Rest In Piss Mobile XI

It's funny how you refuse to take responsibility to explain why mmo-population is a valid resource.

How would you feel if I published a website right now that said in bold letters "The population of ffxi is 1,000,000" and someone sourced that? Would you believe that or would you be asking for proof of validity?

Statistics are not infallible facts, You have to have traceability to justify the value. Trusting an opaque number handed to you that it is an "estimations based on subscriber numbers and online sentiment" when subscriber numbers are not readily available seems a bit to trusting.

Where as I provided a number that has clear traceability and a transparent methodology that you yourself could go independently validate if you so desired... not the 12 puppies number the one form the ffxiah database

I already said, he is a good businessman. He is, but lets not get carried away is all. Let's see what he does next, which I believe is going to be FF16?

I could go on about 14 and why it's what it is today but nobody really cares, so lets leave it at "it's a good game if you like that kind of MMORPG and the guy in charge is a good businessman"

edit for quote fail

Because I have no responsibility lol

You, like the other guy, are confusing claims with references. You don't have to prove a reference, you may have to prove a claim.


You're right, they not infallible. Even raw data can be skewed with outliers and all that.

And the number you provided is known to only be a small percentage due to how the data is acquired. I never said it wasn't a true statistic, because it is but it's just not the for what you're trying to represent.

My business prints 2000 papers a day. That does not mean we have only 2000 papers in our company at once each day.

Why exactly are we arguing again?

It's not like these numbers are affecting anyone here anyway. It's SE that's making all the money, not any of us.

Unless....you really like kicking puppies. You do you then.

We're just talking about references, etc. I've had many interesting back and forths about references in the past. My favorite was fending off 5 people and a moderator who all insisted that Xbox was better than PS4 because Microsoft said so and Microsoft is a credible source.

I don't think we're arguing. Just having a conversation. We may not agree on the content but that's about it. I've agreed with RadialArcana on several other topics.

I played it for months randomly and found it quite enjoyable, I think I even spent some money on it but the game was VERY generous towards F2P. The game was really simple while being really fun, it made me happy to play a game related to FFXI while commuting.
SE has had issues with mobile games the past few years, they *** up so many times, I think their mobile division took a hit when it comes to credibility.

I like mobile games and am perfectly fine with whaling but Nexon is indeed bad news.
I wish they could market FFXI beyond the occasional Shantotto being thrown as a guest in various games. FFXI's lore and Vanadiel in general are pretty deep and have some really cool characters/places, it's a real shame to see it slowly rot.

It's fun to have disagreements sometimes, having a "brisk conversation" on a forum is kind of like PVP in a video game. After it's over you carry on as you were before, or at least that's how it should be!

A guy on the WoW forum a couple years ago used to berate and insult people, calling it “forum pvp”.

Gold. Some FFXI players just can't accept that FFXIV is *gasp* good fun for a lot of people, and will try so hard to point out the "flaws" it has (most of which are subjective notions or just outright wrong), usually ending up with a conspicuously
biased post like that.

Well that's a bit too far xD

The funny part is, I made a point to list things from World of Warcraft and called it "WoW staples", which are all true because they are all in WoW. Then leave it upto everyone else to see any similarities from wow and similar games.

All those things are in FFXIV, for better or worse. They may have modified some a bit but they are all there, because a WOW players expected them to be there and that was the business model to save the game. The majority of the 14 audience is wow people, the EX FFXI players are a small minority on that game.

The argument was never that the game isn't good for some people (every game is good to some people), it was that it is a clone of wow and was made that way in a short amount of time to appeal to the mass wow audience of the genre(which it did). It's no different than CoD changing masses of the game to appeal to Fortnite players or something.

The only reason people refuse to accept that is because they hate WoW, but the developers disagree with you and have said so many times. When you say it's a wow clone, it does not mean it's IDENTICAL in every way. It means there is enough the same that you feel like you're playing the same game.

FFXI is an Everquest clone, the difference is FFXI players don't get annoyed when anyone says it.

Wow isn’t a bad game, it’s just a mixed bag. It’s good for people who love instant gratification which isn’t a bad thing.

I played it a lot, got legendaries and rare mounts but no matter what I did, I never felt the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment that I get here.

How dare you! I am so annoyed right now!!

And I wonder why.

This thread title every time I see it:

I tried coming up with a realistic RPG mechanic for calculating damage inflicted the other day and I found myself looking up some pretty sketchy definitions, synonyms, antonyms, and pictures, among other things. My CSIS agent is probably on standby right now XD

Incoming wall of text about the "history of FFXIV" as I see it.

FFXIV ARR player numbers are similar to games like ESO. The company (and many players) desperately try to inflate the player numbers in PR to silly extremes to be seen as "mega popular" and a "WoW beater" because they think that has a psychological impact on potential "normie" players. Even if it does (because this tactic has been played to death now because of mobile game advertising), it only really has an impact on bandwagon people and those kind of people have a high churn rate anyway (they quit pretty quick and move to something else). This can be seen on the player (in reality this is characters created, of which one person can make multiple) scrape numbers, they have lots of people try the game but they have an incredibly high churn rate so they never really grow the ongoing playerbase year to year. aka, just as many people quit the game in a few months as start it because they are aiming at that kind of easily bored player.

