"Human or not" a letter to Yoshi-P & SEFollow

Things aren't what they used to be, that's for sure. I wonder how Zal and Gwook and Mittens are doing. You should come ******** with me in the FF14 general on h8 chan.

Is XV bad or something? I haven't been paying attention to it since I don't own a PS4.

RE:Private Servers:

Private Servers being "illegal" is a matter of semantics. No, a PS will not get you in jail, but then again, not every law broken sends you to jail. You can jaywalk or go speeding and you won't go to jail, but yet those are "illegal".

It's against the ToS, and if you have a paid account and they find out that you also play on a PS, they could shut your account down (the ToS that you agree with every time you start the game says that they can shut your account down for "any reason"), but finding out who plays on PS and who doesn't is rather difficult.

The only recourse of action they have that they can deal with a PS, is to shut the PS itself down and/or go after the owner, but this takes money, a LOT of money if a lawsuit is involved. And almost always, the person who is to be sued doesn't have the money to pay up.

Therefore, companies only do this when the server is large enough that potential lost monthly subs is worth it. Blizzard shutting down and suing that one PS that had the 700k (IIRC?) players was worth it, because that's 700k people not paying Blizzard to play their game, hence why they sued for 700k x ~$15 and some for "damages".

Your average obscure PS though that only has a couple hundred players, though? Not really worth it unless you find out that the PS owner is actually charging a monthly fee, then that's outright theft.

As to whether or not a Private Server is "stealing", it kind of is. In a way. You're allowing people to enjoy Intellectual Property without them having to pay to do so. Normally, you need to go through PlayOnline or MogStation and pay up to be able to play the game, but along comes a private server that says "Play here for free!". If you do, you're not giving SE their money (assuming you're not also playing on the official servers). The PS owner isn't "stealing" SE's money, however, they are causing damages and losses by setting up these private servers.

A PS owner could require a paid subscription, but then there's no way to enforce it that I know of.

When it's all said and done, Private Servers are a rather shady proposition, and one I can't support or condone. These companies spend millions to develop and run an MMO and they need to get some money back out of it to continue doing so, and circumventing the monthly fees is like expecting to ride an airplane for free. If you stow away on a ship or an airplane, you aren't "stealing" anything, right? Except, you are in a roundabout way.

What ever happened to the FFXI mobile version that was still supposed to be a mmo? We never hear of it anymore.

I really want to play a mmo that is FF based.
I am going to finish FFXI stories that I have not finished but I honestly have not touched 14 or 11 in months and I completely quit FFXIV.
I really wish SE would launch a MMO that is somewhere between FFXI and FFXIV. That is what I was hoping FFXIV was going to be.
In FFXIV I feel all they really tried to do is tick off anyone that played FFXI. They wanted to be the complete opposite.
They needed to give FFXI fan base something to do because as FFXI dies now that is a decent sized fan base to loose and most are not going to FFXIV. Most of FFXI players that were going to go to FFXIV from FFXI already did. What is funny is I know about 20 or so players who did and only 3 still play FFXIV. They now do not play either.

Talking to allot of FFXI players they despise the game and some blame it for the downfall of FFXI now. If it were not for FFXIV the ffxi fan base would still be pretty strong.






Edited, Nov 30th 2016 9:42am by Nashred

Not saying it would not be dropping in membership but a ton of people left for FFXIV thinking it was the next FFXI. Some of those players did come back but some still play FFXIV and most do not play any FF MMO.

There is no doubt FFXI was starting to die when FFXIV came out but if FFXIV didn't there would still would be more players that stayed.
Dropping the Xbox seemed to even have a bigger impact on American population.

FFXI still seems to get plenty of new content and allot of it is better than what FFXIV is getting.
Anyone who has not played in several years would be shocked by what they added. Just the amount of storage or another level to the mog house. You can now ride other mounts. Monster raising and mog garden are a huge update.


