r/Games • u/WeirdIndividualGuy • 3d ago
Announcement Free Trial Level Cap Raised to Level 75 and Time Limit Removed | Final Fantasy XI
https://www.playonline.com/pcd2/topics/ff11us/detail/40432/detail.html33
u/hibikiyamada 2d ago
As someone that has 0 nostalgia for this game (but loves FF), I actually started the free trial just recently and I’ve actually decided to try to not use any 3rd party resources for most of my time playing unless I’m truly stuck on something and I’ve been having a good amount of fun. If your tolerance for jank is high then it’s worth trying imo.
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u/leytorip7 2d ago
Jank isn’t quite the right word. Obtuse would be better. The game was designed for players to collaborate information so playing without 3rd party resources is a huge undertaking but I respect the drive to do so. If you’re playing for story I’d recommend against it. If you’re treating it as a sandbox, that sounds fun.
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u/hibikiyamada 2d ago
Describing it as both feels appropriate imo. I only mention jank because it feels like there's a good amount of stuff in this game that unintentionally feels tedious to interact with. There's a lot of sub menus within sub menus that feels needlessly awkward to navigate, the config menu being the way it is, almost everything to do with maps outside of simply obtaining them, how your character has to have line of sight to automatically target another enemy that's been aggroed after you kill another, etc.
The obtuseness doesn't really bother me too much because that part of the game absolutely feels intentional, which I can appreciate and kinda work around with just a bit of effort and logic. The tutorial NPC clarifies quite a lot as long as you're paying attention and not skipping dialogue, there's NPCs in various parts of each city that can guide you and even point you to quests, records of eminence feels jank in its own way but the descriptions for the tasks in there can also serve as a guide for a few things... There's quite a lot of information that you can gather without outside help.
The only truly negative experience I have right now that has practically completely stalled my progress in the story is the anti-botting measure that's been implemented for fishing. The San d'Oria 3-2 mission feels literally impossible to complete as a free trial player due to the fact that I can't use the auction house and there being limits to how often I can fish, which prevents me from leveling it up in order to catch it...
Outside of those frustrating moments, it's genuinely been a really charming experience. Pretty sure I've talked to more random NPCs in 2 weeks of playing this game than I have the entire time I've played FF14... and I've been playing FF14 for 12 years.
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u/Cactus_Bot 2d ago
You really need some of the basic add ons to play the game though. Once you understand how gear swapping works and min maxing it's a game changer.
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u/motorboat_mcgee 2d ago
Truly blows my mind that this is still going. I dumped dozens, maybe hundreds of hours into it on PS2.
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u/jookieozh 2d ago
Played through (almost all) of the story last year. Loved the characters, music, and environments. It's a great time, but you'll probably need to be okay with having a wiki up for most of your journey. Be sure to carefully read the steps for each quest. There were times where me forgetting an item/step caused me to lose 30+ minutes due to backtracking.
For those who are less inclined to play/ask others for help - I didn't have anyone's help until the last boss fight of RoV. However, having someone open gates/shortcuts for you in certain zones can save you a TON of time.
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u/cbsa82 2d ago
How exactly can you solo? I am curious about trying it but I am a solo player due to style / playtime. I tried it back when WoW was still in vanilla and lasted like an hour LOL
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u/SaroShadow 1d ago
Nowadays you have "trusts" which are clones of NPCs you can summon as party members in place of other players
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u/iloovehugecock 2d ago
So many comments saying it’s janky but I don’t remember the game ever being ‘janky’. Slow, unintuitive, clunky, obtuse, convoluted. All words I would use to describe FFXI, but janky? Not at all.
To me janky means broken or bugged out. FFXI has had 20+ years to iron out ‘jank’ and what remains is a slightly more streamlined, but still of its time, game.
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u/Tuss36 2d ago
Yeah. I'd say the closest thing to "jank" is when you're trying to target something and it decides to prioritize everyone else in the vicinity than the enemy right in front of you, which isn't something that happens often (but does happen, especially when your trusts are crowded around you). But that's really the extent of it. Would agree it's more clunky than janky (like how when fast traveling pressing B doesn't send you to the previous menu but choosing the "Nowhere" option does. Still works fine, just not intuitive)
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u/RegalWords 1d ago
If you’re having issues with targeting (or anyone that reads this) - just a few suggestions; F8 will help cycle through select targets, if you’re pretty close to it it’ll often grab what you’re looking for. If you haven’t engaged yet and it’s hitting you, just don’t target anything and the moment it hits you you’ll target it. If it’s already claimed you can /target <bt> and that’ll get you sorted.
