FFXI's Vana'diel Gets Census, Re-Confirms 500,000 Players

Thanks to SirBruce for pointing to Square Enix's official Final Fantasy XI census survey, recently revealed since "May 16, 2004 marks the second anniversary of Final Fantasy XI's Japanese launch." The piece re-confirms that "the number of active Final Fantasy XI players (or, the number of paying customers with at least one character) has topped 500,000", and goes on to look at log-in distribution ("Japanese logins peak at around 11 p.m [but] the North American peak time occurs on a relatively smooth spread of 10 or 12 hours [largely due to] the 3-hour time difference that exists between North America's two coasts"), and job type distribution ("the warrior dominates the charts.") In a related story, Terra Nova discusses an economic research paper on Final Fantasy XI, which notes: "There is a pricing differential in exactly the same object depending on the time of day. This corresponds with the times that Japanese and North American users log on."

Comments

Of course Warrior is #1

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Warrior always the #1 choice in RPGs?

Re:Of course Warrior is #1

[Lemental]

I was a warrior in FFXI, too.

In SWG, the main professions are the Melee skills. I dont see many toting around ranged weapons anymore, its all swords, pikes and Vibroknucklers. Sad really, since it was supposed to be a space based RPG, and the most popular skills are beating people down with hand weapons.

Must be the Jedi thing.

Re:Of course Warrior is #1

[psyco484]

That's strange, my SWG experience was quite the opposite. I saw plenty of marksmen shooting at things with pistols and rifles, but not many people whacking things with melee weapons. Maybe that's because I played a marksman and was just looking for them more though. Either way I grew bored with the game because I didn't have 50+ hours a month to dump into it just to be able to do the cool stuff. Which was really too bad, it looked like it would be excellent once I got up to the right level.

I also bought ffxi several months ago, but I still haven't gotten around to installing it. I feared if I started playing it while I was in school I'd fail out...that and my school's connection is really terrible. With 500,000 players though, they've got to be doing something right. I guess I'll have to throw away my life and check it out now.

Re:Of course Warrior is #1

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a player. I played Galaxies and found it boring and I never felt like I was getting anywhere. FFXI is by no means grindless.. but I feel like I accomplish a lot more.

Re:Of course Warrior is #1

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got to be kidding. Pikesman is the least popular profession of all. There are more chefs than pikesmen. As a weaponsmith, I know that I have a lot more demand for ranged weapons than melee. I've actually never had someone ask me to make a pike for them. I've made lots of pistols and rifles and power hammers (in that order). Everything else drops off sharply.

Re:Of course Warrior is #1

[MMaestro]

In reality, yes. In theory (or in a perfect world), no. At least in FFXI, parties don't need so many meat shields (which is what Warriors really are. HONEST! Their most used ability is the ability 'Provoke' which almost always (another topic) causes a monster to target him. This way the Warrior (having the most defense and HP) is hit instead of the weak little mages or the more damage focused monk or ability attacking focused thief.)

Naturally this leads to serious party forming issues.. Following the simple rule of 'supply and demand' Mages are generally rarely available, while Warriors are considered to be 'a dime a dozen.' Its not uncommon to see parties with 3 warriors and no white mages sometimes (I've been in a party with 3 warriors, 2 black mages, and a red mage...)

Re:Of course Warrior is #1

[Anonymous Coward]

I suspect the reason for this is that Warrior is a good class for beginners (fairly easy to play at the low levels). Many people will play as Warrior for the first thirty levels, until they can unlock the advanced jobs. At this point, they'll change to one of the advanced jobs. The result of this is that while there are far too many Warriors at levels 1-30, there's a genuine lack of them (and of the other main tank class, the Paladin), above level 30. White Mages, on the other hand, which seem scare at low levels, are dime-a-dozen once you get into the mid 30s.

Re:Of course Warrior is #1

[falcon5768]

Thats exactly why Im not one of them... both me and my girlfriend chose jobs that are not so overly abundant so that we could party with more people. Even though shes new to MMORPG's she took the white mage and is having a ball with it despite being a target most of the time

Likewise Im a Monk, which might not nearly have the defence of a Warrior, but a Elvian Monk kicks major ass in accuracy and damage delt, I might not deal killer blows, but I hit 90% of the time and with a constant level of damage that other jobs cant beat, especially early on. Plus I dont need to by new swords and stuff nearly as much as other people do since I use fists.... I managed to get to level 11 without gloves. and with gloves I cant take on some nasty enemies as long as they dont cast stat spells... If I have a white mage, then I cant pretty much take on all

Economic Research...

[notamac]

I stopped reading the article about "economic research" right around the moment I noticed the word "coz."

