Vana'dielian Population Tops Two Million! (04/22/2009) - For the first time ever!

Suplyndmnd

It is our distinct pleasure to announce that during the third week of April, the total number of active characters across all worlds in FINAL FANTASY XI has exceeded the two million mark for the first time!

Since the commencement of service on May 16th, 2002, Vana'diel has gone on to become a vibrant gathering place for adventurers hailing from all corners of the globe. Boasting four expansions and one add-on scenario with two more in the pipes, FINAL FANTASY XI continues to evolve into an ever richer realm of magic and adventure.

We would like to thank you, our fans, for your loyal patronage over the years, and look forward to your continued support for many more to come.

 

 

--- This is active characters mind you, not accounts/players but holy crap man.  This is exciting news and i cannot WAIT for them to come out with the full census numbers.  For those who think this game is dying?  Please bookmark this post to remind yourself.  They have never reached this milestone in the history of the game and this game is coming up in a matter of weeks on its 7th anniversary.  As much as we bitch and moan and complain about SE, they are drawing more players with the new direction they've taken.  Lets just hope they listen better with some fixes before the other players leave too.

Synthetick

 Very impressive, and good to hear.



I just purchased another copy of the game lastnight off GameStop.com for $14.99. Good to see the population is up from the last time I played.

Varking

Not saying this isn't true as I love this game, but always provide a link with your post or the trolls here will call you a fanboy, a liar, a FFXI employee among other things.

Synthetick

Originally posted by Varking


Not saying this isn't true as I love this game, but always provide a link with your post or the trolls here will call you a fanboy, a liar, a FFXI employee among other things.

On the front page



http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/index.shtml

 

ic0n67

Originally posted by Suplyndmnd


It is our distinct pleasure to announce that during the third week of April, the total number of active characters across all worlds in FINAL FANTASY XI has exceeded the two million mark for the first time!

Since the commencement of service on May 16th, 2002, Vana'diel has gone on to become a vibrant gathering place for adventurers hailing from all corners of the globe. Boasting four expansions and one add-on scenario with two more in the pipes, FINAL FANTASY XI continues to evolve into an ever richer realm of magic and adventure.
We would like to thank you, our fans, for your loyal patronage over the years, and look forward to your continued support for many more to come.
 
 
--- This is active characters mind you, not accounts/players but holy crap man.  This is exciting news and i cannot WAIT for them to come out with the full census numbers.  For those who think this game is dying?  Please bookmark this post to remind yourself.  They have never reached this milestone in the history of the game and this game is coming up in a matter of weeks on its 7th anniversary.  As much as we bitch and moan and complain about SE, they are drawing more players with the new direction they've taken.  Lets just hope they listen better with some fixes before the other players leave too.

 

Liar , omg you are such a fan boy. What do you work for SE or something?

wrongfeifong

Support !!!!!!

 

WSIMike

Woot!



That's frigging awesome.

FFXI: {Impossible To Gauge}!

 

Thanks for sharing that, Shaz.

 

 

 

 

 

Jerid13

Originally posted by Suplyndmnd


It is our distinct pleasure to announce that during the third week of April, the total number of active characters across all worlds in FINAL FANTASY XI has exceeded the two million mark for the first time!

Since the commencement of service on May 16th, 2002, Vana'diel has gone on to become a vibrant gathering place for adventurers hailing from all corners of the globe. Boasting four expansions and one add-on scenario with two more in the pipes, FINAL FANTASY XI continues to evolve into an ever richer realm of magic and adventure.
We would like to thank you, our fans, for your loyal patronage over the years, and look forward to your continued support for many more to come.
 
 
--- This is active characters mind you, not accounts/players but holy crap man.  This is exciting news and i cannot WAIT for them to come out with the full census numbers.  For those who think this game is dying?  Please bookmark this post to remind yourself.  They have never reached this milestone in the history of the game and this game is coming up in a matter of weeks on its 7th anniversary.  As much as we bitch and moan and complain about SE, they are drawing more players with the new direction they've taken.  Lets just hope they listen better with some fixes before the other players leave too.

