Fixing The MW 3-8 Cashgrab

People will always complain about why their salary doesn't grow. Until they become the boss who has to pay then they complain why it's so expensive.

I don't shill SE, I don't care about SE. In-fact a lot of people really don't like how much I vocally dislike FF14 (although I try not to do so so much lately). I am passionate about XI and if I think I have a valid point and people are being unfair I'll defend that point.

You're going to get people that disagree with you because they see it differently to you, if it's something they really care about they are going to really argue their case. Ultimately nothing any of us say has much impact in the grand scheme of things, it's just a discussion.

People that want it will buy it and people that don't won't.

What's funny is disagreeing with someone then on the front page of this site, seeing your name appear under "Most Viewed". Pretty much a dead giveaway.


It comes and it goes but it's sad when it is here... it's cherry-picked. Joe Blow sycophant can sit here and break every rule in a whole post yet no action is taken against them. When you inquire, the mod replies "I'm not here 24/7". Well... you're here right now. If you don't have time to do it, why be one at all?


MMO Champion is even worse in regards to being that way. "Link your main" is not uncommon. It's funny linking someone else's and watching someone chase a ghost.


This is a bit of a slippery slope. I've seen people toss in derogatory remarks for people of other nationalities or sexual orientation or even (and I hate to say it) mental nonconformity yet will still get applause for their comments by people you would think are more upstanding.

This right here. People bitching about storage are lucky you have the ability to play this game at all.

FFXI has been running for 20 years. TWO DECADES.

It's a miracle a game as niche as FFXI is still running. The only other MMOs close to this are WoW, Everquest 1, and Runescape (off the top of my head).

They run this game like a Indie title (small budget to keep things running, enough to develop new content). I've explained this game to other friends who've never played 11 before, and they believe (without trying) this game is boring, and dead. In comparision, WoW, Everquest each get expansions, Runescape 3 is actively developed, and old school Runescape is still a thing. We get updates each month, but they're very small compared to other games.

Did people complain this much when wardrobes were added, 1-2 were free, and 3-4 were paid? I believe some did (I've been playing since CoP era), but those complaints died down, and it became the norm. Now there's ***tons of more gear, people have more jobs, people complained they needed more wardrobes (they initially said they couldn't add more wardrobes), so when they finally add more wardrobes (DOUBLING the amount available), and they added them the exact same way 3 and 4 were added, some people are pitching a fit, like they're entitled more free storage, or SE is money grubbing, running a cash grab, etc. You KNOW when they announced more wardrobes, they were going to charge for it the same way they've always have. It's nothing new, nothing different.

FFXIV charges per month for additional storage/AH slots too.

Except they're called retainers, they give you more space to store ***, they're customizable (you go through character creation for each retainer you hire), they can be assigned jobs to go on gathering missions to get you items, they can be leveled up through this.

FFXIV also sells cosmetic equipment AND mounts for real money. Not only that, they sell story skips and level boosters.

I KNOW people would pay in FFXI to skip story content AND levels to get to 99.

Because they already do (at least for levels). It's called power leveling, RMT and mercs run power leveling services to skip you from lvl 1 to 99. People pay for accounts that are fully leveled and geared, story completed.

If SE sold story skips and lvl 99 jobs, they'd actually be undercutting the RMT and mercs, driving them back.

SE is a company. They don't run games out of the goodness of their hearts. They've run FFXI for 20 years because it's profitable. They gave a change people have been wanting (more wardrobe storage) and it's going to make them more money. It's going to make (most) people who have a lot of jobs geared a lot happier, and it's going to make SE more money. It's going to keep the game going longer, it's going to fund additional content.

You don't have to buy more wardrobes if you don't want to. I bought 2 more wardrobes, and if I need another 1 or 2 (I'm starting up a WAR), I'll do it as I need them. If someone doesn't need the extra storage, they don't have to buy it. If your wallet can't afford it, it's fine. There's people who play one character with a few jobs, and there's people who run multiple accounts with multiple jobs on each.

As long as this game makes money for SE, as long as they can keep producing content and reasons to play, to keep the player base happy, this game will HAVE a player base, the game will keep running.

The alternative is for the game to shut down, no one can play, and the only alternatives would be private servers or other games.

Stop. Bitching. About. Optional. Charges.

I hope they end up deciding to do something in the future that's not optional, citing that since you were willing to pay another $8 why not. Why not push it as far as you'll go. That's the message you give.