Re:Economic Research...

[gnatbot]

I stopped reading the article about "economic research" right around the moment I noticed the word "coz."

Maybe this one would be better

Re:Economic Research...

[Deraj DeZine]

No kidding. The author suggests (actually he states it as a necessity) that someone interested in researching the economy in FFXI use character recognition (OCR, not game characters) to read off data from the player's screen.

As far as I can tell, it's just some student coming up with crazy ideas and no actual research has been done.

Re:Economic Research...

[Deraj DeZine]

Never mind, apparently I skimmed over the link to the actual research report that was cleverly titled "here".

I still think OCR was overkill, but I guess he claims to have done it.

Re:Economic Research...

[talient]

that's why you never discovered that that was not the study, but a description of the study.

Second Anniversary?! - What about Europe?

[Triprotic]

May 16, 2004 marks the second anniversary of Final Fantasy XI's Japanese launch.

And still no release date for Europe? that's nice of them (that's a sarcastic comment for those who can't tell).

I could import the game, but that would make the game more expensive, I want to play it, but not that badly :/

Re:Second Anniversary?! - What about Europe?

[nsebban]

No release date, but a few lucky european people (I'm one of them =) got invited for the Beta-Testing of the European version (more on this at rpgamer). I think it will be released just after the summer.

Anyway, I imported the game, and I can tell you it's really worth the $60 I paid for it.

Re:Second Anniversary?! - What about Europe?

[Binary Judas]

They always release games late here, and that is because of all the retarded people who can't bother to learn english because they think their languages are important... I hate it!

Give it up already!

Wow, bigger than EQ?

[DrEldarion]

Damn, last time I heard, EverQuest had around 420,000 active players. Could FFXI really be more popular than EQ now? Amazing.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[ajutla]

It's not really that surprising. FF has incredibly huge brand recognition, after all. Besides, EQ is getting kind of old/stale--at least, that's what people tell me. I don't play any MMO games myself (out of lack of money) but many of my friends have switched to FFXI simply because they've been playing EQ too long. Hell, if I could afford it, I would definitely be playing FFXI right now. The game looks really slick.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

i think the main reason that FFX1 is so popular isnt because its a better game per se, but because you can run it on a PS2--

computer games tend to be less popular because of the hassle of maintaining a computer, upgrading the ram, etc etc. console games are more "no nonsense", you buy the console, then you buy the game, and unless you have that weird scanning head bug the game usually works.

i dont know that many people with computers good enough to run SWG or run EQ optimally, but i know tons of people with PS2s.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[ajutla]

Maybe, but--and I am in no way an authority on this seeing that I don't own the game--FFXI has relatively low system requirements, I'm pretty sure. Actually, I have a PS2 but I've never really considered using it to play online RPGs. How the would you talk to people? By spending extra money and buying a keyboard? And the game itself would likely run more slowly than if you were actually playing it on a computer. The cost would break down something like this:

PS2 + network adapter ($200) + FFXI/hard drive ($100) + some kind of third party keyboard (~$25-30, something like that) + ~$13 per month = a lot. Whereas, if you already have a decent computer, it's just $50 for the game, and then your monthly fee. Hell, even if you don't have a decent computer, you can spend, what, $200 or so for a really cheap eMachine that'll play the game optimally. And you get a better gaming experience overall...

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[Pluvius]

Remember, the Japanese are a lot more interested in FFXI than EQ too.

Rob

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[YomikoReadman]

As someone who plays FFXI, I can attest to the fact that you are way off on this. Sys requirements for FFXI are a lot steeper than you think, so that $200 eMachine won't cut it. Even if you build a machine yourself, which is cheaper, IMO, you're still looking at at least $500 just to meet minimum requirements. As for buying it for PS2, you can get a USB keyboard for $20 or less if you look around, and here in the next month or so, a PS2 with the network adapter will be dropping to $150, then $100 for the game, and $13 a month. On top of that, the PS2 version runs at somewhere in between lo Res and hi Res, and at a much smoother framerate than my 2 GhZ Athlon with over half a gig of ram.

Oh, and for the record, I have pretty much all the graphic options turned down as far as I can get them, and I don't have anything running in the background, either.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[Joe Tie.]