 

A 7 year old game achieving the most players its ever had now after its 4th exp pack!

This seems unprecedented, I was shocked to see this when I logged into FFXI today.

 

nekrothing

Maybe someday that number will reach 3 million, if Square ever allow people to add/change their payment options again so new people/existing players can go on the game already <_<.

UCS-60257 a go-go.

VirgoThree

that is great to hear. Unfortunately I only played FFXI for acouple months but have been desperately wanting to get back at it now that I'm done with college. I was planning on reactivated this week but I may just reroll because my char was on odin and I hear it is even more overpopulated now.

You know I bet they could get even more subs if they offered game time cards or allow X-box live users to purchase game time through microsoft points. Just a thought, because not all Xbox users have credits cards and merely buy their subscription and points via cards at a local store.

Rhiaden

Very impressive numbers for a game this old!

I have just been persuaded to try it out by some guildies in another game, so have just navigated through the nightmare that is installation of POL, and will be logging on this afternoon when my boyfriend tweaks the graphics for me!

Soysie

Square Enix don't disclose total subscriber line, active subscriber line and those that are on free trial. What seems plausible at the moment for me; could be people who have a mule(s) that is/are level 20 for chocobo license/ chocoboo raising to go to and from Jeuno, crafting (i.e. one does cooking another does bonecraft etc), being able to check and sell items in the starting nation auction houses and bazaaring in those towns as well as in Jeuno. There is also a possibility of having a second account with a mule to deliver items to their character in person, power leveler (WHM, RDM or whatever MP based job that can cure), and a fill in for a party that is missing a job. Back in 2004 they were proud to release the subscriber line being 500,000 with 1,000,000 active players, so why didn't they release the subscriber line this time around with their proud 2 million active players?

Suplyndmnd

Originally posted by Soysie


Square Enix don't disclose total subscriber line, active subscriber line and those that are on free trial. What seems plausible at the moment for me; could be people who have a mule(s) that is/are level 20 for chocobo license/ chocoboo raising to go to and from Jeuno, crafting (i.e. one does cooking another does bonecraft etc), being able to check and sell items in the starting nation auction houses and bazaaring in those towns as well as in Jeuno. There is also a possibility of having a second account with a mule to deliver items to their character in person, power leveler (WHM, RDM or whatever MP based job that can cure), and a fill in for a party that is missing a job. Back in 2004 they were proud to release the subscriber line being 500,000 with 1,000,000 active players, so why didn't they release the subscriber line this time around with their proud 2 million active players?

 

Because they haven't reached the anniversary yet.  This is sort of a pre-emptive release.  All of this you could have read if you'd finished reading my initial post .

seabass2003

 Wait, it says characters. Isn't this like when LOTRO announced it had 4 million characters? Not trying to take anything away from the game and it's always good to see games doing well but it seems very similar. I don't know how many alts a person is able to have in this game but if you can only have one character per account then yes it is very impressive. Congratulations either way.

Suplyndmnd

Originally posted by seabass2003


 Wait, it says characters. Isn't this like when LOTRO announced it had 4 million characters? Not trying to take anything away from the game and it's always good to see games doing well but it seems very similar. I don't know how many alts a person is able to have in this game but if you can only have one character per account then yes it is very impressive. Congratulations either way.

 

Yes, it says characters as they've not released accounts cencus data yet.  You can have up to 16 characters per account but few do.  Most have 2-4 but the point being that they have reached a point of where they have an unprecidented number of characters (which means the most income ever for them per month) which shows that financially the game is striving beyond all measures.  I'm not sure what the previous record was at but considering how old this game is, this is still an accomplishment.  They've added a lot of new things to attract new players and i'm sure we've probably reached 575k+ active accounts which will be an increase over any previous year. 

seabass2003

Thanks for the info on how many characters you can have. This means it could have as few as 125k accounts but I'm pretty sure the average gamer usually has anywhere from 4 to 5 characters in any given game.