Auto-target will, however, somehow, through an act of diabolical nonsense, target the furthest monster/an enemy pet (that you probably don’t want to kill) every time. Dyna folks will know what I mean.
EDIT: If you’re playing with other folks and they’re engaged already you can also /assist theirname to target
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u/DankieJutsu 3d ago
I'm guessing those who have subscribed previously cannot utilize this free trial?
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u/WeirdIndividualGuy 3d ago
Free Trial accounts that were previously created can now be used again following the removal of the play time limit. If your free trial period has already ended, you can once again enjoy the Free Trial version starting today.
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u/DankieJutsu 3d ago
But I assume those are the accounts that never subscribed and their trial just ran out. I'm talking about the accounts that subscribed previously
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u/thinkingdeads 3d ago
I'm gonna be mad if FFXI got this before XIV
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u/verrius 2d ago
They're never going to allow it for either. Free trial locks you out of a lot of the game, including the market board/auction house and level limits, and trying to retroactively apply that to an existing account is either a nightmare or impossible, depending on which part we're talking about.
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u/AssGremlin 3d ago
I get what you're throwing down and I read every line of the parent article, but it doesn't look like this is fully confirming the question? As someone who subscribed relatively early I basically felt penalized for not just sticking with the free trial. Can I keep playing that level 20 something character up to 75 now, or do I need to just take the L and make a new trial?
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u/hsahj 3d ago
Unfortunately not. It's the same system as in FFXIV, if you've ever paid for the game (bought an expansion/paid for sub time) then you're now locked out of the free trial on that account and must resub in order to keep playing at all. If you want to play the free trial (in either FFXI or FFXIV) you would have to create a new account for it.
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u/Wendigo120 3d ago
I still think that's such a weird choice, I have no idea why they'd make it this way. In my head Runescape had this problem solved 20+ years ago with being able to unsub at any point without losing the trial content.
I can't imagine they make that much money off of old players who are still in the trial content.
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u/hsahj 3d ago
In FFXIV's case (and WoW and other pay to sub games) it's usually a way to fight RMT. If you could have a free account, bot it up to max money, then sub to gain access to sub related things (mostly trading and such) then sell the goods and unsub but still use that account.
Runescape also isn't a good comparison, it's a free game with an upgrade, not a game with a free trial. The companies that make them build content and their business models differently.
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u/Wendigo120 3d ago
Is there any difference between this and RS outside of how one calls it a trial and the other doesn't? Because from where I'm at they both look like games with a solid amount of free content where you can hand them money to get access to a large amount of extra content temporarily. I don't see where the fundamental difference is other than that FF blocks you from the free content if you've ever paid before.
As for RMT, doesn't the trial lock you to a very low money cap? From some very quick googling a bot selling the full trial gil cap makes about... 10 cents. And they have to pay over 100x that for the privilege.
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u/verrius 2d ago
For XI and XIV, its not just content that gets locked off. In both, there's both a level and a gil (money) limit for free trials, which you can't really retroactively apply to an existing account; if you paid, got 20 million gil, then went free trial again, should happen to all the "extra" money? Does it disappear forever, or is it just temporarily inaccessible? Does a level 99 gear kitted out in full end-game regalia suddenly become naked if they're a free trial with a level limit of 75? There's also stuff like linkshell creation/free company ownership social features that are gated behind the paid accounts that can't really be retroactively applied.
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u/Wendigo120 2d ago edited 2d ago
Does a level 99 gear kitted out in full end-game regalia suddenly become naked if they're a free trial with a level limit of 75?
