WoW Classic can't come soon enough. It's sad that WoW has to set the standard for EVERYTHING... But even then, there will be naysayers who condemn it no matter how well it does.

If you look at arguments against a FFXI legacy server or private server, they are as follows:
1. People only play there because it's free.
2. People only play for a week, get bored, and quit.
3. Rose tinted glasses.
4. The game sucked back then. The current FFXI is better than it's ever been.
5. They're illegal.
6. It takes money from SE.

None of the above is true. My responses?
1. No doubt, there are people who only play because it's free. But looking at the things that people spend money on... how there were people during retail who had multiple accounts and tons of mules, paying DOZENS of $ for FFXI a month, how mobile gaming is the top gaming industry right now and revolves around pay to win and micro transactions, the amount of money people will spend on hacks and gil. SE peaked at 500-600K active subs, and no telling what the total number of people who ever subbed to the game was during those years. You're telling me that that many people would pay for the game back then, but wouldn't pay for the same game now? Maybe not a 1:1 ratio of how things were back then, no, but with some quality of life stuff like level sync?
2. If that were the case, how would the population ever rise? How would it be possible that Nasomi is reaching 1300 unique IPs? I often wonder what the unique IP count is on Asura retail.
3. I'd believe that from someone who hasn't actually gotten to re-experience a legacy experience. But pretty much ever old MMO offers either an official legacy server or has healthy private server legacy populations. It can't just be rose tinted glasses if people are ACTUALLY going back and playing on those servers for long periods of time.
4. Subjective. Everyone is different, everyone likes different things. Some people enjoy FFXI's party grind. Others don't. Some people like legacy, some don't. Some people like retail, some don't. Some people like both. There's clearly a market for both.
5. Private servers are against SE's EULA. So are bots, scripts, FFXIAH, Windower, Ashita, plugins, addons, ApRadar, GuildWork, and all of the other stuff that has been so common within the FFXI community all of these years. Players don't get to pick and choose what's legal and acceptable and what isn't.
6. SE hasn't provided a legacy experience in ~8 years since the launch of Abyssea (technically even earlier than that with the addition of FoV/GoV during WOTG which also destroyed the party dynamic... people started alliancing to kill EPs for EXP). And that is why SE does not get paid for a legacy experience. If SE does not provide a legacy experience, then why should they be paid for a legacy experience? You can't steal something that doesn't exist. Legacy players play legacy because they prefer it over the current FFXI. Should people be expected to pay for something they don't want to play? If SE wants to make money off of legacy players, it is their choice and within their power to do so.

SE has a habit of copying other companies. Final Fantasy 1 was based on Dragon Quest, Wizardry, and Ultima. FFXI was based on Everquest, and FFXIV was based on WoW. I would not be surprised whatsoever if SE launches a legacy server after WoW Classic.

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https://www.change.org/p/official-square-enix-final-fantasy-xi-level-75-era-server

I already pay for an FFXIV subscription, I dont need to pay a subscription to two games I dont want to play.

https://www.twitch.tv/mrhappy1227
Went to check FFXI on Twitch, and look who it is, lol. Didn't realize he went back to FFXI.

Some prime retail FFXI streaming going on here right now.

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https://www.change.org/p/official-square-enix-final-fantasy-xi-level-75-era-server

When grinding pointless ilevels in ONE FF MMO isnt enough.

Maybe he should try it. Hate isnt the answer!

I bet mrhappy pays for music to support bands he likes. Everyone who downloads music for free are disrespecting the artist lols. Agreed with a lot of ppl. Ppl wanna play a certain era. If se made said era ppl would pay for it.

$15 a month is pretty cheap. FFXI's sub fee is even a couple dollars less than that. There were/are a lot of people that paid way more than that too, with multiple accounts, tons of mules, and extra wardrobes.

I don't think a game's age should matter much when determining its fee as long as it is reasonable. It's still more entertaining than most modern games. Servers, maintenance, staff, support, and bandwidth costs still need to be paid.

