If Final Fantasy XI went free to play, would you play it?

[Loony BoB]

FFXI is old, everyone knows it. The number of players has dropped and with FFXIV being an HD option for MMOFF fans, FFXI is clinging to what few subs it has left. Eventually, it could be understood to no longer justify it's cost in maintenance if the subs drop low enough. If this were to happen and SE switched the model (somehow) to F2P... would you play it?

[blackmage_nuke]

I'd give it a chance but as it stands I assume FFXI is one of the games I'll never be able to play once the servers go down

[Jinx]

No.

[Shauna]

I had a free month. I played it twice. It... just did not grab me. If it were free, I wouldn't have to worry about "running out of time" to try and get into it, but then would I even boot it up again? I don't know. I'm leaning more towards not playing it at all, I'd think.

[Slothy]

If it was free I'd try it because I've always been curious about it, but I doubt I'd stick with it as I really don't like MMO's.

[Jessweeee♪]

I picked the first option, just because I believe in only one MMO subscription at a time and I'm already playing FFXIV

[theundeadhero]

The time of me playing FFXI is in the past- even if it were free now.

[Skyblade]

I just don't have the time to invest in MMOs anymore. Too many other things demanding my free time.

[Ayen]

I'd play it for a review and then probably lose interest as I do with most MMOs I play after a while.

[Lonely Paper Star]

I would give it a try. I've heard from different people that it was either pretty good or pretty bad, and now I would finally be able to judge for myself.

[Dat Matt]

I spent more time installing FFXI than I did actually playing it. Playing FFXIV spoiled me, with it's clear quest markers and obvious directions to go. FFXI dropped me in a world and told me to figure it out. For someone completely new to the MMO game, that didn't really work for me.

I suppose it's just something that you had to invest the time in and find out for yourself. I doubt we'd go back to it. F2P would certianally increase the players in the game though. I think I saw one other player while we played for like 3 hours.

[Shorty]

I don't have the time or energy to invest in it, and MMOs aren't my thing.

[Wolf Kanno]

I enjoyed XI when I played it but I also came to realize that MMO's are just not for me so I probably wouldn't play much of it even if it was free.

[Sephex]

No. I just don't have time for a MMO.

[Freya]

Nah. I've tried it mutiple times over the years and I just don't like it. I've given it several tries. Even originally bought it for my PS2 with the HDD. Recently about 2 years ago I tried again. Just didn't like it.

[Shoden]

I've always been fascinated with the game and have tried playing it a few times but I just couldn't get into it, the interface was just impossible for me to navigate and the macro system confused me. I loved the idea of the game though. I heard so much about it from friends who played it for years and I just couldn't connect with it.

Mind, if it were free I'd definitely give it a try. I'm just enjoying FFXIV so much though that XI would be... a major downgrade in game quality now though...

[Jiro]

I would try it, but MMOs do not grip me that well it seems.

[Miss Mae]

Would definitely give it a try. I'm too broke at the moment to pay for a sub for FFXIV, which I would love to continue playing, let alone something new. Making it F2P would give me a chance to play a FF MMO (albeit not my preferred of the two) without the financial outlay.

[Aulayna]

No. Bought it during a Steam sale and like Mr. Shauna I spent more time installing it, setting up accounts etc, than I actually did playing it. I still have so much to do in FFXIV that I wouldn't even consider XI unless I was seriously bored of XIV, even then I'd probably go back to WoW instead.

[ScottNUMBERS]

I'd have to think about it.

[Kalevala]

I would definitely give it a try. I remember anticipating the initial release and reading coverage in a few gaming magazines, but unfortunately I didn't own a computer at the time and ended up missing the boat.

[Rostum]

I played and loved it for 8 or so years, but I have no desire to play it ever again especially if it went F2P.

[black orb]

>>> yes but I would need a free internet connection too :eep:.. Thanks god we still dont have to pay to breath air..:luca:

[Mirage]

No, I would cancel my current subscription.

[LocoColt04]

I still pay, eleven years strong. As long as the core game doesn't change, I would continue to play it sporadically. If it becomes riddled with microtransactions, well... meh. Less likely to continue at that point.

