Dev Tracker - Discussion

Personally, I don't expect them to be a non-profit, but the cutthroat business tactics with no emphasis on customer experience are disliked by those of us that grew up during a time before they were as prevalent.

Nintendo wasn't always concerned about how to milk every last dollar, they did their profitability analysis and sunk as many resources as they could into a $50 game. If their margin was lower than it could've been, so be it, the game was as good as they were able to make it and it showed.

Microtransactions, features being intentionally worse, planned obsolescence, etc.. are just depressing. We can't really do anything about it besides get pissed, so it's pretty reasonable that people *do* get pissed.

Only thing you can do is not support it with your wallet and give feedback. It may be ignored, but if enough people did it they'd stop bothering (or dig a big hole ignoring their customers and go out of business).

I personally feel like I get enough value with my sub + 2 paid wardrobes at the moment. If they actually changed how inventory was handled and sped up loading, I'd be tempted to buy more wardrobes but it seems unlikely. As it is right now, I can live easily without them.

People having multiple accounts is not quite so cut/dry. Adding a few extra bucks per month is per character most likely. I know more single boxers than multiboxers. Anecdotal yes having one of the oldest MMOs cost more than modern ones is odd. Something like that could be off-putting to newcomers.

And granted, even wardrobe 3 isn't something newcomers are even going to need for quite a while unless they're hoarding junk.

On the flip side, with how many people I find out are heavy into RMT and no matter how much they're struggling in real life will still find it in their budget will still put money options in this game over other priorities.

Addicts. They're who the games are built for.

Just do one more daily! Just water one more flower! Come back in 5 minutes for another energy point! Login tomorrow for a free chance at a dring! Don't miss your odyssey run today or you'll be behind!

have all the best and situational gear and weapons (and never use most of it) but you HAVE TO have it or you can't play with (us)!

You're not wrong. I'm sure that's how MMOs in general are designed. It's a shame so many can't find that happy balance but as I've learned in the world of nerds, there is always that guy (or three) who have to prove they're the bigger nerd.

you mean to tell me that they didn't just put the game into maintenance mode and pocket our monthly fees?!?

The whole not support it with your wallet thing, doesn't work for this game. They would gladly shut this game down and focus only on XIV, so if people really love this game and enjoy it they can't vote with their wallet sadly. It's in a really weird position.

why would they love to shut down FFXI? as long as SE is a profit oriented company you can vote with your wallet and as long as FFXI turns a profit they have no incentive to shut it down.

voting with your wallet doesn't necessarily mean to quit for good. simply don't book the new wardrobes, maybe send a couple of mules and/or alts on holidays.
it just needs to have enough of a impact to negate the profit from the extra wardrobes and they should get the message.

So much fire while i am on a break from ffxi, but in the meanwhile HAVING FUN WITH DQX !!

I understand his position. He has a strong open dislike for FFXIV and he (as others do) blame the downward trend of FFXI development on FFXIV.

While I still believe charging more and more for even more wardrobes is lazy, we honestly don't know how easy it would be to program something like bigger inventories or a Mog case satchel purse? would be. I'm sure some can theorycraft how easy but nobody really knows.

If you honestly believe this decision was made due to difficulty of other options, then you are not qualified to comment on this type of thing. The reality of the situation is that they realized any storage more useful than wardrobes could result in loss of wardrobe sales rather than increased revenue. It's a profit-orientated decision, not a development-orientated one, and this should be very obvious. Integrating with their web billing service was probably the most difficult part for them to accomplish, adding bags and the associated menus is trivial.

To be honest, nobody here is qualified. It's all theorycraft or things people like to make up. If I had a nickel for every time I saw on a forum, some guy pretending like he knows how MMOs are made, how the business makes their decisions or why, I could buy you and I a.... wardrobe (for a year).

I saw this in WoW more than any game. Ask them for their source and they reply with some poor attempt to poke at your intelligence as a sad cover-up.

Nobody even said that's why the decision was made. Nobody here knows the reason. At this point, it doesn't matter. We still don't even know how they're going to do it. Are they simply adding more wardrobes for a fee? Are they adding 5-? and giving us 3, 4 or both free so it's not a simple nickel/dime situation?

I mean, it's a safe bet that the answer is literally always "cause money, duh"

Unless the company is new and/or CEO has a specific agenda (and even then the real end goal is money, but willing to take the losses and earn props in the beginning)

Money is always the biggest driving factor in a lot of decisions that are made. I've read more interviews than I like to admit and many devs do admit that some decisions are made due to technical restraints. Which doesn't always mean the code is hard to write, it just may take a while and longer with a more limited staff.

It varies from company to company, game to game.

I think you know this but every problem is solved by money.

Technical restraints, means it costs too much.
Not enough staff, they cost too much.
"can't" almost never actually means it can not be done, it just means it costs too much.
Sometimes there literally isn't a solution yet, because it hasn't been invented (because no one is making enough money to do it)

I'm sorry, this one made me laugh. Not because it's not true but because it IS true.

First thing it made me think of was when Blizzard replaced real GMs with the automated ticket system. Those useless sycophants that troll the CS forum and agree with everything every blue poster says, even if they're wrong and claim that it's "far better than what we had before". Makes me laugh when I see people say stupid things when they know good and well it's not true.

You're hiding behind 'technically we cant know without looking at SE's code', when this is a situation where it is nearly impossible to even fathom a design method which would make it hard to accomplish. While it's true that outside perspective is limited, FFXI is a game that has had an immense amount of reverse engineering done. There is no reasonable server model where adding a couple more bags is difficult, and the client side changes are easy enough that ashita or windower devs could implement them ourselves without the source if we wanted.

