Prrsha wrote:
Runespider wrote:
I hate this company more with every passing day.
The company is no longer SquareEnix... I'd just call it Enix. Look at how many of FFXI's key staff members have left for other companies?
Look at how many they employed over the decade from when they started with a small group. Also some XI Staff went on to XIV.
Like it or not companies change and so do Staff, having moved different jobs but remained in the same profession. I personally don't like the idea of staying in one place for more than 10 years even though I've done it once. I won't do it again unless my responsibilities changed developed. Anyone who works in a business for long enough knows this. There are hundreds of workers but only a handful of top positions that people tend to want to be in. I my self am going from a IT to more Business Manager role.
Prrsha wrote:
During the span of FFXI:
The lead developer left
Most of the storyline/lore staff vanished
The man who created the Chocobo is gone
The creator of the Final Fantasy franchise left (before FFXI however)
I recommend you check their names, a lot of them went to XIV. You have made a lot of assumptions that they all left SE when in fact they simply moved on to other projects in the company. Like it or not SE has had to expand its Staff to manage all the games it has in development. Staff that move on, is life and frankly they can move on for a lot of reasons. XI Staff have shrunk but again if it brings in £xx and the company has to make a profit from it, when the profit slowly drops SE must do something about it. No point keeping 100 Staff for XI, when a lot of players (and I know a lot) went on to XIV.
Prrsha wrote:
When you redesign a game and start changing its core to meet with the current trends, you lose your nitche playerbase. What you have left now, is a game that is half EQ and half WoW. The parts don't fit well together, leaving a confused mess of outdated content that is no longer relevant because the core has shifted so much that only the new content is relevant anymore.
What do new players see when entering FFXI? They see a game that looks broken by zooming them to level 99 because the older content just doesn't fit anymore. The removal of level caps in storyline areas and no need for low level synthed gear leads to a rewardless crafting system and empty auction houses (and a broken non-existent) game economy.
They were never going to win 100% but they have done well, before I quit XI for XIV 2.0 I was happy where it went. They realized that casual gamers don’t want to spend 5 hours every day doing a simple task, when XI came out its real competition was WoW. Now the competition is fierce with F2P everywhere, games like XIV that are making a strong profit for SE and there are plenty of MMO choices. It’s a market that is very difficult to compete in, so many games were forced to be F2P to survive and laid off a lot of Staff.
SE are simply having to adapt to the market. People are still playing XI, not the numbers that existed some Years ago but the market has very much changed. Even WoW is being hit heavy, it’s engine is outdated and the new content doesn’t seem to be encouraging to stay. This was a game which blew away competition.
Other games that have survived through the Years have done so by keeping limited staff employed while still providing a good amount of content – Everquest being a prime example.