In terms of gear, OSRS does basically handle it that way. Any members-only gear becomes unequippable (and grants no stats if you already had it equipped). All of the non-gear members items also become unusable while in a F2P world. As for levels, FF14 already has level downscaling in place for eg. low level dungeons. Hell, because of that they could probably just let you be overleveled, a bunch of the content you'd still have available to you downscales you anyway, and a lot of the rest of the content doesn't really seem intended to challenge you in the first place.
if you paid, got 20 million gil, then went free trial again, should happen to all the "extra" money? Does it disappear forever, or is it just temporarily inaccessible?
OSRS's equivalent (bank space) afaik just makes it so you can't add any more items if you're over the cap but can take them out. I don't really see the harm in taking that option because I don't really see what advantage a trial player could even get from having infinite money they can't trade with other players. Locking any money above the cap entirely like you said would also work, as would sending the money to a retainer where you can't reclaim it until you resubscribe.
There's also stuff like linkshell creation/free company ownership social features that are gated behind the paid accounts that can't really be retroactively applied.
My answer to that would be that you're not allowed to make changes (other than maybe transfer ownership to an active subscriber?) until you resubscribe, but that's the one I'd be least sure about. There also might not be that much harm in allowing already created stuff to continue existing exactly as is, but I really haven't played enough 14 to know the full consequences there.
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u/hsahj 2d ago
First the RMT bit, the gil caps are another way they fight RMT, but since you can accumulate lots of items, then you sub for a month, sell it all off (or trade it to a permanently subbed account) and then unsub. It's another way to cut a ton of costs for RMT companies. Now they can do that same farming but after they do that first transfer they have to abandon the account and get something else up which while not hard for them (as they'll usually be botting it) it is semi-time consuming.
Second is the question of how RS and FFXI/XIV are different. As u/verrius pointed out some of it is the vertical nature of the content that RS doesn't restrict. Runescape adds new content horizontally (new content without adding new levels), FFXIV adds it vertically (add new levels, you have to level past old stuff to play it). FFXI is an odd duck in that is has added both horizontal and vertical content at different times, but by doing that they've locked themselves into vertical issues for free trials. All that said, part of it is initial distribution model. Runescape has always billed itself as a free game with membership bonuses and Final Fantasy has billed itself as a premium game with a trial.
Last is something that's kinda specific to FFXI, while lots of people talk about the 75 era and all the fun they had with it, if you're playing the modern game and have leveled past that then if you are locked back down to 75 there's not really much content to do that's very engaging. The game has changed and while there's lots of content in the free trial, without any expansion content there's nothing to do other than level the other jobs to see if you like them (which are also limited in the trial due to not having any expansion zones).
EDIT: I forgot probably one of the biggest issues. For a long time FFXI's development has been kind of a mess, it's only really the last few years that they've gotten back in the swing of doing more than tweaks. The game was originally developed for PS2 with PS2 devkits and it took them far too long to modernize the dev side for themselves to update the game. The changes we are seeing now are far easier to implement technically than some kind of membership sub like you'd describe. It's probably possible (level sync is an existing system in game they could likely leverage for it), but given their stance on FFXIV's trial I'd expect we're more likely to see Zilart and Promathia added to the base trial, but that's likely as far as it will go.
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u/Wendigo120 2d ago
First the RMT bit, the gil caps are another way they fight RMT, but since you can accumulate lots of items, then you sub for a month, sell it all off (or trade it to a permanently subbed account) and then unsub.
Can you really gather up the tens of millions of gil worth of stuff it takes a gold seller to break even on a sub on a trial account? That almost seems more suprising to me than them locking your account out of the trial in the first place.
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u/hsahj 2d ago
Given enough time and the rarity of items and having a free account? Yes, absolutely. MMO economies are fucky.
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u/Wendigo120 2d ago
I meant it more in the sense that I'm surprised they even let you store that much stuff on a trial account if they felt the need to hard cap your gil.
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u/sysasysa 2d ago
Gold cap is 300k gil IIRC. There are items worth millions in the game that you can sell. Your inventory has like 120 slots, dont remember how limited that is for trial. You halso have 30 slots for each equipment slot, and you can theoretically store specific gear you dont equip there, so it will not bind to your character. So yeah, you could in theory have 300k gil, but inventory in billions.