If you want to claim that there's some possibility a very simple task cannot be accomplished, I would be inclined to say the burden of proof falls on you, because the default standpoint would be that it is a very simple task and thus can be easily accomplished. By far the most likely situation is that wardrobes are simply a single flag different from other bags, and they could have just as easily added new 80 slot bags that can hold anything by altering that one flag. But, if they do that, then potential buyers will buy the new bags instead of wardrobes 3 and 4. They've shown numerous systems capable of using item data or player data as bitflags to store immense amount of items without directly consuming inventory. But, if they do that, then users will use those systems and reduce their need for wardrobes 3 and 4. Temporary items aren't stored as a fixed inventory, and are dynamically populated by zone. The same technique could be used to make a bag that populates based on job. But, if they do that, then users will use that system and reduce their need for wardrobes 3 and 4.

If you want me to accept that we cannot know with 100% certainty, that's reasonable, and I can do that. It doesn't change that we can have enough certainty to draw conclusions. It might be technically theorycraft in that sense, but so is gravity.

That's exactly what I'm saying. But I'm not trying to convince anyone specific. Not hiding behind anything, have no reason to. I stand by what I said. I'm not defending SE, if that's what was misconstrued at all. I have other grievances with them that are irrelevant to this topic.

While my confidence level in SE isn't where I would like it to be, I'm still waiting to see how this particular situation pans out. They could surprise me.

We're still paying the same retail price for video games that we did 30 years ago. If people think microtransactions are bad, wait until they hear how much video games would cost without them.

I paid $50 tops for a brand new NES game in the 80s. Some games were even as cheap as $10 brand new. Games for current gen consoles were $59.99 for quite a while. It wasn't until the PS5/Series X that games can now start at $69.99. That last part makes me roll my eyes at times considering how many devs are making upgrades for those consoles for free.

I believe games would still cost what they do but microtransactions are just icing on the cake to the company.

That'll be $69.99 and $20-XX for the season pass, sir. You DO want to experience all of the magical game world we've created, don't you?

I'm actually fine paying extra for additional content as long as it seems to be quality content. I think I've only been burnt once on a DLC but I take them for what they are... smaller-scale added content. Some expect a full blown 2nd game or other unrealistic expectations.

But paying extra to make my guy sparkly or something else aesthetic... no. And that's just me. What others do with their own money is their business.

I'm not complaining about the overall cost, but the predatory practices and unfriendly design principles. $50 in 1990 is like $110 now, but I'd gladly pay $110 for a complete game that was designed around the optimal user experience, rather than the easiest way to get people addicted.

To be fair, inflation is a thing, and a $50 game in '89 would be over $100 in 2022 money. The upper end for cartridges also went higher in the 90s, with occasional SNES or Genesis games hitting $80+ - something that continued with the N64. Not that every single one cost that, but even a $69.99 standard price now is relatively cheaper than games coming in at $50-60 over 20 years ago.

PS1 was where we saw the prices dip back down to the $40-50 price point and creep back up, but games are cheaper than ever. Relatively speaking. Nevermind that you can go pay $15 a month for Game Pass n' such.

That's why I said tops. There are still games today that you can easily spend that much ("Ultimate editions"). And as mentioned, I paid as low as $10 for brand new games back then too which, if using the same conversion that I did equates to $26 today. Even the $50 ones I bought were uncommon. I think the last brand new game I paid that much for was SMB3.

I have the same feelings as Thorny on the subject. I'll gladly pay premium price for a complete and polished game. There are a few big games out there that I've yet to play because I'm waiting for all the bugs to get fixed. If they do, I'll end up paying less than original price. If they don't, I saved X dollars.

EDIT: And when I say "all the bugs to get fixed", I'm not saying the game has to be flawless. One good example is Cyberpunk.

That's not exactly what you were initially saying. You asked if anyone here was qualified to know how easy it was to build bigger inventories, and when you got a response from a subject matter expert, you blatantly and without understanding, said

Well fact check, Thorny is qualified If anything, it would be his own and backed up by reverse engineering results and very high knowledge of the game engine Only thing made up here was your baseless criticism.

So there is a BIG difference when you say you indeed meant that there isn't 100% certainly, while in fact you were drawing your point there is absolutely no certainty at all, which was not the case.

Then you clearly didn't understand what I was saying. And I didn't ask if anyone was.

I wasn't poking at Thorny and I don't believe he was doing that either. I was just having brief discussion but I stand by every comment I've made here. I'm sure he's smart on the matter but he doesn't come across as someone who needs social validation. And as far as anyone's expertise on anything, you're talking to probably one of the last people on here who care about anyone giving theirs. I've been on forums long enough to have heard it all. I've seen people make all kinds of claims of what they do and how that automatically means they're right. My all time favorite was a guy claiming he's right in just about every discussion because he "works for the government". Or a recent guy on the WoW forums who gave bad tech advice but says he's right because he has some computer science degree.


Welcome to the internet.

Lot of complaints here about potential new wardrobes being the lazy option when we don't actually know how this is implemented. Maybe they were able to make some revisions to the inventory system and loading issues upon zoning, in a way that makes more wardrobes a more viable option than they were a year ago? For instance, perhaps changing the order of searching all storage for Rare items (needed to prevent acquisition of rare items) to search first in the active inventory/wardrobes (which could maybe load up faster upon zone), then continue loading those non-accessible storage locations...

Not saying they did that, and it certainly wouldn't be a massive shock to see the solution be underwhelming, but just a thought that there could be more than meets the eye here. Maybe worth actually seeing how this is implemented before judging it?