Subscription models are still there, and doing well. FFXIV and WoW are both sub based, as well as FFXI and EQ still. I think FFXIV and WoW are the best way to do it, a sub fee with a cash shop that is just purely cosmetic stuff like mounts, emotes, and equipment graphics. I think this is one of the mistakes that was made with FFXI. They could have made a lot more money by selling stuff like that. Even though I'd prefer everything to be obtainable in-game, I understand the reality of requiring profits to maintain and sustain.

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https://www.change.org/p/official-square-enix-final-fantasy-xi-level-75-era-server

Maybe I'm weird, but I'm totally fine with a subscription fee for an MMO, no matter what age it is.

The way I see it, I pay £9.99 or whatever a month for it. If I didn't pay that £9.99, I'd spend that £9.99 on something else.

For around the same price (Barring travel fees, which makes it almost £17 for me.. Lol) I can buy a movie ticket.

That one movie ticket lets me see one movie, on average.. About 1.5hrs of enjoyment.

£9.99 into sub mmo of my choice gives me as much play time as I see fit to dedicate to the MMO during that month, which in my view - if I play atleast 5 hours a week, is worth my money.

I used to see it as a sub = I need to dedicate to that game to get my money's worth, but putting it into perspective of what that £9.99 COULD have done for me... Eh? :p



I can't stand the Sub+Cash shop model. Especially in FFXIV's case. It has such a robust crafting system, as well as a fair amount of almost rewardless content. Most of that cash shop bollocks could have been added as in game rewards.. You know, as an incentive for me to actually play the game. A lot of people defend the cash shop sub mentality with "It's just cosmetics", but earning cosmetics through in game actions is great. And when they're rapid firing outfits and mounts on the cash shop like Squeenix had been recently it rubs me the wrong way.

Now don't get me wrong, the best cash shop is a cosmetic cash shop, but a cosmetic cash shop that's as expensive as WoW/FFXIV's, with a sub? Erk. :p And don't even get me STARTED on that bullshit story skip potion.

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Florina - Wannabe lolpup. No idea what job I want to actually play until PUP works properly. :v
Probably BST, DRG or SMN.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with private servers if you ask me. Especially ones that either retroact the current game back to a more enjoyable time in the game's history.

Or if say the game is modified to a certain degree to add content that was not in the game previously. Say, if the mod dev gave us the ability to move faster or fly on the chocobos after a certain point.

If people wanted to start servers of their own, as long as they aren't taking money or charging for it then theres no reason why it should be wrong.

I can honestly say I've been enjoying my experience on Nasomi more than I have on the retail version I played back in the day. That's because of all the work around that hes put into it.

Being able to check my character's inventory and mog boxes outside of the game. As well as see if something I put on the AH has sold or not. Not to mention the 100+ limit on the amount of things you can sell on AH. And making all AHs linked together instead of separate. I cant think of any reason as to why making them separate AHs was a good idea, other than large server pop.

All of these things has made the game more enjoyable in my opinion. The game still isn't any less difficult either.

So to say it's wrong, is basically saying that game modding is wrong. Modder's dont ask for money for their modifications because the game they mod is not theirs so they cant legally charge you. Otherwise I'm sure they would. But you use their modifications because you're curious about them, or maybe they fix an issue the developers cant seem to fix themselves or WONT fix.

Modding brings players back to the game after being away for awhile or keeps them playing it continuously. Look at Skyrim, I know it's not online but same principle. And if people want something like Nasomi and the company's devs wont or cant do it, then what's so wrong with a guy spending money out of his own pocket to run his own version and sever of a 17 year old online game eh?

That's my 2 cents anyway.

They're ok with it as long as they don't take money for it. Nasomi isn't taking money. So what's the problem? There's no disguised moral dilemma here, there's just a bunch of people playing a game they love through the only means they can. We've asked SE for this game again, they've said no. We're not paying for their product because they're not giving us the product we desire, not that we're refusing to pay for one. Big difference.

Also, if anything more and more players are coming back to retail FFXI because of this Ninja thing, cause honestly most people dont know the difference between a private server and the retail version. They google ffxi and up comes the retail site. They download the trial, its been happening A LOT. Nasomi is good press no matter how you swing it.