Though, it's not like people learn lessons anyway.

Everquest, Ragnarok Online, Ultima Online, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Runescape, A Tale in the Desert and Tibia are all older than FFXI and still running, so being 20 years old isn't a miracle really.


Expressing legitimate concerns about how extra storage space is handled compared to competition =/= bitching. And even if so, who are you to tell others what to do?

sorry buddy, there is no "Seeing things differently" you posted something that was straight up false. theres no world in which there was more content in the last decade than there was in the first one. expansions came out after a year, not 3-4. all this is easily verifiable.

you lied, you got called out. now shrink away.

You are not comparing like with like, XI is a PS2 game and is still compiled on ps2 devkits and those are all PC games.

XI is owned by a big company that expects bigger profit margins.

There are people at Square that see keeping 11 running as a bad business decision, even if it makes a profit.

It doesn't matter where it came from. It's been ported over to the PC and is now a PC game. The console ports do not even work anymore.

He stated that it being 20 years old is a miracle it's still running and I pointed out how age does not determine longevity. Not to mention, WoW is 1 year younger than FFXI and still doing well-ish.

I mean, WOTG rolled out painfully slow, this was one of the reasons WOTG was hated so much at the time, and there was a ~5 year gap (I didn't look this up, this is off memory) gap between WOTG and Adoulin. There were the Abyssea add-ons and the 3 add-on scenarios, but these were paid for ($10 each), added no new zones (I don't count reskinned zones as new) or jobs, and were comparable to TVR that is currently rolling out for free. TVR is up to ~30 missions and was rolled out completely free as part of your sub. In fact, if memory serves, didn't the 3 addon scenarios each have 10 missions in them each, and were $10 a pop? If that's the case, TVR has about $30 worth of value and is completely free.

I've seen all sorts of degrees of paid addons with all degrees of prices. It sucks when one company releases large and very high quality DLC for a decent price because it sets the bar in your mind.

Horizon did it right.

My last post wasn't a diss on anyone in particular. The point I was trying to make is that we were told all the way back in 2015 that major updates for FFXI would not happen anymore. They were very upfront with that. But since then, we've gotten plenty of battle content (Ambuscade, Omen, Dyna D, Odyssey, Master Trials, Aman Trove, new HTMBs), ***ton of job adjustments that have literally changed the meta, QoL stuff (like a new installer), a new storyline that is both free and beefy (30 missions is larger than all 3 addon scenarios put together, and larger than RoTZ's narrative), and a bunch of other ***. All of this was just part of your sub, you didn't have to buy an expansion pack to get into any of this content.

The entire point is, for a game that was supposed to go into maintenance mode almost a decade ago at this point, we have been pretty fortunate. This isn't mindless shilling, this is being grateful that a game I have loved for a long time is still kicking and getting updates that are meaningful.

I'm never going to understand why there are people that do nothing but *** about every little thing about this game and SE. Like, why are you even still here and playing if you're so unhappy about how things are? Do I want more for FFXI? Of course! But for $12.95 a month, I'm getting my money's worth for the updates we get.

I didn't take it that way. It just made me think how some DLCs for some games are expensive and you get... not very much while some are fair priced and you get nice quality DLC.

And it also depends on who is in charge at the time. Some entities have been prescribed to be shelved, only to have someone else (new owner... new manager) come along and do the contrary.

I'm happy it's still going. I'm sure if SE decided to pull the plug, someone would do it on a private server something we can't talk about.

You're right, my bad about the thread. I just replied about the issue in here since you mentioned about the load times and the findall plugin on this thread. Mainly cause I was originally assuming the lag spikes I was having were related to how SE changed the inventory loading this update, since it started happening after the maint. I didn't realize it was actually Tako's Equipviewer till I did some testing with Windower and the Ashita addons.