Edited, Nov 30th 2016 10:34am by Nashred

The content they've added, along with the QoL stuff has definitely been good. That being said, the game still runs like something from the early 2000s. Sure you can use Windower to unlock the FPS' and all that good stuff, but some people simply can't be bothered. Just trying to do things in Adoulin was so slow, everything still feels cumbersome for the most part. XIV might of had a bit to do with its slow demise, but overall, the game is old and still plays like an old game.

At this point, they would need to rework most of the engine to bring it up to today's standards. That's obviously not happening since it would cost a ton of $$$ to make it happen. At least with XIV, they've learned to slowly upgrade things with expansions so the game doesn't lag behind with the times.

I still love going back to XI every now and then, but it can get frustrating at times.

Maybe because they realized how terrible of an idea that is, to make an entirely new game just for mobile instead of putting that money into updating the two games that we already have?



Well, good, because there's already two games there.



Finishing the story in FFXI is but one of the many things one can do, in fact I just got a family member's Promathia done and we're going to duo Aht Urhgan here soon too. Yes, you can SOLO almost anything in the game now. Go see all of those sights you couldn't if you lacked a good linkshell back in the day!



This statement is kinda pointless when you don't elaborate on what you wanted from FFXI, but what you don't want from FFXIV.

You like the updated UI of FFXIV I'm assuming? But yet you want things to take absolutely forever to do like in FFXI? I'm having trouble understanding what exactly you want, and you wouldn't be the first to talk about it with this kind of language; I've read over the years many complaints how both games are "not what they wanted".

Well...what DO you want then?



No, they were trying to reel in the newer generation of MMO gamers that are used to World of Warcraft (and similar games). Hence, why XIV's UI is so friendly and familiar to anybody who has played WoW.

As far as what FFXI players want, I can tell you from the years upon years of experience with the XI community, they don't know what they want. They complain about one thing, then when it is changed, they complain it was changed. There's no pleasing that crowd, and I learned that a long time ago.



FFXI is not dying, lol. I'm on one of the lower populated servers, and you see plenty of people around.

I think most of the problem is, former FFXI players are not aware of how much the game changed. I mean, c'mon, I leveled a mule from 26 to 50 in about 2 or so hours while solo. As I stated previously, you can solo 99% of the game and there's enough to do that you could be at it for months, and that's not even factoring in side-quests.



Maybe, but again, you kinda need to explain what you think FFXIV does wrong that alienates FFXI players.



Maybe they got tired of MMOs in general? I burned out a couple years ago, but hey here I am back again.



So you're saying that XIV "failed" only because of the XI fanbase? I doubt it.

It just sounds like XIV is floundering a little and they need the same genius minds that brightened XI to brainstorm a few things for XIV.

The first few days after my recent (about 2-3 weeks ago) return to XI, I was absolutely shocked and amazed by some of the genius game design decisions I saw in the game, the whole game was changed so that it is an entirely different beast now, and I have found it rather cool. The last time I "quit" XI, I used to dread logging on because every time I did, I found myself drowsy at the keyboard. Not so much these days, I find myself going out and leveling on mules, chasing after this, and that and just having a good ole time.

If "MMO Sandbox" was ever a genre, I think FFXI would be it. Once you get a job to 99, you can literally do anything you want that you haven't already done yet (except for maybe some Adoulin and Ambuscade content? I'm not sure just how far you can get solo with item level gear. I've read that finishing Rhapsodies is possible with mild difficulty solo), and boy is there ever a ton of stuff to do.

I'm really not understand the "Glass Half Empty" mindset here. Maybe it's because I was never hardcore at either game, maybe it's because I never really treated either game like a 2nd job, I don't know. Maybe most of the whole thing is a PEBKAC problem, where the players themselves are causing the very problems they have with the game (trying to rush the content as fast as they can, and then complain there's nothing to do).

Edited, Nov 30th 2016 5:26pm by Lyrailis

I tried the Japanese version of Grandmasters and it was actually pretty fun. I didn't stick with it very long since I'm not anything like fluent in Japanese and it takes me approximately forever to translate things to a useful degree, but I enjoyed the gameplay. Wouldn't mind an English release of that. I'd play it.

