How's The Server Doing?

I haven't played for awhile now but last time I did the server seemed pretty dead. Has SE killed 11 with 14 and a bad bunch of updates?

short answer yes

Hey is that mithra in your avatar not wearing any...eh nm, it's none of my concern.

Long answer: no, its in a content drought atm but it isn't dead. Once they release all the new ***they have planned it will keep the doomsday prophets at bay for another month.

then after a month we will have beaten it all and it'll be 3 more months of doomsday prophets and nothing to do

you can't seriously think their content development is faster paced than players beating it

you can't seriously think you know what I'm thinking about

I know I'm gonna sound like a martian to most selfish NA players, but how about playing the same content again with someone that hasn't done it yet?

*** that

my next suggestion is: log off, and cancel your account just like the other 1.5 million ex players you wouldn't play with, and call it a career

There are people who do that Celdwn, they are just rare. It's a MMORPG after all, its pretty common in all of them. Once people beat something and get items they rarely want to go through it all again just to help people.

Well here on Leviathan 558 online 123 of which is in Jueno the point of no return for players that have left for 14 seems to be drawing near
i'm going to hang in a little longer before i throw in the towel

Well u just beat carbuncle there was like 550 players on the server today

about the same on Fenrir.

lmfao i agree i did this with friends i met online and friends irl. every time you get ppl caught up they leave. i even did a mule thats probly better then alot of ppls main toon. its not a dead game just yet its just extremely easy and low on ppl on every server now. still fun IF u can find ppl

Barely pushing 600 during a peak time on Lakshmi. There's pros and cons these days. Things across the board aren't heavily camped anymore but when it comes time to do something that requires more than 6 ppl it can become a 2 hour shoutfest due to the lack of ppl online.

Isn't it funny how Obama is both an incompetent leader who doesn't know what he's doing as well as a genius mastermind who has an evil plan to bring down America, take away their guns and force them into FEMA hobbit homes? It's even funnier when you learn that it's the same group of people who are flinging these accusations at him.

Similarly, isn't it funny how FFXI is a game that jumped well into easy mode that people can quickly clear it, get bored, then quit; while, at the same time, you claim that many jobs are excluded from endgame content and you must have strict setups that includes only a small number of jobs or else you can not win. It's even funnier when you learn that it's the same group of people who are flinging these accusations at the game.

I guess I can see the contradiction in saying that but people would just counter by saying that FFXI is only easy mode if you follow those strict set ups and use those select couple of jobs. Otherwise the game is uber hard if you don't follow those two requirements I guess.

And they'll be wrong, as usual.

Not saying much.

Not sure what OP is getting out of this thread tho. Can look back at some of the FFXI>>General threads and get a clue as to server pops and why they are the way they are.

This thread hasn't really told me how bismarcks doing. I was mostly looking to see if there have been a fair amount of pugs lately. I'd ask how the end game scene is doing but that's always a can of worms.

790 people on right now, pugs can be ignored. I'm not sure why you'd want to join a pick up delve mega boss run.

I join them just for funzies. :3 Not much to do since our LS is on a break.

Meh, you'll get tired of it. I used to join them here and there, got to Tojil once, wiped around 90%. I know a guy who shouts regularly who still hasn't killed Tojil with his group.

aint got no damn ls so if there are decent pugs then there is atleast that. I also don't feel like getting in deep with a ls filled with people I don't know. If I had more time I wouldn't care as much.

C'est depends. (It depends.)

End game

Lately, it's been centered around Wildskeeper Reives (WKR), Skirmish (mostly Skirmish 2), and Delve runs. However, WKR shouts have been rather rare lately. I last saw one about two to three days ago for Hurkan in Marjami. That was it. I haven't seen another one yet.

Voidwatch is randomly done but I haven't seen a VW shout in over a week or two now.

That's pretty much FFXI "end game" as of late. Unfortunately.

Pick-up groups

If you want to Delve, Yodaman tends to shout for runs, though I don't see it done on a regular basis. Last shout a few days ago I've seen was for a GEO and another time for a BRD with 3 or 4 song Empy Harp. You may get lucky finding other people trying to attempt a Delve boss run for Morimar on occasion and shouting for members.

Rarely have I seen in the past 3 to 4 days for a pick-up Skirmish [2.0] run, and most times it's from Japanese players. (That is if you can decipher and read their shouts.)

Status of Bismarck server

Well, let's see, I could direct you to my replies in the forum posts "Server population" and "Opinions on FFXI's life" or give a quick summary so far.

Mmm, where to begin?

Server population hasn't really picked up lately since FFXIV ARR 2.0 launched. We were at a high of around 1300 to 1500 players before it launched then it gradually dropped. Bismarck now hovers on average around 600 to 800 players on weekdays during evening PST/late evening EST. On weekends, we have not broken past 1200 players during the same times. We have been averaging around 800 to 1100 players on weekends.

The lowest reported population so far has been around 440 a week ago, with 530 to 540 a few days ago.

When you think about it, most of the players in the game are in Jeuno and Adoulin at the moment either idling or shouting. The rest are mules with Bazaars.

Game isn't technically dead but it does feel like it. Square-Enix really made the new content too easy to burn through. Players have burnt through a good chunk of the Seekers of Adoulin content within a month to two months after release. Then, when the two new areas were released-- Marjami and Yorcia-- along with the new WKRs in both areas, about a month to burn through those two. And, when Skirmish 2.0 was released, just a few weeks to go through that content.

So, FFXI is lacking in any content that would keep players on long enough to do them. That and lack of any difficult content to challenge a lot of players. It's been a lot of back and forth arguments on these forums and on the official forums regarding the Seekers of Adoulin content on how it "killed" the game. But, a lot of what's been going on in FFXI has been going on for the past couple years already when content got easier and easier to complete.