Ultimately people overplay what ARR did because of the circumstances around it, and hype up Yoshi as some kind of developer god akin to Kojima or something. All he really did, was play popular MMORPG titles (he also does this with FFXI lately too because of the long legs it has, he added trusts and other things where it makes no sense) and try to advise the skilled developers to emulate specific things from popular games. His claim to fame has never been to innovate, it was to emulate popular features from games with big/dedicated playerbases. His other claim to fame is high levels of monetization which turns a decent sized playerbase into a much bigger mountain of cash than normally would be the case, which are only possibly due to the mass emotional investment the 14 community has with the game and will not be there on future titles he makes.

So that's what ARR was, emulation of WoW, GW2 and many other games with a FF art style. Over time they absolutely did evolve ARR to be more it's own thing but at it's core it's still what made it successful, a copy of popular. The only reason they actually copied so much from WoW was purely because it had a lot of players and they didn't have much time to gamble, not because they really thought wow was great. If ESO was around when they did ARR and had far more players, 14 would be more like ESO.

Games like ESO, FFXI, SWTOR, Everquest, GW2, Black Desert all succeeded purely based of the game itself in the MMORPG community, there was no other reason. ARR succeeded where XIV failed mainly due to the real world story around the game and due to the relaunch being competent. Some don't want to accept this, but imo it is true and does need to be accepted as Yoshi creates new games in the future. His future games will have to succeed on quality alone, and won't have this kind of emotional backup.

FFXIV launched and was a very public failure (although imo it would still be running today if they had not redone it, just making far less money), and because Square Enix were a renowned company this got mass media attention. This introduced the game to a massive amount of normies and also got many FF fans aware of this online game they would normally ignore, from here they decided to "fix the game!" and so began the redemption arc and lots of people who were following with the story cheered them on and wanted them to succeed (and felt like they were part of too, by just playing (when it's bad), testing, supporting or going to xiv festivals etc). Very much like a "Marathon runner, breaking his leg and then training hard and competing again next year!" it's an inspirational story people can get behind and a lot of people did and wanted it to be a bigger success story than it actually was.

ARR launched well, attracted a decent number of players again and was "good", it wasn't earth shattering (SWTOR had a better launch) and it wasn't some kind of incredible innovation in the market. It was just good in the same way ESO, GW2, Black Desert or whatever is good, however due to the emotional investment many people put into this whole redemption story arc they saw this "good" game as some kind of insane glowing ball of perfect light and it was going to rule them all, it would overtake WoW and rule supreme! Basically, emotional investment in the real world redemption arc of the game colors these peoples reality of what the game actually is (as proven by acceptance of massively over inflated numbers and talk of the wow beater).

The developers (mainly Yoshi) to their credit, saw this happening and played heavily into it. They would go up on stage in front of thousands of people and pray with their hands around the mic, and publicly cry on the stage and other people in the audience would feel empathy and do it too and they had praying in the ARR cut scene and all things like this, they were very much playing into this redemption arc and hyping up the emotions of the people wanting them to succeed. It worked better than anyone could of imagined, among those specific people and allows them free reign with monetization no other game could get away with without high resistance.

There is a base of people now (some who don't even play the game anymore, but still pay their sub) who are insanely emotionally invested in the game due to this redemption arc that played out, these people don't see the game how it really is at all and only see it with through the eyes of heavy emotional baggage. As such, when you say anything about the reality of the game, judge it coldly purely as a game or complain about any bad business practices they will get insanely defensive and angry at you. They will also not understand why you don't feel about this game as they do, especially if they are your friend. They will keep trying to get you to play it again and again (had so many arguments with friends over this), because "once you do you'll finally understand!" they will think you must have played it wrong if you didn't like it, or not played it long enough because they simply can't understand how you can't like it when they think it's so amazing (even if they don't play it anymore very often). Where you could say "yeah I played Dark souls and didn't like it" and they will accept it, they will never accept "yeah I played ffxiv and didn't like it", they will just think you did something wrong and need to try again.

This is why it's seen as crass in the 14 community to complain about any "bad" monetization (they could literally add loot boxes and most would defend it), this is why they are so incredibly defensive about the game, this is why they try to "educate" people from other mmo communities to play FFXIV. It's simply more than a game to them, I have friends that keep telling me 14 has beaten wow and is the biggest MMO in the market now and I know it's not, and they get mad when I poke holes in their day dreams. They want this to be the case though, because it's the apex of their redemption arc. The game can't just be popular, have enough players to carry on etc it has to be king of the world and beat the WoW king! This is also fairly unique in the genre.

FFXIV is a good MMORPG with flaws (this applies to every mmorpg), it's not world breaking anymore than any other MMORPG is and many people are not going to like it because it does not appeal to their tastes. It's not ever going to "beat" WoW anymore than ESO is, you're never going to get people that don't like it to like it, and people who don't like it are not just haters or bad people. They just don't like the game you are emotionally invested in.