[Fynn]

Balls yeah! My wife and I have been missing this game dearly after trying the trial version, but we just can't afford it in our situation. :(

[Del Murder]

I may pop in for old time's sake but I've had my time at FFXI and I've moved on. It was a great run while it lasted!

[AssassinDX]

I had a free month. I played it twice. It... just did not grab me. If it were free, I wouldn't have to worry about "running out of time" to try and get into it, but then would I even boot it up again? I don't know. I'm leaning more towards not playing it at all, I'd think.

Similar situation for me, I bought the ultimate pack (or whatever it's called) on sale a year or so ago with a free month, played it twice for a collective hour or so and then lost all interest.

[BustaMo]

Hell, yes. I don't feel like paying a monthly fee for a game I've already bought. I wish overall this game would have been a regular main installment and offline which would have given its fan-base more common ground to dicuss it's plot and characters. If you think of how much money you would spend on this game monthly over the years, that's way to much for one game. Cancel the monthly fee, and you've got me as a gamer for FFXI.

[Mirage]

Even with the monthly fee, I still pay less for FFXI per hour played than I do for any other normal retail game. Wanting FF11 to be free is sort of like buying a car and expecting the roads you drive on to be maintained for free. I'm not sure exactly how things work where you live, but I am pretty sure that you pay for road maintenance either through taxes or perhaps toll roads, even if you did pay for your car already.

If you think about how much money you'd spend on the game over the years, you also have to think about how much you'd be playing it, and that you can also stop the subscription and restart it when you want. The months when I have been the most heavily invested in FFXI, I didn't have time to play a lot of any games, and therefore probably saved more money on other games not bought, than I spent on the monthly subscription.

If you want an offline Final Fantasy, you have 12 main games to choose from already. Being online is one of the things that changes the gaming experience the most from the other games in the series, remove that, and the game might as well not have been made.

Not to mention, the revenue from the game has been a very valuable asset to SE through the years where they didn't do as well in general. In fact, they've most likely cannibalized FFXI to support the development of many other games. So in a way, you if you are a fan of other SE games, FFXI has positively affected you even if you never paid for the game.

I don't really consider myself very rich, but seriously, the cost of any game subscription these days is so low compared to other expenses in an adult person's life that it is almost a ridiculous to complain about. I pay 800 bucks in rent and 100 dollars on electricity a month, what is a measly 12 dollars a month for a game? Not much, that's what. It's a cinema ticket (2 hours of entertainment) or a reasonably sized and tasty burger (half an hour of "omg this is good"). At the same time, those 12 bucks put into a MMO game lets me play for as much as humanly possible for an entire month. That's potentially 238 hours of entertainment, assuming 6 hours of playing for every weekday and 14 hours every day of the weekend. Bang for your buck is hardly the deciding factor here, but rather if you enjoy the game or not.

[Loony BoB]

To be fair, Mirage, Star Citizen is coming soon and will not require a fee, nor will it require any additional costs to keep it running. It will probably have more people playing it than FFXI does. I don't think FFXI warrants the same amount of cash as FFXIV in order to play it (I'm not sure if it does anymore), because the required resources are insanly high for FFXIV by comparison. I do wonder just how many people are still hired to run FFXI, and what it is that their workload is spent on. At some point this game will stop being available, I imagine... what happens then? Will they release it so that people can play it on private servers - essentially making it a F2P game?

I won't pretend to be really wise in all things MMO, so most of these questions are genuine ones.

[Mirage]

Nothing is ever free. Someone is paying for it in one form or another. I'm not going to research Star Citizen's business model but I am pretty certain that it is designed to pull money out of you over a period of time in one way or another. Feel free to prove me wrong, though.

FFXI could probably be cheaper, though, and still manage to stay afloat. However, you gotta take into consideration that even if FFXI costs less to maintain, it also has a smaller subscription base. If FFXI had as many players as FFXIV and kept the same update schedule and maintenance schedule, it would probably be really easy to run it at just 4 bucks a month. However, with both a significantly smaller subscription base and also a major price cut, that's unlikely to work. Of course, only SE themselves knows for sure how much they earn from the game.