I wouldn't say it's all that steep in terms of system requirements. Mine's an old clunker - 850mhz with 128mb ram and a GF4mx and I still managed to get fair performance from it.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[thryllkill]

Something must be wrong with your system then, because I run FFXI on an AthlonXP 2100+ (1.73ghz) with only half a gig of ram, and I have most of my graphics features maxed out. The only thing I don't have maxed is the shadows. Perhaps you need a better video card? Even then, mine is nothing special, just an ATI Radeon 9500 pro.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[YomikoReadman]

Nope, nothing wrong with it at all, as I told the other guy. Bear in mind that you have more horsepower, despite the fact that you're either blowing smoke up my ass about your processor, or are underclocking your system. My Athlon XP1800+ is clocked faster than your 2100+ is, and I'm not overclocking either.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[birder]

NCsoft has reported that Lineage has more than four million subscribers, most of them in Korea.

I read an article recently that stated that the profit per sub on Lineage is about 1/4 that of EQ. Still, they are making at least 2x that SOE is on EQ.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... I also remember this. However, I'm pretty sure that it transpired that the 4 million number referred to player-created characters or something, rather than actual subscribers.

Last subscriber figures I saw for Lineage put it at around the same level as EQ.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is your video card. A GF4 MX is just a renamed GF2... which is like 5 year old technology, so its no surprise your performance isn't any good.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[YomikoReadman]

So that's why it benches way above a GeForce2, right? Go troll elsewhere, AC.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not trolling. I'd be trolling if I implied you were stupid or something, which I did not. Anyway, it benches higher because its clocked higher.. no other reason. Its the same as the difference between a Radeon 9700 and a Radeon 9700 Pro. Same exact technology, just one is clocked higher than the other. If you don't believe me, you can look up info on the GF4 MX line of cards on sites such as Tom's Hardware, AnandTech and Hard|OCP. If you want me to, I'll do it myself to prove my point.

Re:Wow, bigger than EQ?

[thryllkill]

nope... 1.73 ghz is the stock speed for a 2100+ Thouroughbred core Athlon XP. And you would HAVE to overclock an Athlon XP 1800+ to get it to go as fast as a 2100+. The nameing scheme for Athlon XPs does not denote their clock speeds, it is used convince consumers that they run as well as an intel chip at that speed. Read a little you'll learn that way.

And don't get so abrasive/offensive on /., it makes you sound like a fuckwad.

Census is good, but live feed?

[pat_trick]

The census is awesome information, but it seems that the live feed at http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/multimedia/wind/ is a little bit...broken?

Time + Money Commitment

[hiei]

I'd love to give FFXI a try, as well as City of Heroes, but the time and money involved to even try out the game is quite discouraging. $50 for either game on PC, and on PS2, FFXI costs $100, (more if you need the network adapter) PLUS the monthly fee. It also seems that any mmorpg game requires a greater time commitment than any other type of game, and with school, work, my own projects, and the desire to actually sleep regularly, I just don't have time to check them out. Anyone think that mmo-games will eventually move to design that will allow people to enjoy the game without sinking in massive amounts of hours? And as far as try-before you buy, I really like what they did with the Guild Wars test this week during E3, it'd be awesome if more companies could arrange for test sessions like that (segregated from the actual online world if they wanted) that would allow you to get a feel for the game before sinking in the time and money investment and then deciding 2 weeks later you don't like it.

Re:Time + Money Commitment

[birder]

Sony is already toying with the idea of allowing people to buy items and powers in their online games. Laying aside the arguement that it would destroy the feel of the game, it would certainly be a way to see all the game has to offer.

They are planning this for their online PS2 titles, but I think it could happen in their PC titles in the near future.

Re:Time + Money Commitment

[tenaciousj]

Many do offer an "open beta" at the ending of their beta cycle to allow just about anyone to participate. Only problem is if you miss the month or so long window, there goes your chance to try it out. I wish more companies would offer their games downloadable online. Where the download is free, but you have to pay for an offical key, or request a temporary 'test' key. That way if you just want to give it a try, your not out of pocket $50+.

Maybe someone can clarify for this

[foidulus]

I don't play the game but... I am curious, are the Japanese/North American players in the same realm? Can they interact? Do the Japanese speak English to talk to NA players, and vica versa(or at least attempt to)?

Re:Maybe someone can clarify for this

[Ari0ch]

yep, you are in the same realm. there is a fairly decent auto-translator built into the game, which is pretty good for in game i.e. gameplay related usage, but not so hot for general social interaction. i've been in a few mixe parties and had a great deal of success and fun in them.

Re:Maybe someone can clarify for this

[miyako]

That's actually a good point, I had just assumed that they played in different realms, but after asking a friend who plays it, apparently they are mixed but depending on when you play you will run into more of one or the other. Too bad I don't have a PS2 or run windows, this might be a good way to practice my japanese.

Re:Maybe someone can clarify for this

[Anonymous Coward]

The US version of the game supports displaying Japanese characters, but you cannot type Japanese characters. I herd there are 3rd party programs that allow to do so though. They also have an interesting built in auto-translate function.