Yeah I stuck with it, next to Brave Frontier and FFEX it's one of the only mobile games I actually stuck with in the 'modern days' that weren't obvious cash grabs. These have their 'energy' system but it's still more playable than many other games out there.



1. This is mostly a server limitation for back in the 90s, so it's something they probably could fix but that takes some time and money which SE has to dedicate, since Matsui always say he wishes they were given a bigger budget.
2. Linked to 1 since given the age of XI it'd take some work to detangle all of that lol.
3. Sadly this was done in response to players at the time (and as proven by XIV players) due to accidentally tossing things. In XIV people still somehow "accidentally" throw away stuff despite all the prompts.
5. This is definitely something I can see changing out of anything, menus within menus was originally for the "oldschool FF feel" and at the time it was actually fine since other MMOs was similar in the sense you'd have 9838283 windows open, so strangely, even now, XI is still fairly clean UI wise.
6. They send the packet to your client already so it's very possible they can update it. (similar to how we got fed the tp/mp of alliance but it was never shown, they made available much later)
7. Would be nice and I believe this is something the new UI was supporting, but that idea is in limbo due to, well, no support from SE.
8. I thought they auto dismount now on chocobos universally, but i only ever ride my tiger these days lol..
9. All part of their plan for new UI that sadly never got finished.
10. Same as #9.
11. This is sadly due to XI's age and each zone having a godly amount of flags. It's all part of why they want more support/funding from SE so they can go deeper into changing things with XI. WoTG era was when they initially planned to revamp XI but instead it became XIV 1.0.

Yeah it's not hard at all, but since they've been tossing new programmers at XI it's probably something they'll randomly throw in on these monthly updates one day lol

Yea I saw that Grandmasters was released but the mmo has not been talked about at all since. Last I heard is it was named FFXI reboot and was to launch in 2016.There was a few screen shots.
I am not sure I would even be much interested in a mobile version but would certainly give it a try.

"Private Servers being "illegal" is a matter of semantics. No, a PS will not get you in jail, but then again, not every law broken sends you to jail. You can jaywalk or go speeding and you won't go to jail, but yet those are "illegal". "

No you may not go to jail fo the thinsg you listed but you WILL get a ticket. SO SOMETHING happens for you doing it, unlike private servers

Ever tried the quote feature? It works wonders.

Anyways, as far as PS goes... ask the people who got sued by Blizzard what happens when you run a PS that gets too successful. I can't remember a jaywalker ever getting drug into court and having to pay legal fees. IIRC, the case was dropped/settled/abandoned, but the defendants surely had legal fees to deal with which were far, far more than a jaywalking ticket would ever bring.



I'd venture a guess that the majority of players simply hop on over to a wiki and look it up. I know I do.

I don't like wasting time (something XI gobbles up in huge quantities anyways) trying to figure out basic stuff like "Will this attack me or not?"

I have better things to spend time on, and I really don't see where it "takes away" from the exploration aspect of the game; there's plenty of areas I've not seen and missions I've not done yet and not knowing whether or not something is aggressive doesn't really add any exploration aspect either.

And now, with Item Level in XI, you can't even tell what level a mob is to you because things that are Lv70-90+ all check as "Incredibly Easy Prey". Yeah, that's.........vague. It's pointless to even have a /check command at Lv99 these days, because EVERYTHING outside of endgame checks as "Incredibly Easy Prey" with Low Defense and Low Evasion. Every. Thing.

But yet, it'd be nice to know what level this stuff was, so I can predict how good XP it might be to kill it, or if it isn't worth bothering with, or whether or not it can actually hurt me (a Lv99 enemy casting -ga III might actually hit for a couple hundred HP; a Lv75 mob doing it won't even tickle me for example).

Yet one more thing I need to alt-tab out of the game for. You want to talk about Exploration? Maybe I'd like to talk about Immersion. Alt-tabbing out of the game destroys immersion and I find myself doing it constantly while playing XI. You kinda have to, because the game does not tell you anything about anything hardly. They did add crafting lists, but it takes hours to find what you're looking for through convoluted menus.

Edited, Dec 3rd 2016 7:02am by Lyrailis