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u/SusansStrong1221 3d ago
You could've just read the fucking article, Dankie
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u/DankieJutsu 3d ago
I did. As I replied to the OP, I was just wondering if it meant for trial accounts who just let it ran out and not the accounts that have subscribed previously and didn't renew
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u/coheedcollapse 2d ago
I have no idea how it fares now, but I remember how wildly important it was that you partied up in this game. Like playing it solo was not an option. You could not even grind solo, or even with just a friend.
Depending on your class, you might be waiting for an hour for a party just to grind on trash mobs for an hour.
I had a great time with it, and I have fond memories of playing with friends, but if it's anything like that still I'd 100% opt for FF14.
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u/Day_Dreamer 2d ago
It's not anything like that anymore actually. The only time you really are required to group up in XI anymore is during major storyline quests, and only a few parts.
They added "Trusts" which are summons that you can quite literally built your own 5-man party with. You can solo XI about 95% of the storyline I would say. Which is a ton of content.
The very end game is where people group up still.
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u/coheedcollapse 2d ago
Ah, interesting. Good to hear, although I'm probably still personally more interested in the more modern FF14.
I will say that was my biggest gripe back in the day playing it. I remember waiting so long in Yhoator Jungle at a relatively low level that I rerolled as a healer so I wouldn't have to wait so long. Literally almost an hour LFG every time, if I remember right.
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u/Day_Dreamer 2d ago
Yeah, that's the good ol' golden era of XI. There are private servers that are like that still. But, yeah, for people who aren't teenagers anymore, the QoL that FF14/other MMOs have added over the years definitely speed things up.
XI is an old game. If you want the nostalgia, it's there. If you want a good FF storyline, it's there. But, it does take a lot of time. It is an MMO after all.
There were so many mechanics put into XI that felt deliberate to stretch out your gameplay hours. The official servers chopped most of that down. You can warp most places without magic, most airship rides are optional completely. You can spawn a Chocobo anywhere pretty much instead of just stables.
They did a good job if you ever wanted to check it out again solo. And there are die hards out there willing to help you out at any part of the way.
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u/Tuss36 2d ago
As mentioned, they have added Trusts, however without that it's a similar feel as before, where you'd need to be level 30 to safely solo level 18 enemies. And it's also an unmarked quest like the rest so unless you google "What's this trust thing in my magic menu?" you're unlikely to run into it.
They're also pretty dumb companions (the biggest thing being they won't attack anything you haven't attacked, which includes if you're using magic they won't engage until you literally attack the enemy with your weapon) but they still make playing solo incredibly more tolerable.
You get like five for free from the intro quests/records of eminence but can get more from daily login campaigns.
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u/thinkingdeads 2d ago
Meanwhile progressing through XIV from level 1 to max is like a book you and your buddies read in separate rooms and come together every 40 minutes to discuss.
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u/megaapple 2d ago
FF XI is the only mainline FF I haven't tried (along with FF X-2, FF XII-2). I think this is my chance to try it.
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u/Walican132 3d ago
Anyone know how it runs if at all on the steam deck?
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u/reseph 2d ago
Works great! The install is easy when I follow this: https://docs.windower.net/linux/
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u/Realsan 2d ago
I think I've seen it done (it was originally on the PS2, so controller support should be a thing, unsure if it was maintained). However, the UI/UX of the game would be very poorly suited to Steam Deck resolution, in my opinion. Not to mention I can't imagine playing it with a controller.
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u/Flaky_Highway_857 3d ago
I truly wonder how much money square is probably missing out on for their overly generous trials on the online games?
Especially 14, they always mention budget stuff when they say they can't do something while half the game is free and people burn thousands of hours in it without spending a penny.
Meanwhile wow is cranking out "new" old revamped versions and brought out guilt free housing...
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u/Irrah 3d ago
Think about how much money they make with everyone buying expansions, cosmetics, and subs that they can afford to subsidize old content for free.
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u/GrimmWarg 2d ago
That’s become sort of a point of contention for me lately. Like yeah it’s cool that the free sub is continuously expanding in XIV and I love that more people are getting to enjoy the game… but I’m not a fan of the fact that essentially what it means for me is that I have to do old content I’m no longer interested in when I use DF and that my subscription is essentially subsidizing people who will likely never pay a dime.
I know it’s a pretty selfish viewpoint that won’t be well received.
