Returning

[Ouch!]

Searched occasionally. Not really noticing specific people quitting (although I did know a number of people who quit), but the server as a whole seemed a lot emptier than it had been when the server was merged and when the update happened. Also saw a significant influx of posts on FFXI forums about people quitting (citing FFXIV's release) as well as an increase infrequence of the obligatory "Goodbye, Vana'Diel!" shouts in Whitegate.

Regardless, no many people I knew planned on sticking around.

[Masamunemaster]

I figured some would sooner, but now I doubt they would with the discount going on

[Ouch!]

I don't expect many people to juggle FFXIV and FFXI successfully for very long discount or no. As much as it is a money issue (it's still close to $20.00 a month for the two games), it's very difficult to play two MMORPGs at the same time. I think the discount is a last ditch effort, but maybe that's just me.

[Del Murder]

Some people have WoW and FFXI accounts active at the same time, but they probably only focus on one at a time. Obviously you can't play two games at once.

I can see some people having both because they want to be a part of the FFXIV craze from launch, but also want to finish out the rest of the FFXI content to be released (like level 99 and the final WotG missions).

[Ouch!]

Some people have WoW and FFXI accounts active at the same time, but they probably only focus on one at a time. Obviously you can't play two games at once. :p

I can see some people having both because they want to be a part of the FFXIV craze from launch, but also want to finish out the rest of the FFXI content to be released (like level 99 and the final WotG missions).

I suppose there's also the crowd waiting for the announcement for the PS3 release date which should be relatively soon. SE hinted at an update on the status of the PS3 beta and release in the near future.

[Del Murder]

I'm in that crowd. I don't have a computer that can handle FFXIV, and Miriel's Mac Pro isn't cooperating with the beta.

[Ouch!]

What are the specs on her Mac Pro? I've heard people with even the "minimum" specs that SE released have trouble with the beta because of all the other stresses that SE is putting on the beta. They said it'll be optimized for launch.

[Del Murder]

Her specs are top notch. She got a very beefy Mac for her photography. We don't think it's the specs, but some random little thing that might be causing it. I've heard the same thing about beta, so here's hoping, but I don't know if I want to gamble 60 bucks on a game that might not even work.

[Masamunemaster]

I havent even played my ps3 yet....waiting to move out before I buy games for it

[Ouch!]

Define top notch. There's nothing about it being a Mac that should be causing a problem at all so long as she has Windows installed through BootCamp and she isn't just emulating the operating system. They say that the minimum specs are a dual core 2.0 GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, and the GeForce 9800 (512MB) graphics card, but that's not working out for beta for a long shot. Just about anything on the market should have a 2.0 dual core, but unless she bought her Mac fairly recently, (i.e. less than a year ago), there's a decent chance her graphics card might not be up to snuff.

[Del Murder]

She has 8 Core, 8GB RAM, Raedeon HD 4870 graphics, Windows 7 64 Bit via Bootcamp. It's a beast. It runs the benchmark fine and gets pretty decent scores, but the sound on it doesn't work. So we were thinking it could have something to do with the sound, but I don't know why that wouldn't even let the beta run at all. I downloaded the latest ATI Drivers (10.7) yesterday, but that didn't change anything.

[Ouch!]

Has she been updating BootCamp regularly? I've run into issues in the past where my Windows partition has difficulty with certain parts of the hardware because the BootCamp drivers aren't quite up to date yet. The Benchmark also doesn't run properly for ATI cards regardless (unless they've updated it since I last checked it out), so it's not a good indication for her system.

On another note, I'd like to point out that Miriel does not, in fact, have an eight-core processor. It's the 2.4 GHz quad-core processor with hyperthreading. Manufacturers try to pass hyperthreading off as a doubling the cores, but that's not really how it works. The six-core processor with hyperthreading is the best out there, but the lower end model would be an additional $1,500, so I sincerely doubt she shelled out for it. That's more technicality, though, as the quad-core with hyperthreading is more than sufficient anyway.

Looking around, it seems a month ago, the best graphics card offered might have been the 4870, which might be part of your problems if that's really what you're using (as of early August, they kicked it up to the 5XXX-series ATI cards). It should still run it, but you'll have to be careful. If it's only the 512GB model, you're in trouble since that's just barely minimum specs. I'd look into that. Updating the graphics card may be in order (although it will run you a pretty penny).