2,000,000 / 4 = 500,000

2,000,000 / 5 = 400,000

Even if you were to take 8 as the average number of characters to account for those who have 16 and those who have 1 this game would still have 250,000 subs. These guesses show a  very healthy population either way.

toddze

Does it really matter if 3/4 of 2million is "mules"? thats still 1.5 million dollars a month that they are bringing in off mules alone. If you figure in that 500k people are subscribers then thats 500,000 X 12.99  = 6,495,000. Now for 1,500,000 + 6,495,000= 7,995,000.

almost 8 mil, that is insane, Not WoW insane but still insane. I am pretty sure that covers the cost many times over to keep ffxi up and running with expansions in development.

Good Job SE.

I hope your new MMO is a succesfull as FFXI.

Jerid13

Originally posted by toddze


Does it really matter if 3/4 of 2million is "mules"? thats still 1.5 million dollars a month that they are bringing in off mules alone. If you figure in that 500k people are subscribers then thats 500,000 X 12.99  = 6,495,000. Now for 1,500,000 + 6,495,000= 7,995,000.
almost 8 mil, that is insane, Not WoW insane but still insane. I am pretty sure that covers the cost many times over to keep ffxi up and running with expansions in development.
Good Job SE.
I hope your new MMO is a succesfull as FFXI.

 

We all agree that they're making bank and its fantastic that they're doing so well, it'll help fund their future efforts.

Its just troubling to most of us that they would mark the "characters" rather than "accounts" when everyone else seems to be doing accounts.

It seems missleading, almost intentionally so.

I'm saying this as someone whos a current subscriber to FFXI.   It just seems shady to me.

WSIMike

Originally posted by seabass2003


Thanks for the info on how many characters you can have. This means it could have as few as 125k accounts but I'm pretty sure the average gamer usually has anywhere from 4 to 5 characters in any given game.
2,000,000 / 4 = 500,000
2,000,000 / 5 = 400,000
Even if you were to take 8 as the average number of characters to account for those who have 16 and those who have 1 this game would still have 250,000 subs. These guesses show a  very healthy population either way.

 

They've reported ~500,000 active accounts for the past several years in a row; at least as of a year or so ago, FFXI was the #4th most popular P2P MMO on the market.



 It's not like other MMOs where you pay a flat fee and can have 10+ characters. In those cases, yes... number of characters would seem disingenuous. But in FFXI it is significant as every character per account = $$$ to SE. And I've been seeing a lot of new players lately... brand-new, just started the game for the first time. More than I have in a long time. So, a portion of those numbers is due to new accounts, not merely mules or alts.



With its population still growing after 7+ years, by any measure, FFXI is a solid, stable and successful MMO.



To me, looking for something "shady" in this announcement, given the game's track-record, seems rather superfluous. FFXI is doing well enough that SE has no reason to be "shady" about it.

 

Suplyndmnd

Originally posted by Jerid13

Originally posted by toddze


Does it really matter if 3/4 of 2million is "mules"? thats still 1.5 million dollars a month that they are bringing in off mules alone. If you figure in that 500k people are subscribers then thats 500,000 X 12.99  = 6,495,000. Now for 1,500,000 + 6,495,000= 7,995,000.
almost 8 mil, that is insane, Not WoW insane but still insane. I am pretty sure that covers the cost many times over to keep ffxi up and running with expansions in development.
Good Job SE.
I hope your new MMO is a succesfull as FFXI.

 

We all agree that they're making bank and its fantastic that they're doing so well, it'll help fund their future efforts.

Its just troubling to most of us that they would mark the "characters" rather than "accounts" when everyone else seems to be doing accounts.

It seems missleading, almost intentionally so.

I'm saying this as someone whos a current subscriber to FFXI.   It just seems shady to me.

