Originally posted by letum6030

I think their best bet for a new MMO would be to use the world of Secret of Mana.  There would be the 8 different magic classes, 8 different weapon specializations, flying mounts, and a beautiful world.  It could be set during the Mana War when the Mana Fortress was being constructed.  The Mana Sword wouldn't be obtainable because the Gema Knight had it in his posession and was using it to destroy the Mana Fortress.  There would be several playable races.  Players could be human, sprites, dwarves or werewolves.  The combat would have to be something other than the current MMO style combat to fit the style of the game.

I thought about this for a while, but it seems like recent Mana titles have not been too successful. Secret of Mana was great, though!

Originally posted by ic0n67

the game came out 7 years ago...graphics are amazing for a 7 year old game.

and it has 500k active subs....how is that a flop?

"the game came out 7 years ago...graphics are amazing for a 7 year old game.

and it has 500k active subs....how is that a flop?"

I have to agree with this. C'mon, why mess up with a formula that still works? 
 

Originally posted by ic0n67

FFXI hasn't been far from a huge success. There are a lot of things SE did wrong with FFXI and we are seeing that they are fixing some of them. We can only hope the rest of those sins are fixed with the new MMO. For what it is, it is a solid game and i enjoy it very much, but it could have been better.

Subjectively to you, perhaps, it's not a success.

However, if you want to speak objectively, then FFXI has been a success. 500-600k players consistently for years running despite the competition and the ever more finicky nature of MMO players. It is, population-wise, one of the most successful MMOs out there - especially given its age. Last I heard, it was #4 most popular MMO out there... again, in terms of population.

500-600k players multiplied by at least $13/mnth translates into a lot of money. At the low end, they're bringing in 6.5 million a *month* in sub fees alone.

I have been dying for info on this new MMO. I played FFXI for 4 years and loved it while I did but moved on. Been playing WoW but its getting stale to me and I don't think WoTLK will be the fresh air I need to keep interest in it. FFXI is such a deep mmo you feel a real connection to the world and community, I havn't gotten in any mmo since I quit. I don't want to restart FFXI from square 1 this late in the games life, and after having played WoW and a lot of other mmos, the responsiveness and controls in XI leaves a lot to be desired. I really think square is the only company not afraid to not make a WoW clone. The whole genre right now seems a bit stale. AoC was crap and WAR to me is ok, but it seems kind of shallow like WoW, to me anyway. Nothing has matched XIs depth. Aion seems interesting enough but we'll see.

I hope in the new MMO they make it challenging like FFXI and able to switch classes on the same character, I always loved that. I'm sure Square will have learned from their mistakes from XI, and I think their new one will end up being a real contender and be second only to WoW. I wish they just not keep us in the dark about it, although I don't remember ever hearing about FFXI till it was actually out, thought at the time I didn't even know what an mmorpg was heh. This new one they been working on since 2005 I believe it was? Hopefully when we do hear some info and demo videos/screenshots it won't be to far off.

Square has too many things going on ,making games for every platform[mobiles] under the sun .They also spent a lot of resources making The Last Remnant,since they purchsed the unreal3 Engine.

My take is that FFXI will have to show signs of dying and or they have exhausted there other platform efforts,before they go full swing on another MMORPG.

The little i have read on a new MMO over the last several years is not much.Some interviews asked about it and how it would coincide with FFXI.They basically said they did not want to alienate players from either game and that they might branch into each other.This may mean you might be taking some of your FFXI game/players with you into a new game,IDK and i don't think they know yet either.

The other part i heard about this game is on the engine.This part i didn't like what i saw in the interviews.They basically said the new game would still utilize the old engine because they understood it and it was easy to use and add things into there game.The problem i have is it's VERY limited.

I think Square is being very cautious on this one as we have seen many games struggle,especially since WOW owns what is it?60-65% of the entire market share.It is not a good time for games to compete for the remaining 40%,Square are probably waiting for both FFXI and WOW to slow down.

The bigger WOW gets ,the more NOOBS to the MMORPG genre will follow it.The new players just want to feel like there part of the biggest,most like to brag a lot ,so what better a stage than the biggest right?Since Blizzard and there VERY sneaky sub numbers are now invading other countries, i don't see it slowing down for at least a couple years.

I wouldn't expect Square to compete in this market with another MMORPG until at least 2-3 years,it just wouldn't make good economical sense.Even worse for us FFXI fans is that WOW is trying to invade Japan full swing offering free game discs..bah.

Warhammer is a WoW generic piece of shit, don't bother with it, it will die rather quick in all honesty, now, I hope, not to offend any one, it's nothing like FFXI, the last thing i want is another grind fest that, you can;t even grind because of lack of players, or everyones already got all their jobs to 75 blah blah, i also hope more free movement will be involved seeing as FFXI PvP is the biggest joke i've ever seen, honestly, i loved FFXI, played it way to much and it consumed my life, other than PvE staying in similar respect.