When I heard that Square Enix was going to make a new MMO I was quite literally, shocked and excited. A new Final Fantasy? Sweet! The graphics look killer, the hume (guessing warrior by his black LOLica) was totally hot and all of the old races were returning. So Vana'diel is going to be reborn?

But the more I read from the Press conferences the more it made me wonder. SE is going to make a perfect MMO; the precise blend of solo and party awesomeness that borders Blizzard's WoW but will be 3 times as awesome because the graphics are gorgeous and the story will be SquareEnix: = ultimate win. So..... what happens to Final Fantasy 11 now?

They've said 11 has about a year left of new content which conveniently leaves us exhausted and at the end of the story about the time 14 comes out. They've also said that they'll leave the servers for 11 up and hope that hardcore players will be able to play 11 one day and 14 another when they don't have events but will it be so cut and dry like that? Will 14 dominate because it is a bigger, newer game scaled to built a player's needs without the hassle of sitting around waiting hours for a party invite?

For those of us that have spent YEARS playing FFXI this poses a harsh question; will we continue to play 11 when 14 explodes, will 11 still even matter to those that have played it and will the population of 11 still stay about the same when 14 arises?

I've been in endgame for over a year now, raiding sky, sea, HNMs, dynamis, einherjar, etc....and I've seen and done a lot of things, really cool things with a lot of really cool people. The experiences I've had on FFXI and the friends I've made have made my time there worthwhile. Will that continue? The future for FFXI suddenly seems so unclear.

I find myself staring at Akhail in the character selection screen, asking him "What should we do, buddy? Should we finish your white mage and your paladin, level your puppetmaster as planned? Should we finish ToAU, farm for hours to make that gil to buy you that really expensive gear?" For the first time I feel a doubt about playing this game.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. Should people spending the 150 million gil to make a relic weapon still try to make them? Should those of us who are still working on missions from Chains of Promathia to Wings of the Goddess bust our asses to finish them? What happens when we get to the end and Endgame really is just that: End of the game? Will the credits roll and that ever drifting lyring song start playing that we all are familar with? What happens then?

I can't help but feel that SquareEnix has sealed Final Fantasy XI's fate. They have acknowledged that they can build something better and will do so but first they will have to tear down what they have built and take the best pieces of it to start over again, like a good Capcom game (insert resident evil devil may cry jokes here). This however is very different. Even beating Resident Evil 5 when you can get that sense of accomplishment with your buddy and turn to him and be like 'yeah we beat it! its over!' This is much more different. This is like graduating from high
school. This is saying 'its over, we beat it' with 5000 other people from your server and 2 million more around the world that you may never see again.

I can't say for sure what will happen because Square Enix doesn't even know, and what they do know they aren't gonna say. I will continue to level, to go to events, to try and be the best damn dragoon on my server, until the day Diabolos server is tossed into a trash can in a SE corporate office. The people I've met and the experiences I've had are what built Akhail up from nothing, and it would be an insult to let it all go now. As for the whole 'Vana'diel is coming to an end' charade they've been playing in-game for the last 7 years...this time it just might be true.