Anxiety About Servers' Lifespan

Well this is the approach I take. All things come to an end so to worry about something thats out of your control is pointless anxiety. Server is still up and running. Content is easier adn you can catch up literally in a month or less with endgame.

Only thing I will say game is lacking is comradery and loyalty due to the ability to have 2 shells that and alot but not all people like to help newcomers. But hey you mind find a diamond in the rough however its worth it to come back to see if you like the changes first hand. I love it so far.

Sadly, this is the nature of online games; if you can't run a game completely locally, then there will be a day when the servers go away, and that's that. The history of MMOs is littered with games that either finally died, or never made it in the first place.

Consider the following, though: SE has a true commitment to the numbered Final Fantasy games; look at what they did to resurrect FFXIV, which was actually harder than just writing a new game from scratch. There have been a number of side projects and initiatives around XI (including the vaguely hand-wavey mobile version they've talked about). Vana'diel probably won't go away as long as SE is around. This exact incarnation of it will shuffle along for a while, because it's still profitable to run, but it's borrowed time. They can't justify spending lots of development time and money on a game that wouldn't give a return on that investment, and eventually everyone will go as far as they can with the game as constructed.

That day's a while off though; there's still quite a bit to do for all but the absolute .01% of the playerbase (who will be the last to go anyway, as they get their 9th mythic for their mule, etc).

All that to say this: the day is coming and nothing's stopping it. But it's not coming soon, and Vana'diel in some form or other is likely to survive.

(Also, you should take advantage of one of the free weekends to come back and finish Rhapsodies of Vana'diel; it's a proper "ending" to the storyline, and I've not seen anyone yet not genuinely touched by the final cutscenes).

My advice to you my friend about how to handle the situation is to respect and keep and share your memories of the game. And if that day arrives when you no longer can log in go forward with your life and live strong with the memories you have made because now you will be on a new journey in a much bigger world. You create your own story and path your own journey through this great mystery of Life.

Best wishes and safe travels keep your eyes on the prize and never give up.

If you want to help keep the game around, I'd recommend resubscribing to it, regardless of how much you actually intend to play - SE and FFXI are a business, and money's the best way to communicate with it and sustain their existence. Also, if FFXI has an official presence in whatever sites and social media you might use, like Youtube and Twitter, subscribe to those, since that might counts as some extra bleeps on the radars of people paying attention to their product.
It might be worth looking into doing this well before March, since current plans for the game lead up to that date, and whatever plans follow them are likely bound by the game's situation until then.

SE also has a few games that cover the entire series - if you play any of those and they have XI-themed DLC (I admittedly haven't kept up very much on how that's implemented in games like Theatrythm and mobile games like Record Keeper), it might also be worth paying for that for the sake of financial signal boosting.

Seconding this. My friend works for SE and when the Devs have stated "We will continue FFXI as long as the fans are there" or whatever they stated months and months ago they are right. There are no plans to scrap the game, to work towards an end, etc. The game has been stripped to as barebones as it will likely ever be, so long as the bills keep getting paid they won't be ending it.

Gotta enjoy it while its still here. That said, I doubt it will be gone anytime soon. At most this won't have to be a huge worry until years down the line, and that is if they stop doing content all together or have nothing at all planned. I doubt SE will stop producing anything at all for XI in some form so it should be here a while. In summary, yes it's worth it.

I hear there is still an active developer for Ultima Online and it predates FFXI by quite a bit, and EQ I also predates FFXI and is still going (I just looked and they're making a new expansion actually). The really popular MMO's may just stay around until the people that grew up with them are no more. But who knows.

I think the devs mentioned in the reddit AMA that they would consider another expansion if the player base kept up.

Like that's gonna happen...the team got butchered hard, they are simply not even able to do it if they don't take people back. It would have been just bad marketing to outright say no.

It's like when a woman friendzone you but keeps you on the hook by saying I don't know, maybe one day...
Sorry but she's not attracted, that line's just to keep you there where you are.

Ya it's definitely not off the table. I won't get my hopes up incredibly high though unless they announce something.

Take solace in the fact that nothing will be here forever. you'll eventually see friends and family die, places you considered home left and forgotten, women and / or men you've loved die, or marry themselves off to someone else while you aren't paying attention. people won't understand your pop culture references....

basically, don't sweat it, you'll be dealt some real loss eventually and ffxi will be but a fart in the wind.

