No thanks, like many other former FFXIV players (that is why the population is down...is it not)
I've moved on to better games. You see my friend that's what kills MMO's. We've become a
gaming generation of "first impressions". You only get one chance and Square Enix squandered
it. You really think that chocobos is going to bring back the hundreds, thousands of players that
have left FFXIV. If it only it were so.....have fun on that chocobo running into the same areas from
zone to zone...it's very exhilarating.
Nope it's not, population is actually the highest it has been since the first couple of months. Nothing "killed it", because it is far from dead. Even if it were not getting a major relaunch to a giant new platform, and more fixes on the horizon it is still doing better than many other P2P MMO's that are still "alive".
The problem with that highlighted part is that it isn't a p2p mmo. It is currently a buy to play mmo at a fairly low cost if you shop around. It may be a p2p mmo some day, but I still don't see that working out well since it has been b2p for so long that people will eventually (if many don't already) expect it to remain b2p. This is only for the pc players because if it is p2p on the ps3 as well, then they won't have been playing it without a monthy fee for a year the way pc players have been. I just can't see the pc reaction to switching from b2p to p2p going well. And, yes, I do know that they have been saying all along that it was going to have a monthly sub when it was "good enough" to justify it, but how long can they go without charging a sub before people are extremely turned off at being told they have to pay monthly for something they have been getting for free?
Because they are getting it for free only because the game is undergoing massive changes to its state at launch. Whether people will pay a fee or not will depend upon a judgement they will have to make as to whether the changes made to the game warrant a sub fee.
No one should be expecting the game to remain "b2p" they never said this, and so you'd have to be a moron to expect that at this point. It is impossible to tell how many people currently playing would be paying sub fees now if it was required, and especially impossible to tell how many will remain and pay fees after they are required in the future (after the changes).
I personally think that Square Enix is not concerned about retention of players during this revamping process (in fact they have said this), they are hard at work getting the game into shape for the PS3 release and resumption of subscription fees at which point they will re-market the game.
The whole "MMO players are fickle and only go off their first impression" that this thread is based on is complete bunk, baseless crap, idiotic nonsense. This has never been the case with any game, ever. The only thing that has ever hurt a game's popularity or ability to rebound is the game's development itself, everyone realizes that MMO's are constantly evolving. And the vast majority of people do not pay as close of attention or give a crap about MMO "reputations" as those who visit this board. Vanguard was killed (in the sense that it did not recieve enough major updates) by SOE, the p2p>freemium games were killed by choices by their developers, and SWG/Matrix Online/Whatever that were actually canceled were done so by the companies themselves.
If you actually want to debate the veracity of your argument that "games get one chance" please show me an example of one MMO that actually underwent massive changes and then failed to get people back/new players despite those changes being well recieved? Because the way I see it people play an MMO 50% for the current state, and 50% for its prospective future. People quit due to changes, people quit do to a lack of changes/updates, people quit because they don't like a game, people dont quit or not play a game truly because of how it was recieved at launch. Not everyone has such a useless "video game consultant" type approach to playing games for entertainment.
Oh please! Listen to yourself!
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes has vastly improved over the years and is now actually a very good game.
Why didn't people flock back enmasse? Simply... because people don't!
They get burned and move on to something else! It's not 2003 anymore! with just a handfulf of games to choose from!
The only reason FFXIV still has somewhat of a server population is because it's FREE!
You can now buy the game for 5 bucks in the dump bin at gamestores.
If the game was still 30 bucks or more... there wouldn't be many left playing, as there wouldn't be any influx of new players.
If they reinstate the subscription fees... there wouldn't be many left playing.
Square Enix is too slow with the improvements. And the whole change of atmosphere on the official forums is clear sign people's patience is starting to run out.
The whole introduction of chocobos and airships is a little too late. People have already ran all over the zones and unlocked the teleports.
Add to the fact that most zones are utterly boring, bland and repetitive in design! Why would I want to ride around on a chocobo? Or take an airship if I can just insta port to any of the three cities.
And when it comes to population. There was only a peak just after 1.18. But a couple days later most people were bored again and population reverted back to pre-1.18 levels. So please. I still log in regularly.
Yeah not really, selbina's population defintiely hasn't dropped since 1.18 if anything it has continued to grow. FFXIV's updates were too slow during one cycle due to them changing their development team/and a tsunami.
Airships and chocobos are not the only thing we are getting in 1.19 by far.
Vanguard is not a "whole lot better" sorry bud, but I actually played Vanguard for most of its history. It got APW and then a small little trinkle of "content" after that which can barely hold a candle to APW. This is because SOE from even way before APW launched had started pulling the majority of the team off of Vanguard to work on EQ2. After APW they reduced the team down to maybe 2-3 full time developers and some part timers. When I quit the game we had maybe one full time developer working on the game. Want to know why Vanguard didn't bounce back? It's because SOE made it abundantly clear that they were intending to kill the game off. They put the last of their development time into developing a stupid free trial island when they should have been fixing the game/adding content.