I'll head over to the Ashita discord to ask more questions about the v4 addons/plugins and such. Thanks for the info about Equipmon btw, I found the download for it on discord and it's working good in game. I saw in the .lua settings you can change the screen position of it. Only thing I wasn't sure is if there's a way to resize the box, cause it's really small on my screen and didn't see any setting to change that (for v3 since still trying to get Ashita v4 fully setup). (last post about this stuff, promise)

no one said everyone was happy with the quantity, quality and pricingo for the three mini addons. however, the good thing about addons is, if you have a sliver of self control, you can always wait out those couple of months till they pack all expansions into a collection and slap a discount on it.

imho missions aren't a good measurement for content amount. it's basically procrastination by sending the player from A to B and back for a few lines of dialogue and a cut scene assambled of mostly standard animations/emotes, if your lucky you meet a couple new designed characters but mostly just color adjusted reskins of old models.
when missions became soloable with trusts it got better but overall i think MMOs (especially as old as FFXI) aren't a great medium for story telling and after realising that i never expected much in that regard from FFXI.

i'd much rather measure the content of a expansion by new and creative quests with encouraging rewards, new towns, zones and new enemy and NPC models, oh yeah lets not forget new jobs. rhapsodie of vanadiel either conveniently skips over most of those completely or uses old models with a color/value adjusted reskin. in most aspects the "free" expansions don't compare to the early expansions.


by the way, just so you can already mentally prepare yourself, if they sell those black reskinned relics they've been teasing as a new fully-fledged out REMA that requires similar amount of effort to obtain than the old ones you can be assured i'll be bitching about it on the boards.

It's worth the sub in my opinion. Rhapsodies I easily would have paid additional money for. I think $15-20 would have been appropriate, a middle ground between a full expansion (what did they charge for new expansions back in the day, $30 or $40 I want to say) and the $10 addon scenarios. It had an awesome story, a new zone if we don't count the escha zones, some new enemy models, some new monsters, new music, new alter egos, cool end boss fight. It did all the stuff an expansion did, just on a smaller scale.

Lol it's almost impossible to get people to try this game, not until it has some HD graphics I guess. It's sad the amount of people who outright refuse to try or even take pride in refusing to. Stumbled across this and just eye rolled.

https://m.twitch.tv/clip/CleverInexpensiveSquirrelJonCarnage-1HEXHnx1JcjFyUJK

You're not wrong, Draylo. At the same time, it's hard to get anyone to try getting into an older MMO. Most older MMOs require a lot of effort to succeed and tend not to be as fast-paced or aesthetically appealing to on-lookers.

To be fair, 11 is a hard sell to new people. Come play this 20 year old MMO where you play by yourself because everyone has already done everything. EXP parties don't exist anymore, you solo all the stories, empty cities, etc... Playonline is also a huge hassle for someone that is not familiar with it. The first thing you see when you log in is a lifeless ghost town and a severly outdated UI with awful default keybinds. It doesn't really help that the game tells you next to nothing and you have to search up everything online. Then you finally make it to endgame and a majority of it is timegated lol.

I miss the sandbox feel from 11 the most. All the freedom and the different options. All the hours I put in optimizing jobs. The silly shenanigans like SMN/NIN to solo ambuscade for a fun challenge. But I don't miss it enough to go back when other options respect my time a lot more than 11 would. At least not yet lol. That doesn't stop me from checking in from time to time to see how my favorite MMO is holding up though :)

You're not wrong. I have tried and it isn't easy.

Trying to explain that you don't get huge rewards just for logging in only to get replied "....WHY...??? That's so weird..."

Everything you said is 100% correct but it still has a certain appeal to it that you don't find elsewhere. This appeal is usually only present for veterans. You go to the Dunes as a newer person and it's just like any other zone. Lower-end aesthetic desert but to veterans, it brings back memories of spending hours there LFG, dying to goblins and Bogys, etc.

For many, it was all the many people you met and interacted with along the way. I've "met" others in other MMOs but it's not the same. Even in vanilla WoW, I can count a few times I've had memorable moments but this game, I lost count.

That's how it's supposed to be. You don't start 20 year old mmo's. The model is keeping addicts, not making addicts after the first push.

You'd have to be crazy to think someone should pick up a 20 year old game that expects you to sink thousands of hours into it. (picking up regular old games is far different and totally reasonable)

He didn't even say anything bad, he just doesn't wanna play it. That's fine, he is a fair weather streamer and 11 isn't going to appeal to him. Square Enix asked Ninja to play 14 a few times publicly and he has refused every time, same thing in reverse.

The kind of people that watch streams, aren't this games target audience.

Same as every other mmo.

tbh if i didn't own a up to snuff account i wouldn't see myself playing FFXI either. i don't care anywhere near enough for thos other old MMOs to shell out a monthly fee for them, the only slim exception might be WOW and that's probably cause i've played it for a short while when it was vanilla.
i read WOW even got a free graphics update at some point, are you taking notes FFXI?