If the server farms truly belong to them, then it may not be that much of an issue to keep the game going even with extremely low player base. Costs to keep this game just running alone should be low in my theoretical estimates. However, if you want to sustain a dev team just for "barebones" gameplay (updates just to keep things from breaking, etc) this is where things can be either fairly inexpensive (1-2 devs Onboard) or extremely expensive (10-15+ Devs).

TLDR: They have the ability to scale their own operating costs with great flexibility if they want to depending on player demand and amount of subscribers and several other factors I left out.

Also: There are ways to pick up right where you left off on many popular private servers once this SE Official game server dies. I'm sure a huge FFXIAH or Bluegartrls Private server can easily kick off and carry the game into the sunset for eternity if managed well enough...

gotta give kudos to SE to keep the servers alive for so long.

most mayor companies (especially those handled by non gaming ones) are quick to pull the plug on within a year or 2 of their game, leaving them unplayable or broken due to no server connectivity, giving a huge middle finger to the player-base.

Thanks for bringing up sad memories from my teen years.

I do agree with you though, I think the idea is nice and the possibility is there. "There is a chance". The reality is that the chance is unrealistically low though.

My wife and I provided hospice care for my father-in-law as he was dying of cancer in 2013, and my dad died of cancer in 2015. I was bedside with both when they passed.

Is it comparable to a server shutdown? Frankly I don't know, since I have experienced one and not the other. I could list presumed similarities and differences, but that's not really the point.

The point, in my eyes, is coming to terms with impermanence and loss. Both concepts are part of human life, and neither is much fun to deal with. Both contain elements of uncertainty and change, and we humans tend to deal poorly with uncertainly and change.

Thank you for candidly sharing about the role FFXI played in your formative years, and the memories you have of it. These memories will ultimately be the longest-lasting and most valuable products of your time with FFXI. Even ones and zeroes don't last forever, at least not in the way that makes them meaningful to you.

My advice to you would be to spend some time in relaxed contemplation with regard to the notion of Mythic Time as opposed to Chronological Time. My personal hunch is that MMORPG worlds like Vana'diel appeal to many of us because they model Mythic Time in several ways: they perpetuate regardless of our presence and participation; they both impact and are impacted by our conscious observations and interactions; and they both provide inspiration and to some extent, escape from the shackles of Chronological Time.

"When one door closes, another door opens," says the perennial proverb. Your anxiety stems from the idea of being left in the dark when the servers shut down and that door closes. Know that as long as you're seeking, you won't be left in the dark for long.

Until that day comes, enjoy your time in Vana'diel! It's the journey, not the destination. Make the most out of your journey!

Interesting things to note:

-Yoshi P. is technically the person with final say in the direction of FFXI

-There is a LOT of overlap between FFXI and FFXIV teams. So there may only be 1-2 full time FFXI people, BUT there is the potential to swing over a mostly FFXIV team of coders to FFXI for a period of time.

-In a theoretical estimate this makes it a lot cheaper to change production speed around on FFXI because the cost is shared between MMO's because you're not hiring brand new people, you're taking them from your other game.

I came into this post thinking "yeah, you guys are right, there isn't much hope of an expansion" but upon thinking about it...the potential is absolutely there. FFXI is a bit of a special snowflake in that it's one of the only games that has another MMO out by the same company with overlapping teams.

FFXI was also made during the day when MMO's were a bit limited and the ones you played developed with you. They were also made to develop with you. That is why people still stick to EQ, WoW and FFXI because they were made during the "golden age" of MMOs.


Now most modern mmo's lack personality and are just time sinks, aside from select cases (XIV is honestly among the exceptions).

Because of that this game probably has much more life that can be squeezed into it. We may see an expansion, it may not be super great but it may be there.

I've had thoughts of when it will end. It will be sad and I will miss FFXI. In the 12 years i've played i've made friends, learned alot and shared some pretty good times. I really think 11 has some good years ahead of it and maybe that is me just not wanting to believe it will be gone one day who knows all you can do is enjoy the time you have now in game and your friends.

Honestly the best thing we an all do for the game (assuming we want to keep playing) is to keep our subscriptions and not *** about them adding additional monetary things (like the new wardrobes). The more money this game makes the better chance that we will see new exciting content.