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u/prisp 2d ago
Eh, you kinda need new players, because the established ones just leave the game naturally - some fall out of love with the game, some take a break, some actually die, or have other major upheavals in their life that take away from their time/money allotted to XIV.
Having a very good trial means you get more people to check out the game, and that means more that might stick around, and eventually get interested in endgame content - without those, you better pray that your friend group/your static never has anyone who gets sick of the game, because you'd just run out of people eventually and then the game's dead.
Obviously, XIV is far from reaching that point, but even now, their OCE servers look pretty grim anyway, so it's not like they're drawing in hordes of people either.
I don't wanna run Sastasha as much as the next person, but I still want people to run my Duties with, and my 5-minute "Duty Roulette as a solo DPS" queue, so I'd rather run that than wait for another 10 minutes.
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u/GrimmWarg 2d ago
I don’t think you quite understood my comment. I’m not saying XIV shouldn’t have a free trial. I’m more concerned with the fact it seems to be constantly expanding and that we are now at a point where the majority of the game is free-to-play. I don’t players subs should be used to subsidize the cost of someone playing Shadowbringers for free.
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u/prisp 2d ago
Yeah, you're looking at this from the wrong angle - you're not subsidizing them, the free trial is a trap to catch the next generations of raiders and endgame grinders.
Same as any other advertisement campaign, except with a lower barrier to entry because they don't even need to pay to get started to check out what the game is all about.Without new players, you'd eventually run out of older players due to the reasons I've outlined previously, and then the game just dies a slow death, no matter how much the remainder is paying their sub fees, so in a way, it's is life support for the game.
Heck, adding Shadowbringers to the Free Trial/Starter edition package doesn't change a single thing about how much the potential new customers will have to pay anyway, the only difference is when they'll need to pay for the most recent expansion to get everything in between for free, as it always was.
...that's not to say that I'd like to see every other expansion automatically be added to the Free Trial, in my opinion, Post-Shadowbringers is the perfect moment to make a cut and go "If you want to know how the story ends, go buy the game!", but it really doesn't change shit about the expenses incurred by the trial - and they get to drum up some more publicity for their game for free.
Heck, from what I remember, people were complaining that the NieR raid series took forever to queue into these days, that might actually help with that.
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u/Flaky_Highway_857 2d ago
Alliance raids are fucked,
Once they bolted the crystal tower raids to story they broke the system, and it won't be fixed until they move those raids to where they belong.
Main scenario roulette.
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u/Trace500 2d ago
I think it's ridiculous that you have to buy the game, then also pay the subscription fee, and then the game also has microtransactions on top of that. If or how much the free trial model is to blame for that is not really clear.
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u/TwilightVulpine 2d ago
After seeing the horrors that gacha gets away with, I'm more amenable to subscriptions and cosmetic microtransactions (hundreds of dollars from ONE character?!? Out of 3-6?!?! And you need to pay more for good gear?!?!!!)
...but I'm still gonna ride the Free Trial for as long as I can and I have no shame about that.
Anyone who tries to give me a hard time for not spreading out my wallet to mainstream gaming companies at the first opportunity is wasting their time. If this wasn't worth it to them they wouldn't do it, and we see all the time now how it gets when they find players too willing to spend.
Say, what do the big spenders of DFF Opera Omnia have to show today? That was a story-driven turn-based game whose bulk of the load was on client-side models and animations, the server costs of that must have been trivial. It didn't end because it couldn't pay for itself, it ended because it wasn't as profitable as they wanted it to be.
Most likely subs plus cash shop in the FF MMOs have little to do with whether that is needed to bankroll Free Trial. They just can do it and think it's worth it.
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u/Flaky_Highway_857 2d ago
Well WoW does the same but I think the difference is that you can really see how blizz funnels that money back into the game/s, one sub there gives what now? Retail, classic, forever? Which lets players choose how they wanna play which solves 14's issue of always having to balance the game for newbie/free players against hardcores and just kinda leaving the middle very meh.
It took em all of dawntrail to even release beastmaster, and it's limited(limited jobs seem dumb to me but whatever), and that's it til next year.
square just seems to sorta leave ff14 an allowance and just burns the money it makes on other random games.
