The Vana'diel Project

[Malacite]

Hey guys long time no see.

Just curious about everyone's reactions to FFXI finally coming to a close. I was hoping the announcement was going to be a next-gen upgrade or sequel, but instead they're shutting down support for PS2 and 360 and November will be the final content update. Very sad

[Etra]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

It's not surprising. Better to shift those developers onto the XIV team, as that's making them all the money out of the two.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

Full details are here.

Final storyarc, moving to mobiles after PS2 and 360 versions end this time next year. Nexon is handling the port of FFXI to mobile and I suspect much of it will be cloud-based, but otherwise faithful.

Final Fantasy Grandmasters is a spin-off based in Vana'diel, developed by Crooz. Supposed to be smaller in scale and more pick-up-and-play, so I'm not expecting much beyond the sorts of "MMOs" seen on mobiles now.

I'm okay with the switch at this point. Probably an option many MMOs could and should consider as mobiles are getting more capable and not too unfriendly to queue/macro-based gameplay.

[Carter]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

This is pretty sad news but I haven't played in a long time and have no idea how server pops are etc. I've been through a lot of mmo shutdowns now and they never get any easier.

My first was Earth and Beyond <- still wish it would return!

I really enjoyed FFXI - when I had time to play it - and I'll miss it. I had it on 360 and PC.

[Feba]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

It'll depend greatly on how the game works; both in terms of gameplay, but also price. I can't imagine the $13 a month subscription to a mobile MMO crowd is very big, nor can I imagine playing FFXI on mobile (if not because of time commitment overall, time commitment in terms of getting into the game and getting ANYTHING accomplished. Even with a ton of QOL changes, I don't see how you can keep it as really the same game.)

Personally, I've been hoping for the longest time (even before I quit) for an FFXI: Offline; I don't care if they just recycle all of the assets and program a very bland AI team, it was such a rich world it seems sad that so much of that story is going to be lost to time and servers going down. Think FFXII, except, better.

That said, I'm very glad to see SE is finally revisiting Vana'diel in another game; it's such a great world, up there with Ivalice, I really wish they'd make greater use of it.

[jenova_9]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

Oh mew, FFXI is the origin of my Vana'diel mews. =^^= Didn't they say that if FFXI were to shut down they would remake it into an offline game people could still play? The content would be intact but everything would be balanced for solo play (with the option of a.i. companions). They could make FFXI resurface as an RPG version of the MMORPG, with character creation and all the expansions that FFXI has developed.

[Aeni]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

The servers for FFXI will continue to run, but it'll only be for PCs, as I'm assuming the timing on the consoles are due to the drop in support from their respective console manufacturers (or the terms of their contracts for continued software development support has expired or are expiring)

On the plus side, maybe they'll finally roll out the long awaited update without PS2 limitations /sarcasm

[jenova_9]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

They should bring back Tanaka to help develop the single player/offline version of FFXI, mew. Wasn't Tanaka the one that brought up the idea in interviews of making a single player version that has all the character creation and content intact, but made for offline play? They already have a open world RPG in their hands with some simple tweaking. Much easier than making an new rpg from scratch.

[Malacite]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

The servers for FFXI will continue to run, but it'll only be for PCs, as I'm assuming the timing on the consoles are due to the drop in support from their respective console manufacturers (or the terms of their contracts for continued software development support has expired or are expiring)

On the plus side, maybe they'll finally roll out the long awaited update without PS2 limitations /sarcasm

They spelled it out fairly clearly, basically they're not making enough money on XI anymore and are running out of tricks to get around the memory limitations. Besides, it's not like PS2's last forever and Sony's not making them anymore.

I'm a little bummed they didn't announce an HD PS4 version giving the game a similar facelift that WoW got with Warlords, but can't say I'm surprised. Apparently there's quite a bit of demand for this, but they don't feel like the cost would be justified.

[bungiefan]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

Grandmasters is so far Japan-only. Mobile FFXI is going to be on completely new servers with no transfer from current game, and is slated to start out with content up to Promathia.

Current FFXI development is stopping because their development environment is Playstation2 Development Kit, which they bought the last few that still worked and anyone would still sell them from all over the world, leaving them with a few dozen currently working. They only have PC tools to translate audio and video assets created on the devkits to DirectX, not to create them natively for PC in a compatible format, so when the devkits die they will be unable to make anything new. They'd rather have a scheduled last expansion rather than keep trying to keep it going, and have their last unit die mid-expansion and be unable to complete it. Their development has had enough churn over the years that nobody currently on it could make the tools for PC from scratch, and it would be a large investment of time and money to train any of these people to fully understand the old PS2 and DirectX 8/9 code. to do so.

So, PS2 limitations all along weren't that the game was running on PS2, but that it was DEVELOPED on PS2. Kind of no reason to drop PS2 client support when their development is on the same platform. Maybe if they had ported the tools over back in 2005-2006 we'd still have expansion development capability...

[nasomi]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

It's unfortunate, but it seems like it's been a stead downfall since abyssea. They added abyssea so people could "finish" the game and move to xiv. However when xiv flopped they had to pull content out of their ass to keep it making money while xiv tried to recover. They pushed out some expansions that were ok, but not on par with what the pre-abyssea expansions. Now xiv is pumping out big bucks as really the only modern MMO on the market, this doesn't surprise me at all. The mobile xi is a bit of a surprise, I would never expect it to be on par with xi, and would be amazed if it was even successful. But I guess if you want to appeal to a younger audience.

[Firewind]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

The mobile XI is no surprise at all. The Home console and handheld market in Japan is shrinking year by year, and Japanese developers, particularly Square Enix really only give a shit about the home market, where the mobile is the most dominant platform. The PC branch is doing pretty well, particularly in Europe, but the main Japan branch doesn't give a fuck because Japanese publishers and developers still see dominating Japan as the holy grail.

Its also why the excellent FFV and FFVI remakes were on mobile. I have the both and they play pretty well on my tablet. I expect XI would run well too since they tend to give thier games controller support, and my Android tablet is basically a tablet built into a Wii U's controller shell. Works very well for a lot of mobile games that use that virtual pad thing.

To paraphrase Jim Sterling, they would rather have all of the money and fail doing so than some of the money and end up doing pretty well. If you follow Japanese games at all, mobile releases are currently the norm, with Sony going for it for a while, and even Nintendo finally admitting that maybe they should look into this mobile gaming thing before they lose out completely, given thier main rival to the handheld market is currently the mobile market.

Really though, mobile games aren't as bad as people say they are. It's just like Steam really; you have to wade through a ton of crap to discover the gems.

[nasomi]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

The mobile xi remake though, threw me for a loop. I really wish that they'd stop re-releasing games, and put out some new ones. If their remakes do so well for turned based simpler and more adventuring styles, why do the new games they release end up so guided, button mashing types? i'm not against a mobile market, kids play games on mobile devices. The desktop computer is becoming less and less common. That's why xi will probably be my last game, I'm getting older, don't like to button mash, and don't care for the new games.

[Feba]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

even Nintendo finally admitting that maybe they should look into this mobile gaming thing before they lose out completely, given thier main rival to the handheld market is currently the mobile market.

inb4 Phoneboy

[Aaliana]

Re: The Vana'diel Project

Just when I thought I'd be free of my 11 year addiction to FFXI, I hear the mobile news. I feel both ecstatic and trapped at exactly the same time.