There is still a new patch every month that is offering new things and new content so this game still has hope and life.

If anything we can spend the rest of our days making ambuscade capes.

I started playing when I was 23 when the game first came out on JP servers/beta.
I struggled with the addiction to the game for more than a decade. I once dreamt that my Aegis turned into tinfoil irl. It was a nightmare.
Over the years, with relapses and renewed commitment to quit, I eventually got my habit to the point where it was manageable and no longer a life-stopper or substitute.

Being ambitious or the competitive type is what hooked me onto FFXI. But as I grew older my peers started passing me by in real life. That competitive drive to succeed irl, that ambition to prove I can and will do better than anyone else was the cure. Or in other words, allowed me to channel the character flaws I had towards something beneficial.

It may not sound relative to your anxiety and fears of servers going down, and you did start playing waaay waaay younger than I did, but the point is you can re-channel energy in a productive way.
You've got this deep rooted relationship with FFXI that I can't understand. Even though at several points in my adult life FFXI was everything to me.

Here are some tactics:
- Keep close touch with in game friends.
- Develop a relationship with those same friends in another game. then move on to another game. This is like being weaned off of the FFXI obsession where your friends become the core, and the game was just a setting.
- Choose something you want to be GREAT at, and just have at it.
Remember 3,000 hours of applying yourself to anything makes you extremely proficient at it. 5,000 makes you a pro. 7,500 makes you in the top 10%, and 10,000 hours puts you in the top 2.5% world wide. I started playing guitar at the age of 29. My friends were all playing since they were 11 years old. 7 years on, playing 1-2 hours a day and 4 hours on my weekends, I am better than them or at least as good. Its a great chick magnet btw XD

I know someone who quit their job at 31 and took 3 years off to become a Lawyer. He went from a guy who worked in a contact center to a very good corporate lawyer.

Get living kid. Go out and get what you want and don't let your ties to this game ruin your life. So you're always going to miss it. Take some screenshots of your character, make some videos, make your memories eternal online and ABOVE ALL ELSE SAY THIS TO YOURSELF EVERY DAY WHEN YOU WAKE UP:


THE NEXT XX YEARS OF MY LIFE ARE GOING TO BE THE BEST.
THE BEST YEARS OF MY LIFE ARE IN THE FUTURE!!!

Go get it done!!!

you should seriously see a therapist. not because of the being attached to the servers, but because of the aftermath. you very likely developed a disorder and will have a difficult time in "normal" society without help, and probably have a difficult time even with help.

Also, so you won't buy a sword and start swinging at every bunny and bat you can find.

Ffxiv could iffer a 5x dollar sub to play both games.

Tbat extra revenue if they anounce it could mean new expansion. But ffxi is ps2 code even on pc. I dont know what a developmentt kit is but they need them. None made now, so can they add more things?


Unlike eq what was made on pc.

Even if no content major added I took a four year break and find so much to do.

Are you saying my gold-painted machete is a sign of a problem I have?

No, but that battle axe covered in the blood of the defiled (and crabs) is.

Just posting this over from BG... but Kincard mentioned that the way they worded it in the original Japanese text seemed to suggest they meant "expansion of content" rather than an actual boxed expansion pack.

Content expansion would entail things like new Master Trials and the new battle content separate from Ambuscade and Master Trials that they mentioned in the last Vana'diel Digest.

Source

EQ1 still gets expansion these days so I don't see why can't FFXI.

Expansion doesn't necessary mean "boxed" expansion considering SoA doesn't have physical copy. It could be just extra content that costs money.

From business pov if expansion cost money it means more profit for them.

With the recent AMA confirming no server merges for the forseeable future and the possibility of new content/expansions in the future, I'd put the chances of the game dying in the next 24 months close to zero.

I'd like to see expansions that go back to the old cities like Tavnazia (imagine exploring the old ruined hulk of the city with story and raid content being mixed into the same area)

Rather than another 'new land' type deal. Nostalgia is their best friend.

In terms of timing, i would expect any announcement to come after March 2017 which is when the current slate of content patches are slated to end.

SE is being strategic here certainly. March 2017 is 12 months after the PS2/XBOX Closure so planning 12 consecutive months of content is a safe bet as they would have had 12 months to guage population and retention without sabotating their own game by abandoning it, so an announcement of new content at that point makes the most sense if the numbers look right.