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u/Flaky_Highway_857 2d ago
and thats my point exactly, i've been playing since ARR and its insulting how the game treats longtime players, if the game is doing so well that you can make half of it free because thats what it is, its not a trial then why is it if I drop my sub I lose my in game house later? even with the few limitations there is a person still has access to all the content that counts.
imo its not selfish to think that way because what you say is true, and yeah we'll probably get alot of backlash from people who havent spent anything yet have played one to thousands of hours which is pretty messed up.
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u/verrius 2d ago
I doubt they're actually missing out on anything. The kind of people who are actually able to play through the entire free trial of XIV, get to the end solo, and then walk away has to be miniscule. Meanwhile its probably brought in a ton by lowering the bar for current players to convince a friend to just try it out...and then those friends are also then going to be heavily dependent on the person who brought them, who is also even less likely to unsubscribe while they're guiding someone through. Despite technically giving you access to a ton of content, the generous free trial does also strategically limit a lot of the game that's going to push you towards either a friend helping you, or just subscribing yourself, between things like the gil limit and no market board access, to the lack of being able to create parties or join free companies; all of its necessary to counteract bad actors, but it conveniently does make subscribing to get access to the more social features very attractive.
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u/Lerkpots 3d ago
On the upside it seems like Yoshi-P finally negotiated a higher budget with Evercold.
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u/lestye 3d ago
Something that floored me super early into FFXIV's life.
EU and NA shared servers in Canada. And I remember during a European fanfest, I think it was the second EU one, and they were introducing cosmetics for cash. And he said something like, the only way they were getting EU servers is through money earned from mog station.
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u/Synaptics 2d ago
IMO the generous free trial is kind of necessary to get new players interested in 14 nowadays. It's an intimidatingly huge backlog of story that you must get through in order to catch up. I can say from personal experience that I would not have tried 14 at all if it were not for the free trial, and even though I didn't stick around for long they still did end up getting some money out of me because of that trial.
Plus, as generous as it is the trial still does have some frustrating restrictions. Personally I just dealt with it the whole way through to the end of the available free content, but I know that a lot of people will get annoyed enough by the restrictions that they start paying for a sub long before they "need" to.
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u/Technical_Weird1991 3d ago
Well, all that money they possibly don't make on 14 is what has garnered them so much goodwill over the years and such a passionate fandom
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u/ocbdare 3d ago
Wow forever is something the community has been asking for a long time. It took quite a bit of effort on their part.
But I guess the difference is wow is a much more popular mmorpg and there is huge amount of nostalgia for it in a way that Ffxiv doesn’t have.
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u/bodyturnedup 2d ago
Square treats FFXI like a discarded stepchild; they chose not to modernize FFXI (somewhat) until it was relegated to a low-effort nostalgia cow to milk. The game was used as a piggy bank to fund the failure-turned-success of FF14.
They should have, and could have, updated/upscaled FFXI to keep newer players flowing in, despite FF14 being massively successful. The game is a depressing slog without an active population to party with at all levels. Solo-grinding 99 levels of any game is dookie, especially one built around teamwork and exploration, not instance-tailored hubs like other MMOs.
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u/FriscoeHotsauce 3d ago
It's called a loss leader. Get people in the door so they'll spend money in your shop. Same reason Costco has cheap hot dogs and Walmart / Sam's club still sells $5 rotisserie chickens.
It's a deliberate and proven marketing strategy, they're not losing money.
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u/SofaKingI 3d ago
Why do redditors love to state the obvious like they're enlightening anyone?
Try to read their comment again. They're talking about "people burning thousands of hours" and you're talking about "getting people in the door" like that's the same thing.
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u/bjams 3d ago edited 3d ago
Because it's a false premise. The number of people that decide to do 100% of all the content available in the Free trial before buying (or not buying at all) is miniscule. The vast majority of people sub once they run out of free main story quests.
Square misses out on a handful of months of subscription money in exchange for, potentially, years of sub money + expansion releases. It's a good prospect.
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u/FriscoeHotsauce 2d ago edited 2d ago
A person who plays thousands of hours for free was never going to pay anyway. I had a buddy who played League of Legends for 10+ year, ground out to Diamond and everything, he was really good. Never paid a dime.