People are always looking for another MMO, and they will give anything decent a shot. However most MMO's are operated by complete morons. Luckily for anyone who is interested in Square Enix at least until the PS3 launch SE hasn't dialed back on the development at all, and is actually committed to turning the game around. I wish Vanguard had a company behind it that was commited to it, there were a lot of people interested in Vanguard despite the launch all they needed was a glimmer of hope for its future and that game would have been fine. Even in its sad stunted state it is better than most other MMO's on the market.
Yeah not really, selbina's population defintiely hasn't dropped since 1.18 if anything it has continued to grow. FFXIV's updates were too slow during one cycle due to them changing their development team/and a tsunami.
Airships and chocobos are not the only thing we are getting in 1.19 by far.
Vanguard is not a "whole lot better" sorry bud, but I actually played Vanguard for most of its history. It got APW and then a small little trinkle of "content" after that which can barely hold a candle to APW. This is because SOE from even way before APW launched had started pulling the majority of the team off of Vanguard to work on EQ2. After APW they reduced the team down to maybe 2-3 full time developers and some part timers. When I quit the game we had maybe one full time developer working on the game. Want to know why Vanguard didn't bounce back? It's because SOE made it abundantly clear that they were intending to kill the game off. They put the last of their development time into developing a stupid free trial island when they should have been fixing the game/adding content.
People are always looking for another MMO, and they will give anything decent a shot. However most MMO's are operated by complete morons. Luckily for anyone who is interested in Square Enix at least until the PS3 launch SE hasn't dialed back on the development at all, and is actually committed to turning the game around. I wish Vanguard had a company behind it that was commited to it, there were a lot of people interested in Vanguard despite the launch all they needed was a glimmer of hope for its future and that game would have been fine. Even in its sad stunted state it is better than most other MMO's on the market.
When SOE took over Vanguard, they really did give it more than a fair chance!
They had a ton of developers (even SOE ones) on the game to fix it, improve it and add tons of content.
Which they did in the first two years. They game was vastly improved and tons of content was added!
Or have you forgotten how empty the game was at launch? How many zones didn't even had any mobs, quests, empty dungeons, etc?? It was a joke.
And yet people did not come back. So yeah... then SOE started to reduce the dev staff more and more over time till they stopped altogether last year... until now.
For this I cannot really blame SOE.... as they really did try with Vanguard. But people need to be realistic and understand that a company isn't going to keep throwing tons of cash against a game if it just continues bleeding subscribers. It's just how it is.
Comments
Yeah not really, selbina's population defintiely hasn't dropped since 1.18 if anything it has continued to grow. FFXIV's updates were too slow during one cycle due to them changing their development team/and a tsunami.
Airships and chocobos are not the only thing we are getting in 1.19 by far.
Vanguard is not a "whole lot better" sorry bud, but I actually played Vanguard for most of its history. It got APW and then a small little trinkle of "content" after that which can barely hold a candle to APW. This is because SOE from even way before APW launched had started pulling the majority of the team off of Vanguard to work on EQ2. After APW they reduced the team down to maybe 2-3 full time developers and some part timers. When I quit the game we had maybe one full time developer working on the game. Want to know why Vanguard didn't bounce back? It's because SOE made it abundantly clear that they were intending to kill the game off. They put the last of their development time into developing a stupid free trial island when they should have been fixing the game/adding content.
People are always looking for another MMO, and they will give anything decent a shot. However most MMO's are operated by complete morons. Luckily for anyone who is interested in Square Enix at least until the PS3 launch SE hasn't dialed back on the development at all, and is actually committed to turning the game around. I wish Vanguard had a company behind it that was commited to it, there were a lot of people interested in Vanguard despite the launch all they needed was a glimmer of hope for its future and that game would have been fine. Even in its sad stunted state it is better than most other MMO's on the market.
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
When SOE took over Vanguard, they really did give it more than a fair chance!
They had a ton of developers (even SOE ones) on the game to fix it, improve it and add tons of content.
Which they did in the first two years. They game was vastly improved and tons of content was added!
Or have you forgotten how empty the game was at launch? How many zones didn't even had any mobs, quests, empty dungeons, etc?? It was a joke.
And yet people did not come back. So yeah... then SOE started to reduce the dev staff more and more over time till they stopped altogether last year... until now.
For this I cannot really blame SOE.... as they really did try with Vanguard. But people need to be realistic and understand that a company isn't going to keep throwing tons of cash against a game if it just continues bleeding subscribers. It's just how it is.