For the most part. If you're brand spanking new to FFXIV, you have to do dungeons with other people early on. You don't get access to trusts until later in the game. Other than that, you can solo just about everything else.

I've seen 2 sides to this. One says "Why do you want to play alone in an MMO? It's "Massively Multiplayer..." but some who say "I like the option to play alone if I want."

I think it's better than shoehorning people into group content.

If you dont want to play an mmo like an mmo dont play an mmo.

12 is a much better single player XI for example

You can't tell me what to do. You're not my real dad.

Every modern mmo is laughable mini quest leveling with nonsense stories that nobody reads from 1 to cap, that ferry you from one place to the another as if it's an on-rails shooter. The leveling experience has no freedom, it's made to lose as few casual players as possible and not have them worry their pretty little heads about having to think about anything.

During leveling if there is a dungeon, you get to press an instance match button that takes 5mins to 2 hours to build the party depending on what class you play. To put you into a dungeon with people who might as well be trusts anyway. However it's more depressing than actual trusts, because you know they aren't AI and they won't talk or interact with you at all most of the time cause they see you as tools to get the dungeon done and nothing else. Reason they don't care? you'll literally never see those people ever again at all anyway.

I've played all these games and they are depressing asf, reason being is that you actually play with hundreds of people if you spam dungeons and you literally could not tell at all if they were bots or not. You get some "hi" "gg" "bye" sometimes but that's it.

I spent years playing these games and some nights I would would grind dungeons over and over while on my tank, and at the end I felt depressed as fk cause it was a soulless experience playing with so many people and having no feeling of interaction or socialization at all. Literally leveling with trusts all night is better becasue you can at least take it for what it is. Doing dungeons on modern mmorps is like riding on a train, you'll be "with lots of people" but they literally might as well be bots.

The only counter to this is if you join a guild, and that's the same on every mmorpg from everquest to new world.

I think for potential new players there's two drop-off points for their XI experience.

The first two or three hours probably makes or breaks a lot of people. Getting through POL, getting your accounts setup, learning to navigate the control scheme and UI. Logging into a town only to find it dead and (god forbid if you chose Asura) the only shouts seeming to be RMT/bot spam. Or just nothing, if you chose a smaller server. If you can learn to navigate all of that though and have an affinity for finding/using third party tools and wikis, I think most new players do end up sticking out at least through nation missions and the end of RoV, which for many is all they want to cross off "I played XI" from their FF Fan bucket list.

The other drop off point/wall is trying to get into endgame. It's initially just as lonely as the leveling process was except now you're fighting things that can kind of fight back in your bad gear and low game knowledge (low tier Geas Fete, Ambu, etc). You'll die a lot and have to re-farm things to get more chances. You'll realize that a ton of endgame revolves around gil and that you don't have the same means to get that gil that long term players do (New players aren't doing 7 segment farms a week, that plus Sparks/Unity is ~10m a week just doing normal endgame stuff). So you level up THF and start doing the low tier farms you do have access to.

Maybe you find a linkshell to help out with all of this. Endgame ones don't want you, you're useless to them and will be for like a year unless you play WHM better than their bots, but social ones can and do run things like Vagary and Omen successfully. So now you're getting some gear, but there's probably a core in the LS that's hard carrying you, and that can feel demoralizing or confusing because you probably want to contribute too.

It's very hard to have an "organic" progression experience in XI this late in the game. You're probably going to get carried, either by someone that likes you or thinks you'll eventually be a useful addition to the linkshell, or carried via skipping tiers of progression by paying mercs. It can be very demoralizing looking at gear guides and, for example, noticing that you can basically skip the non-REMA part of PLD's progression by just stealthing through Sheols A-C, getting your free Moglophone IIs, and buying a Kalunga clear for like 20m gil and then your Sakpata for however much on top. 40 dollars or so of RMT gil and you've immediately blown past your struggles. I don't see how you engage with that content organically (something like Ambu/Geas Fete -> Omen -> W1/2 farms for +2 JSE -> Odyssey v0) with the age it's at and how most people seem to be kind of over it.

That's aside from learning to accept that XI is broken wide open by tools, mules, full alt accounts, bots, what have you.

I think that's why on more casual social media around XI (the subreddit, etc) the main type of post is "how does game/POL work" and discussion very rarely involves endgame or anything past the end of RoV. The game just kind of breaks down and gets a bit silly for new players after the credits roll.

The above is all my perspective as a new player that's been playing since November or so of last year for the first time, at least.