 

Well, like previously stated, they only released this information as it's a milestone.  The census isn't out yet that's why they haven't come out with account numbers yet.  It's going to be about 2 more weeks before they release account information.  This isn't the normal census they release.  This was just other information.  Wait a couple weeks and we'll see how many accounts there are.

X-Porter

Congrats FFXI!

It's good to know that quality games are still attracting players despite the flood of over-hyped crap games we've been hit with recently. While final numbers might be in question, there's no doubt as to the longevity of this title.

Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here?

 

Isturi

WHAT ??? You mean to TELL me that not EVERY gamer out there is NOT playing WoW.....Lol VERY happy to hear this.

seabass2003

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by seabass2003


Thanks for the info on how many characters you can have. This means it could have as few as 125k accounts but I'm pretty sure the average gamer usually has anywhere from 4 to 5 characters in any given game.
2,000,000 / 4 = 500,000
2,000,000 / 5 = 400,000
Even if you were to take 8 as the average number of characters to account for those who have 16 and those who have 1 this game would still have 250,000 subs. These guesses show a  very healthy population either way.

 

They've reported ~500,000 active accounts for the past several years in a row; at least as of a year or so ago, FFXI was the #4th most popular P2P MMO on the market.



 It's not like other MMOs where you pay a flat fee and can have 10+ characters. In those cases, yes... number of characters would seem disingenuous. But in FFXI it is significant as every character per account = $$$ to SE. And I've been seeing a lot of new players lately... brand-new, just started the game for the first time. More than I have in a long time. So, a portion of those numbers is due to new accounts, not merely mules or alts.



With its population still growing after 7+ years, by any measure, FFXI is a solid, stable and successful MMO.



To me, looking for something "shady" in this announcement, given the game's track-record, seems rather superfluous. FFXI is doing well enough that SE has no reason to be "shady" about it.

 

Hope you didn't take my posts as if I was saying they were "shady", I'm just always curious as to how/why  companies anounce things the way they do.

 

 

VirgoThree

Hm I'm curious if anyone has ever payed for all slots for 15 mules or whatever lol....which reminds me I think i need a mule now >.> running low on space.

WSIMike

Originally posted by seabass2003

Originally posted by WSIMike

Originally posted by seabass2003


Thanks for the info on how many characters you can have. This means it could have as few as 125k accounts but I'm pretty sure the average gamer usually has anywhere from 4 to 5 characters in any given game.
2,000,000 / 4 = 500,000
2,000,000 / 5 = 400,000
Even if you were to take 8 as the average number of characters to account for those who have 16 and those who have 1 this game would still have 250,000 subs. These guesses show a  very healthy population either way.

 

They've reported ~500,000 active accounts for the past several years in a row; at least as of a year or so ago, FFXI was the #4th most popular P2P MMO on the market.



 It's not like other MMOs where you pay a flat fee and can have 10+ characters. In those cases, yes... number of characters would seem disingenuous. But in FFXI it is significant as every character per account = $$$ to SE. And I've been seeing a lot of new players lately... brand-new, just started the game for the first time. More than I have in a long time. So, a portion of those numbers is due to new accounts, not merely mules or alts.



With its population still growing after 7+ years, by any measure, FFXI is a solid, stable and successful MMO.



To me, looking for something "shady" in this announcement, given the game's track-record, seems rather superfluous. FFXI is doing well enough that SE has no reason to be "shady" about it.

 

Hope you didn't take my posts as if I was saying they were "shady", I'm just always curious as to how/why  companies anounce things the way they do.

 

 

Oh that's fine.



 I just figure they reached a milestone and wanted to announce it. I don't think there's anything more to it than that, personally.

 

toddze

Originally posted by seabass2003

Hope you didn't take my posts as if I was saying they were "shady", I'm just always curious as to how/why  companies anounce things the way they do.

 

 

Maybe the way they announced it is from a glass half full perspective? You know the forbidden word in MMO's "Optimisim". SE has the right to somewhat boast optimistically because FFXI is an old game that is still very successfull.