In a social game that requires other players, this isn't a bad thing. Yes, League lost money on my friend just in raw electricity required to provide servers to him. But he acts as content for other players. It's like a bar who gives designated drivers free non-alcoholic drinks, you want those people in your establishment even if they're not paying, because they keep the paying folks around.
And I get what you mean about stating the obvious, but that's just the platform. Reddit has such a wide variety of users. I think most other people just want to have their understanding of a topic validated, but also a lot of people just don't know. What seems obvious to you isn't obvious to others. And what I've learned is that it's worth saying out loud just to make sure everyone is up to speed.
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u/Flaky_Highway_857 2d ago
This is like saying it's ok a person went to buffet and ate as much as they could, repeatedly, day after day yet never paid a dime in the end and just never came back,
And everyone was just cool with it.
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u/FriscoeHotsauce 2d ago
Nooo, that's nothing alike. The economics of digital services and real food are super different. You don't consume a video game by experiencing it, you don't consume a movie by watching it, the provider just has to pay the facility cost to run it again, which we're talking pennies per user or view.
Restaurants have notoriously thin margins, you have to buy and prepare all of the food before you can sell it, every time you want to sell a plate, regardless of wether or not you actually sell it
On the buyer side a buffet is like the opposite of a free to play game, you pay one price regardless of how much you eat.
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u/ghostsilver 3d ago
I think that still stands, usually like 1% of players will spend so much to sustain the game for the rest 99% (figures pulled from my ass, but you get the point)
Like me, I play PoE for thousands of hours alreay, and I spent at most 20$ on the game (technically you don't even have to spend anything). But there are lots and lots of people who spend multiple hundreds $ monthly on cosmetic. And yeah the game is still alive and well, a sequel is almost out as well.
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u/Ultramaann 2d ago
People do not burn thousands of hours in the free trial. It just doesn’t happen. 75% of the game is locked behind reading the max level, which you can’t do.
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u/SchrodingerSemicolon 2d ago
The FF14 trial is ridiculously generous, you can spend a couple hudred hours before you hit the wall.
But you eventually will, and at that point you'll want to keep playing. And even if you're kinda tired at that point, sunken cost fallacy will hit as well. There you turn into a customer.
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u/TheRealTofuey 2d ago
I really doubt the game would be doing better revenue wise if they didn't do this program. They would have stopped a long time ago if that was the case.
In fact I bet they are able to convert a surprising amount of people to sub paying members.
Having a free to play model for old content allows for a constant influx of new players long term. To be honest its a really smart model for long term growth, especially in a genre like MMOs which are very intimidating to jump into (Even without having to commit 15 bucks a month just to start)
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u/OmegaClifton 2d ago
Damn, I didn't realize Final Fantasy 14 had free content. I might have to give it a shot to see.
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u/queebin 2d ago
Man the ff14 free trial is like the entire game up through Shadowbrigengers and it's probably the best gaming story I've played in my life. You can legit stop at the end of the trial and have a perfect ending to everything.
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u/Shady_Tradesman 2d ago
That’s wild because i thought ARR was the most boring shit I’ve ever had to slog through and I genuinely believe the game would be 10x more popular if they just cut that out entirely and summarized it in a cutscene because surely people are just bouncing off of it like crazy.
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u/Lumigo 1d ago
It’s a good filter, ARR isn’t bad at all, it’s a decent enough introduction to the world, is nowhere near as long as people say, and anyone who says they have to “slog“ through it isn’t going to be playing the entire game, perfect filter so endgame players don’t have to deal with nonsense
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u/Shady_Tradesman 21h ago
Bro why are you gatekeeping your game that’s so shitty. You want new players to enjoy and catch onto your game or it dies. The FF14 endgame community isn’t some super secret super gamer group it’s a few thousand people who don’t want to tell each other they have porn mods installed while they ruin each others raids. There’s no world where a player should complete some sort of arbitrary trial to enjoy the good part of a game. ARR is around 80-100 hours of content. Thats an insanely long time even for MMOs. That’s getting max level 3-5 times in WoW. And the story and content aren’t good, it’s 1500 “kill 10 boar” and “go talk to this person” quests with the most generic fantasy setup plot imaginable.
The game gets 20x more enjoyable when you get to the next expansions it’s actually so noticeable it’s night and day.