Video Card?

[Anonymous Coward]

FFXI is very easy on RAM since it was designed for PS2..

I have an XP2800+ 512MB PC2700 and plain Radeon 9700, I run with everything maxed and force 4x AA/16x Anisotropic... and despite what some may tell you, you can force those on and have them work. The difference in vid quality is plain to see. I used to run a P4 1.8A all else the same and ran at the same settings with no problem. Are you using like a GeForce2 or something? Otherwise something is seriously wrong with your hardware to have to run with settings like that.

Re:Video Card?

[YomikoReadman]

Nope, nothing wrong in the hardware department at all. I'm running an Athlon XP1800+, 640MB PC133, GeForce 4 MX440. My hardware, while somewhat outdated at this point in time, was at the top end of what was out there when I beta'd. I haven't bothered to upgrade yet, as the need is simply not there. Check my stuff vs the minimum specs; I'm way above that curve as well. However, what you fail to take into account is that the PC version isn't nearly as giving as the PS2 version. In an effort to prevent botting, FFXI is run in a masked window, which prevents you from alt-tabbing out. That is what causes some bottlenecking, and can prove to be an issue when you cap out your page file. In an effort to keep it from running up the size on that, I run in lower resolution.

Oh, and as for why page file size is such a concern for me, I only run windows in a partition on a smaller HD. It's really only large enough for an XP Pro install, plus FFXI and a handful of windows tools, plus a 1 GB page file. Even allowing for that much virtual memory, FFXI eats that much, and can still take more. Kinda sad, IMO, but them's the breaks.

Monthly prices!

[Mukaikubo]

My big hangup with MMORPGs is and always has been the price. I simply refuse to play a game where I might end up paying 200$ for a year's enjoyment as opposed to a nice strategy game where I might pay 50$ for a year's enjoyment. If it weren't for that, I'd be so deep into FFXI that it would take mole-men to dig me out.

Re:Monthly prices!

[jaredcat]

so...

14 cents per day - strategy game is ok
54 cents per day - mmorpg is too expensive?

i guess Christian Children's Fund is really wasting their time advertising towards you...

Re:Monthly prices!

[Mukaikubo]

Oh, go on, please reduce it even further. I'm whinging about having to pay a bit over 2 cents an hour! How crude, how thrifty, how parsimonious I must be!

So, say I have 200$ a year for entertainment. Either;
A: I buy and play an MMORPG
B: I get two regular games (100$), a few DVDs (20$ each), and maybe go the the movies or the bookstore.

I think Option B gives more entertainment bang for the buck.

Re:Monthly prices!

[brkello]

Well, I sort of agree with you, but I found it works a little different. I play FFXI and have found that it prevents me from buying other games just because there is so much to do that I really don't have time to put in to another game. So it is actually saving me money. By the time I am done with the game, all the hot games I would have bought will be 30 dollars cheaper. I don't understand why so many people are resistant to monthly fees. It's not like there isn't a good reason for it. Every month new content is added to the game. Last month a team PvP aspect was introduced. There is always something special going on during holidays. And if there is a problem, there are admins there to set things right.

I think it's fine though if people don't want to pay monthly fees. I just don't think it's as big a deal as they make it out to be. $200 a year really isn't expensive, if that is all you can afford for entertainment, you might be better off using that money to educate yourself and find a better job.

Re:Monthly prices!

[veritron]

Then again, would you rather pay 50 bucks for a game you could beat in a weekend? I've played FFXI for over 20 straight in-game days - 480 hours over 5 months. It works out to be 12 bucks for every 96 hours of playtime as number of months -> infinite - and I'm by no means a hardcore FFXI player.

Re:Monthly prices!

[Mukaikubo]

If it's a game I finish playing in a weekend, it's a game I made a mistake buying. I rarely buy games, and when I do I'm pretty certain they're going to give me months if not years of entertainment- Europa Universalis 2, Alpha Centauri, Unreal Tournament for those times when I just wanna Blow Stuff Up... I make very few game purchases, but I make them last.

The MX440 trick is still getting people?

[AllenChristopher]

"GeForce 4 MX440"

Well there's your problem. You may not be aware that the MX 440 is essentially a GeForce 2 MX with a few extra features. It is NOT a direct relative of the GeForce 4. Nasty trick on their part... but you really can't run modern games on the MX without trouble.

I hope no one minds the double post...

[Anonymous Coward]

But I went ahead and dug up the evidence myself.
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=M TA3LDE=

And yes, the MX440 is just another flavor of the MX400.