Final Fantasy XI - Interview @ TTH

[woges]

TTH catch an interview (http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/50868) with some of the FFXI devs.
With the recent retail successes of World of Warcraft (http://wow.tentonhammer.com/), Age of Conan (http://www.tentonhammer.com/aoc), and Warhammer Online (http://warhammer.tentonhammer.com/), it's easy to forget about the games that paved the way for these modern MMOGs, titles like Ultima Online (http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/154), EverQuest (http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/38), and Final Fantasy XI (http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/211). Yet among those three games, the title that is arguably still the most successful continues to be Final Fantasy XI, which continues to boast hundreds of thousands of subscriptions. Nearing its seventh year of live service, FFXI recently held its annual Fan Festival where Ten Ton Hammer's Cody "Micajah" Bye caught up with the developers and talked with them about the future of their long lived MMOG. Topics included solo vs. group play, end game content, and the recently announced mini-expansions.
More information. (http://www.rpgwatch.com/show/newsbit?newsbit=10925)

[Yeesh]

I mean no disrespect to FFXI, bu it makes no sense to group it with UO and EQ. The big three from the olden days:

UO 1997
EQ 1999
Asheron's Call 1999

FFXI was released MUCH later (2002, after Asheron's Call 2 and many others). The game did break new ground by mixing console players with PC players (that's power to the people), and it is still around while so many others are not. So it may be appropriate to praise FFXI's glory, but let's keep in mind that it's closer on the timeline to the release of WoW than it is to the birth of the commercial MMORPG.

God I need a life.

[woges]

I think it makes sense, I mean, he's saying it paved the way and it was a successful pre-WoW MMO. That makes more sense to me than comparing AoC or WAR's success to WoW's.

[Yeesh]

it's easy to forget about the games that paved the way for these modern MMOGs, titles like Ultima Online, EverQuest, and Final Fantasy XI. Yet among those three games, the title that is arguably still the most successful continues to be Final Fantasy XI
Once he groups these three games and compares their ongoing success, he's putting them into a single category. But we all know that the first two are 2/3 of the big trio of the first-gen commercial MMORPGs, while FFXI was one of the flood that came after.

I take issue with the idea that FFXI paved the way for WoW or WAR, unless you can say that every game in between UO and EQ2 did so as well. And maybe you can say that, but I think it takes some of the meaning out of way paving. I'm no expert, but I see FFXI's two biggest signifiers as 1) PC and console play together!, and 2) Look I'm a Japanese MMORPG!. I do think it's impressive for one of these games to reach FFXI's age and subscription level, but I'd say that those 2 features are probably what's responsible for said success. And neither of those paved the way for current-gen MMOs in any way I can think of.

But then I'm nitty mcpicksalot.

[woges]

I think the big issue is more likely subscribers and how a dedicated fan base can be turned into said subscribers.