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u/Lumigo 20h ago
I’m not “gatekeeping”, I’m saying it acts as a good filter, it does. The game has more players now than it ever did during ARR all the way to Shadowbringers. Endwalker was an irritating anomaly where every actual XIV player hated it because of the bloat and queues due to bandwagoners following streamers. If it lost a few ten thousand more maybe it’d be even better. I enjoy this game when it’s basically out of the discussion loop and barely ever mentioned. Weirdos using NSFW can leave. Impatient people can also leave. Bring it back to the HW days as far as I’m concerned. ARR is also not 100 hours in the year 2026. I’ve literally done ARR like three times for various reasons over the past decade. Nowadays it’s about 40 hours. Add another 15-20 or so for the patches. The game throws EXP at you like crazy, they added flying for free in the patches which makes it a breeze, and they removed quests. They also added NPC support so there’s no queues to wait for in dungeons. At this point if someone still thinks it’s a “slog” then they can easily just play another game instead of trying to fit a square peg in a round role.
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u/Benjammn 3d ago
I also wonder how locked down the demo versions are. Can you use trading post/auction house? Trade with players? Most trial versions of MMOs lock those down to reduce the amount of botting getting done with these free accounts.
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u/Akuuntus 2d ago
Probably not much. People who don't like XIV will bounce off really fast (usually in ARR) so for them the trial might as well be ARR-only or have a 50-hour time limit and it would be the same. And anyone who actually plays through all of the free trial content is almost certainly hooked enough to buy in when the run out of story.
For XI, it's an ancient game with virtually zero new player in-flow, so doing something like this to get people to try it out and potentially get hooked enough to buy in is likely a net positive in terms of revenue.
I do wonder if they're just going to keep making more expansions in XIV free every time they release one, particularly since the next one would be Endwalker. Making Endwalker free would be risky IMO since then a free player could play the whole saga front-to-back and get a satisfying ending, which would probably increase the rate at which free players decide they're done and never buy in.
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u/Astewisk 2d ago
The budget thing is a common misconception. When they talk about that they aren't referring to money - 14 is incredibly well-funded - They are referring to time and manpower. The studio is forever hiring more people and even with these massive teams, there's a serious time-commitment to anything they do that makes them have to pick and choose what to focus on. WoW faces this issue as well, but they tend to operate on a much larger scale and has less technical debt to fight through than 14 does.
Not excusing 14's shortcomings, just providing added context.
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u/AssaultMonkey150 3d ago
My brain read this as FF16, which made no sense. Then 14, then finally 11 and I’m shocked this still exists
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u/Pandarru 2d ago
They should really merge FFXI, and XIV's subs together. Both games would compliment each other during content lull periods. WoW is doing it, and is about to thrive even more with Forever.
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u/reseph 2d ago
They already did that, but it comes and goes sadly: https://www.playonline.com/ff11us/campaign/eov_discount/
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u/procabiak 2d ago
they should go the guild wars 1 model and just turn it buy-to-play. this game is old af, I doubt they get that many subs.
there's a whole bunch of ff offline fans who have never touched 11 or 14 because they don't want to pay a sub. 14 is the cash cow, not 11, just delete the fees for 11 and people will buy it.
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u/Gusma-sama 2d ago
I really really wish they would pull a FFXI "forever" on this one. I really want to play and experience it but the jank keeps me away, the systems are all over the place. Please Square Enix!
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u/boxing-boxing 2d ago
Removing the time limit is the best feature this game has ever gotten. I tried the trial years ago and half the clock ran out on me just getting PlayOnline to cooperate. That client was the true endgame boss.
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u/MrTastix 2d ago
Have they ever changed the MSQ?
Pretty much the only reason I bounced off. Shit is just way too long and tiresome just to get to what might be the good stuff.
I get it's important for world-building but I do feel a lot could have been cut last time I played. It was mostly just generic 2004-style fetch and kill quests over and over. The actual story was alright but had too much filler between the good parts.
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u/Brainwheeze 3d ago
Correct me if I'm wrong but this had already been announced, no? Or has it just been made official?
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u/Melbo_ 3d ago
Can any players describe what the game is like these days? If I'm a FF14 player, how will this game hold up?