Austin GDC: Final Fantasy XI's global experience

Hiromichi Tanaka, an executive officer and producer for Square-Enix, spoke to an Austin Game Developers Convention audience about the difficulties of designing global entertainment.

Five years ago, when Square-Enix released Final Fantasy XI as the worldâs first cross-platform MMO, most companies had different servers in each region of the world.

âNot once did we consider this an option for Final Fantasy XI,â said Tanaka.

Instead, the company used common servers, separating players into three different regions with 7 to 9 hour time differences to reduce the amount of stress on the servers. The servers are currently divided into 32 public game worlds, with 15,000 to 20,000 unique users per world.

Square-Enix thought they would see limited interaction between players from different parts of the world due to the time differences, but they underestimated the hardcore gamers spending a longer time playing the game.

âThe mixture of cultures and languages was a nightmare!â

The company developed auto-translation to assist players in communicating with people from other parts of the world, but has resisted requests to establish regional servers.

âIt is true that we have had requests from users to establish regional-based servers,â Tanaka admitted. âBut I think back on my own online gaming experience and how it allowed me to meet people from different parts of the world and learn about their lives and culture.â

The game was recently launched in France and Germany, but it took Square-Enix longer than they anticipated translating the existing content. The next Final Fantasy game is being developed simultaneously for all four current languages.

One problem that has plagued Final Fantasy XI, as with other MMO games, is Real Money Trading (RMT).

Online producer Sage Sundi took the stage to discuss how Square-Enix formed a task force to deal with the problem. He said that companies had three options: to allow all aspects, to self-engage, or to ignore RMT.

âWhile I wonât go so far as to recommend one method over another, I strongly feel that a game company has a duty to select and enforce a method that will most benefit the user,â Sundi said.

Square-Enixâs task force was able to eliminate 90% of the RMT in-game activities in Final Fantasy XI, and Sundi noted that approximately two-thirds of the RMT sites worldwide supplying FF XI have disappeared.

âIt is like and endless game of cat and mouse, with persistence being the key to victory.â

Although the company is busy developing Final Fantasy XIII for PS3 and their next MMORPG for multiple platforms, Square-Enix continues to support Final Fantasy XI with expansion packs.

The fourth expansion pack, entitled Wings of the Goddess, will be released this fall across all platforms.

âWe still have 500,000 [Final Fantasy XI] players around the globe,â Tanaka noted. âIf they keep playing, weâll keep developing.â