No fees for playing FF XI online???

I found this at http://www.ffxposed.com

I dont know how reliable the info is but this caught my eye pretty damn quick.

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PlayOnline free?
Tuesday, December 25, 2001: Coffingirl

Square held an \'online party\' last weekend at the Tokyo International Forum to formally unveil their latest PlayStation 2 RPG \'Final Fantasy XI.\' The game marks the first online chapter in Square\'s trademark RPG series, which will be supported exclusively by their online network \'PlayOnline.\' Square invited players from across Japan to test the game in anticipation of its release this spring. Albeit shown in playable form at the event, attendees were able to purchase a full \'beta testing kit\' which included the game, network manual, and PlayStation 2 network adapter for 10,000 yen ($89).

The event also included a number of stage presentations including speeches and game demonstrations by development team members. Music producer Nobuo Uematsu addressed the crowd briefly by discussing the process of creating game music, and providing a glimpse behind the development of Final Fantasy XI. Square also unveiled a keyboard developed by LogiTech which will be compatible with Final Fantasy XI.

In order to play Final Fantasy XI, players will have to purchase the optional PlayStation 2 hard-drive/Ethernet bundle. In an interesting twist however, Square CEO Yoichi Wada said there would be no charge for accessing the PlayOnline network. Square originally planned to charge players a monthly fee to access the service. According to Wada-san, Square hopes offering the service on a free basis will attract more users and lead to higher software sales. It\'s currently unknown whether Square plans to implement a monthly service charge for future games.


According to this article from coremagazine, Square CEO Yoichi Wada said there would be no charge for accessing PlayOnline network. How feasible is that? Having played a free MMORPG before, I\'ve seen it go from free to charging a monthly fee in order to maintain the service. Through that transition, a lot of players felt betrayed and quit the game. There were also those that were very understanding, like myself, and was willing to pay that fee. How is this gonna work out for Square? After the fiasco that is Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, can they afford to lose this kind of money on free access to PlayOnline servers if their ploys of generating revenues from this free access fails.

What does no charge for accessing PlayOnline network actually means? Playing FFXI will be free? Accessing the "cultures" of PlayOnline is free? By cultures, I mean stuff like reading mangas, listening to music, joining chatrooms/forums on PlayOnline network, etc., that was advertised as being part of PlayOnline. It\'s anyone\'s guess what this free access really means. It\'s still good news though.
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Interesting stuff.

As the author suggested I wonder if it will start out free then go to charging money just to stay alive.  Or maybe this is the news we were waiting to hear and square and playoneline have found a way to make it work.


Here\'s a direct link

http://www.ffxposed.com/news/December2520012657.html

man if it was free i would never leave home.



but then again, we won\'t know the outcome until later.

I actually thought you guys would have picked up on this sooner, but since this is the first post regarding this, I might as well blow the whole thing wide open with a very reliable source, namely coremagazine.







Square held an \'online party\' last weekend at the Tokyo International Forum to formally unveil their latest PlayStation 2 RPG \'Final Fantasy XI.\' The game marks the first online chapter in Square\'s trademark RPG series, which will be supported exclusively by their online network \'PlayOnline.\' Square invited players from across Japan to test the game in anticipation of its release this spring. Albeit shown in playable form at the event, attendees were able to purchase a full \'beta testing kit\' which included the game, network manual, and PlayStation 2 network adapter for 10,000 yen ($89).
The event also included a number of stage presentations including speeches and game demonstrations by development team members. Music producer Nobuo Uematsu addressed the crowd briefly by discussing the process of creating game music, and providing a glimpse behind the development of Final Fantasy XI. Square also unveiled a keyboard developed by LogiTech which will be compatible with Final Fantasy XI.

In order to play Final Fantasy XI, players will have to purchase the optional PlayStation 2 hard-drive/Ethernet bundle. In an interesting twist however, Square CEO Yoichi Wada said there would be no charge for accessing the PlayOnline network. Square originally planned to charge players a monthly fee to access the service. According to Wada-san, Square hopes offering the service on a free basis will attract more users and lead to higher software sales. It\'s currently unknown whether Square plans to implement a monthly service charge for future games.


http://www.coremagazine.com/news/5508.php3

thanks for the reliable source ryu

all that exactly the same on the other site, i think the pics are too but this site i trust more.  So this sounds like some great news:)

OH YEA BEBE!



unknown now goes into a state of suspended animation until the release of FFXI...


ZzZzZzZzZzZzZz

"5 min. later"


is it here yet!?

[Living-In-Clip]

I\'ve said it time and time again, Sony would need a developer to produce a game that required the HD and that game would have to be mass popular, so popular it would make people go ahead and buy the HD without second thought.  This would be the game. Final Fantasy is popular enough in every region to sell plenty of HD\'s.

Two questions remain though. How much is the HD going to cost? And will Square eventually charge for online fees? I\'m thinking they will realize running their own online gaming service for free really isn\'t viaible and pull a Sega by eventually having to charge for certain games (ala PSO V.2).

Awesome!

Only thing I need to know is how much is the HDD and Adaptor together?

WOW, I love that keyboard. That\'s gonna make typing while sittin on the couch infinately more comfortable and enjoyable. Looks cool as hell too. I\'ll bet the "free" Square is refering too is the chat/manga/music features of PlayOnline and not the actual game. It takes alot of money to keep up the maintinence on a server hosting thousands of gamers 24 hours a day. (Not to mention coders who make patches that block GS/Xploder users from harming other players online) They have to recoup their losses somehow. The monthy fees from the people who are actually playing should more than make up for the bandwith being used by those who are just chatting and surfing the PlayOnline site.

LIC ~ Sega never promised that PSOv.2 would be free. SOA wanted it to be.. but SOJ fought them tooth and nail, which caused the many delays. PSOv.1 however, is still completely free to access. They\'ve kept their word on that deal. Now the Sega Sports servers where people play NFL2k1 and such.. those are a different story. Sega started charging 5 a month for online play on those servers whereas they were previously free.

[GmanJoe]

Well.....I just hope there aren\'t other AAA games being released when FFXI comes out. Coz I\'ll probably not play anything else except FFXI ONLINE!!!!

And please, if I see any character named Bill Gates running around, I will kill you without hesitation.