it's 110k that's still well over a million dollars a month for what has to be only a fraction of that figure to keep it going. Not a bad little bit of income for the little upkeep it costs them.

Most pplz i know only sub to 14 when theres an update, then they unsub cuz they r bored.

The playerbase of ffxi is just so far spread out which makes it seem more empty of a game then it is... Plus most people tend to have at least 2 accounts so the numbers may be skewed a bit.

Had a friend suggest a ffxi Mega Server which is the greatest possible idea imo. I pondered SE creating an NA onry server just cuz a merger wouldn't exactly increase NA population as much as it would JP population. Idk just my thoughts on it.

I do not think that it would benefit us. Imagine standing in que's to pop Unity NM's or Delve or DM/BC's..... AH/crafted/HMP/Alex/Currency would be dirt cheap though.

FFXI is still doing way better than many of the new super over hyped MMOS. People just play those 2-6 weeks and then never look at them again. FFXI nowadays caters to a pretty special playerbase kid of how Eve Online does.

In the realm of the super linear easy progress MMOs, FFXI could even be considered a Sandbox MMO by todays standarts.

What would it cost to keep FFXI up and running, as well as have the necessary number of people working on the game?

Do we have any idea how many people are working strictly on FFXI?

There was a thread a couple weeks ago regarding server merges, and I was surprised to see that the overall consensus was "No we don't want a server merge." I thought that would be healthy for at least the smaller servers who can merge with another small server. Viola, you have an average sized server where shouts are happening throughout the day. Being on Asura I may be a bit jaded since it is a larger server, but I haven't had a queue for stuff like incursion/delve/High-Tier fights at all. On top of that, a merge would lower SE's server costs and probably promote more people to resub and play if they can come back to an active server.

Separating players by region wouldn't work, unless your regional server was suggested and you could opt out. Half of my friends are EU, one is in China, and a couple are JP. :(

/looks at watch

where the hell is draylo!?

*clears throat*

Ahem...

*yells really loud*

"YES, IT'S WORTH IT!"

He was banned from FFXI, rumours say.

"...And thus, the legend of Draylo was born. On cold morning days, you can sometimes hear the faint cries of the wind saying..."Yes, it's worth it"

They cut down german and french support, so only japanese and english is left now.

Not so much.

Most "dead" MMOs have a ratio of 1/3 when it comes to playing/paying customers. Which is why companies that have MMOs are happier when their customers do not play the game.
FFXI is the least populated MMO of the 3 at approximately 80k~ paying subscribers maximum, with maybe 20 to 30k playing.

The numbers for FFXI were still "high" until Adoulin came out, actually. And by high I mean on par/higher than what FFXIV has now.

The servers are in SE's headquarters, they're not rented or whatever. The cost isn't that high as they're always 1 generation behind anyway.

Management is nowhere near 100k a year. Which is why everyone is leaving the ship and SE has been replacing with random people. SE wants talent, yeah, but they don't want to pay for it.

Translators etc aren't great either.

You guys really give SE too much credit. The people aren't given stellar salaries and they're nowhere good enough to deserve salaries that are that high anyway. Only the big names and some very key people have 6 digits salaries or even close to that. Also, SE uses most of its employees for multiple roles, so there is no need to hire 2 persons when you can have one working both jobs.

Well that's also cause A Realm Reborn was released just a few months after the Adoulin expansion. Adoulin content on release was really difficult so I'm sure a lot of people jumped ship after wiping to tojil over and over to xiv.

People working strictly on FFXI, don't expect more than 30 or 50. And even then, I think it's lower. The reason being that, as I said above, most of the employees have more than one job and FFXI/FFXIV overlap in 80% of the situations. Only the translators and QA do not overlap, that's 10 people. Add the devs, I think they're 20 at best. Add the big names, say, 10, that's 40. We can add 10 more from wherever, but that's pushing it.

Not even, Tojil didn't exist.

First, not everyone bought Adoulin, meaning that it had the effect of pushing people away. Second, of the people who bought it, a h u g e chunk left within 3/4 days. Then another huge chunk within 2 weeks. Then, the players have very slowly been leaving the ship the way they did in the past.

Furthermore, the number of people who left and who only had a FFXI account is high. I'm talking strictly FFXI players leaving the whole SE MMO business here.

Most people dropped out of FFXI because of the rme changes and ilvl. That's why at Adoulin release game was full of people with hopes of fun and 3 months later population dropped to 1/3. Surely ARR release also helped convincing some to leave, but it was more like an incentive to do it rather than the main reason.
Months later some came back, but many kept leaving and still do. The playerbase shrinks slowly and the game is still alive, but it only goes down.

What is this 3rd mmo you guys keep speaking of? Dragon quest? I tried searching but didnt find a home page for the game.

DQ, yes.

It's JP only at the moment, on Wii.

/removes his spoony bard hat and pours some of his 40oz on the ground

go easy bro....


;