There's basically a lack of challenging and worthwhile content to do in the game lately. A lot of the gear from Skirmish 2.0 pretty much outmoded and outdated a lot of gear from older expansion packs on the get-go. Gear has been too easy to obtain and is centered mainly around Delve boss drops, WKR drops, Plasm items, and Skirmish 2.0 gear and weapons. That is pretty much what the game is like so far.

It's almost as if Square-Enix or the FFXI team stopped caring about the game. The next update is supposed to bring in more content to Seekers of Adoulin. But, like someone said above, it'll probably be completed too quickly and players will get bored again.

I think that a lot of players, not just Bismarck server, are tired doing the same thing over and over again. They've either taken a break from FFXI until new content arrives and play FFXIV in the meantime, or they quit FFXI entirely and moved on to FFXIV. This doesn't bold well for an 11 year old MMORPG when a newer MMORPG from the same company is doing better at the moment. And, we have newer MMOs coming out in the next two to three years-- Elder Scrolls Online, Everquest Next, ArcheAge, Wildstar, and a few others.

So, take it as you will. There are still people to play with in the game on Bismarck, but it'll be difficult to find a good and competent group to do them with because of the lower population now. If you are in my position where a good chunk of two of your Linkshells quit for FFXIV, you might not have much luck doing anything at the moment.

Try to find a good group of people to do things with in this game. I'm still looking for one myself. Like you, I don't have much time myself, but I still have a lot of things left to do in FFXI. Once you find a good group of players to do the endgame content I mentioned above and are patient enough to wait for the next content update in a month or two, then you should be set.

If not, most of those that were in FFXI are in FFXIV now or quit MMOs entirely. (Or, are too busy playing GTA V online.)

This.

It's fine to defend FFXI from the naysayers that say "FFXI is dead" as there will always be a player base that continues to enjoy and play FFXI as long as the servers are up and running. But there is no way you can downplay the combination of recent events both internally and externally in the game to think that this is just normal steady decline.

FFXI took a huge hit because of the lack of sustaining content and the rebirth of FFXIV. You only have to look at the number of active players online at any given point. If you had a graph of the timeline of active online sessions since ~08 you would see a steady decline but since FFXIV rerelease you'll see a sharp spike decline. This is what most people will consider the game to be "done". Again the game will never end as long as there's a playerbase that continues to enjoy and log on but if there was a point in time to see when the game was "done" it would be now.

Side note, was there ever a 12th Vana'diel Census release? I can't seem to find it.

It was interesting to reread the 11th one and see zero people obtained 99+ r/m/e. I know that number no longer holds true but it would be nice to see exactly how many have been obtained.

If you think about it that's really the last frontier. The trouble is the raw man hours for such minimal gain to so few people doesn't make it a fun goal to go towards. I'm talking about afterglow weapons btw.

From what I can gather on the official forums and mentioned on and off here is that the 12th. Census has been delayed.

I don't think the results will be surprising, but it will be very telling especially if they took the census post-FFXIV launch.

It's more than just "players finished content and bored". But also because FFXI heading post WoW era MMO direction trying to provide instant gratification and please everyone, ended up destroying it's staying power.

There's a reason why players in past 11 years grind boring content over and over and over for items, because your gear actually worth something, if it doesn't worth anything why'd ppl pay $12 a month and countless playtime to get them? Gear outdate every 3 months= lack of long term goal and it completely destroyed the incentive to do any content. No matter what content they're going to deliver in Nov, I don't see how FFXI population can recover. The moment I know my gear won't last more than 3 months I don't feel like doing it repeatedly anymore.


There's a reason why most wow clone MMO released after WoW doesn't last as long as pre-WoW MMO(SWG is an exception, it's another example of killing itself). Pre-WoW MMO are build to be a 2nd life that you can live online, with a community similar to rl. Post WoW MMO are made to be a video game to provide instant gratification. Once a game head to that direction, there's no coming back. Once players got a taste of instant gratification, they don't want 2nd life anymore. You'd just see a short lived MMO that everyone wants, happy with, and quit after 3 months.

I'm certainly not XIV harasser or any sort, but I see no way XI can recover it's population. Everyone that still plays kept saying "ppl will come back after Nov update". I wonder why anyone would come back and grind items with little to no value when they can do that in every other MMO. If FFXI go back to old direction, you'd see ppl not happy again "wtf, I don't want to spend 1 year grinding X gear anymore" because they got the taste of instant gratification.

Very good point.

That's the problem lately: A lack of good content to keep players playing in the game.

Pre-Adoulin, I had gear from Zilart, CoP, ToAU and Abyssea content that lasted me to level 75 and up to level 99. That's a good several years of armors I've spent time getting them. It lasted for quite a long time.

Now, post-Adoulin, gear is something I have but am hesitant to upgrade. Why? Most of my gear that I spent so much time on from previous expansion content has already been outdated by newer ones in Adoulin content. I fear that whatever I have now for something like BRD will be outdated in the next content update for Adoulin.

It used to be that players prided themselves and felt rewarded doing these things and getting these gears, and doing them with a good group of people. Nowadays, it's like, "oh, hey, I got this, what now?" kind of thing. There isn't much of a sense of accomplishment or challenge getting them.

The game has been made too easy to satisfy those that want instant gratification in the post-World of Warcraft era. It's killing the game because as I have said over and over again, the content is being burned through much too fast and too easily.

How many more Skirmish 2.0 runs or Delve boss runs or Plasm farming can a player do before he or she gets bored of it?

Now that the server is primarily level 99 players with Skirmish 2.0 gear, Delve gear, WKR and Plasm gear, what is there left to do?

The game is here, but the content and the challenge are gone.