Not to say everyone that plays XIV is like this, some people just like it and it really gels with them (as some people like near everything out there, there are still people playing everquest) but there is a very vocal group of people that were there from the start that are way too emotionally invested in the game due to how it all played out. Most of them are on the official forums..

A recent example of what ARR did to a group of people that were heavily invested in its relaunch, is the Snyder Justice League Cut. The original movie was poor, the Snyder cut was pretty good but not much more than that. However the people who put many years into it demanding it come out and are heavily invested in it and its redemption arc, think it's amazing and get really defensive over anyone saying otherwise.

I'm not saying 14 is a bad MMO, I think nearly all the main MMO titles are good in their own way but it's just not as many in the fanbase think it is (nothing is) and there is a very specific reason mentioned above as to why so many get defensive and "GOTTA BE BIG!" fixated as they are.

Also it's important to keep in mind that the Square Enix online dept is a unified faction of the company, when FFXIV succeeds so does FFXI and vice versa. They are pretty much akin to WoW main and WoW classic in terms of importance to each other, they both feed into the success of the online dept. Doesn't mean we can't point out facts or pretend its bigger than it is either though.

TLDR: FFXIV is a success as much because of the relaunch and the emotional investment that instilled in players as the way they changed the game itself, it's ok to point out that ARR is based on the wow model. It's not the biggest or best game on the market and it's not anymore fantastic than any other MMORPG. None of this actually really matters, FF14 is successful and will still be online 20 years from now (as will ESO, Gw2 and lots of other games), because being successful isn't as hard as we pretend it is.

That's not what he said. That is not remotely close to what he said.

At least be honest.

It's infinitely triggering to me to see people loudly and confidently be bad at math, haha

Rooks and Niflheim's observations are completely valid and grounded. The calculations in Niflheim's post come from a "worst-case scenario" mindset, which is to say: this is the absolute MINIMUM amount of revenue SE is raking in from this game, so long as the data is accurate.

And as Rooks says, the data itself is coming literally from in-game AH records, which is the closest thing we have to to "Word of God" as it pertains to actual population activity.

As long as the game is profitable, SE will support it. We don't know the precise costs and expenses associated with keeping the game running, but given what little we DO know about the staffing across different teams (as well as the fact that many staff ALSO work on FF14), I would still anticipate a good hunk of profit specifically from FF11.

Honestly I think you are trying to project your experience of XIV to be that of the general populace and you are saying anyone that is defending it is "insane". God forbid someone likes XIV for what it is. Most of the games you listed as being a good MMO based purely on the game also have big name brands to back them up like Elder Scrolls, Final Fantasy and Star Wars.

As far as the cash shop goes there are a lot of people that are vocal about their anger towards it every time something is added.

I will admit XIV does have its flaws but they are easy to get past and i like the game play, story and endgame aspects. You do keep going on about how XIV has copied a lot from WoW though after playing both games theres not much that is actually similar other than it runs a GCD which feels completely different in both games.

I tried getting some friends into XI since i still play and they absolutely hated how slow and boring the combat system is in XI. They also hate how convoluted most of the game is that you need to do X thing to do Y that has nothing to do with X and the game waits, JP midnight waits and coalition waits. I think one played for like a hours and the other a couple of weeks before they quit.

The only problem I see with FFXIV's cashshop is the average price of cosmetic. They'd sell most of their garbage easily if it was half price. Instead, they only have sales from people who are really deep into the Izanami. And while it may bring them a decent amount of money every month, it's easily lower than what they could make.

Then again, Yoshida didn't listen to suggestions for the cash shop until more than a year into ARR dev. If anyone remember, Fantasia could only be sold in specific bulks and only once each. They really didn't think the cash shop through, really and they still aren't milking it properly a decade later.

They'd benefit from someone with experience from other MMOs and using cash shops, even better if it's a whale. But unfortunately the people in charge are people who are clueless about online games, much less cash shops. For them it's unreal to spend money on those items, yet they try to sell them. It's that stupid.

I dont like XIVs combat system, I find it boring and despise having to memorize videos before even attempting content. I do like the visuals, and the story is just ok not as spectacular as people try to make it seem. FFXI def had a better storyline with its expansions.

Never said that, where did you quote me saying anyone is "insane"?

I said they (not all!) have emotions locked up in the game due to how the relaunch played out and so treat is differently to any other game, which is true.

I don't mind it's combat as it's fast and engaging however, there is only 1 way to play each job. I can play my RUN in relevant group content as a DD or a Tank. In FFXIV, if I join a group as a tank job, you're a tank... period. There is no diversity in the jobs as many who played FFXI were used to.

But to be fair, yes, it's not FFXI but you'd think that some things outside of aethetics and a character named Cid would carry over.


That isn't at all what he said.

Yes, there are people who are, for a lack of a better term "not all there" in regards to their dedication and to be fair, that isn't limited to FFXIV.

ARR was broadcasted as a "WoW killer" more than any game I've personally seen. I've seen all the "guaranteed will..." comments and yet, it did not do so.

He wasn't generally hating on the game because he even said:

Being "insanely emotionally invested" is not the same as being insane. Insanely means "to an extreme degree." To BE insane is mentally ill.