Newest interview (abyssea was a mistake?)

[Luvbunny]

Then it was the wrong game for you as thats what it was made to be. At some point people need to understand that some things are meant to be one way and other things are meant to be another. If ffxi maintains its 'new' mentality I'll need to accept that its not my type of game anymore. But the fact that people that HATE games like ffxi used to be, come into the game, and try to make it something else is ridiculous.

Sadly this game probably not for you anymore, I have no control over what the developers will do lol. I think the developers just responded to what the general paying consumer wants, and made abyssea, which sold quite well, and it seems now they run out of ideas on how to make another blockbuster add ons. I am glad the game evolved for the better, and the developers (to some degree) willing to let go of the past and move forward to the future. Even if it means render the old content to be less of a challenge (and timesink) and make the game more accessible to a lot of players (which pose a problem of a lot of less skilled players). You can't always get everything, but I am happy with the compromise - FFXI is not quite WoW but at least have some quality of what made WoW more accessible and fun.

But they did open a big can of worm with Abyssea - now every single future add ons will be compared to Abyssea and if it does not live up to the same quality, people will not respond kindly. At the same time, it is good that Abyssea exists, it forces the developers to actually put some effort and "invest" in creating a better or on quality content if they want to keep paying customers happy. Maybe cut down the money pour into the trash that is FF14 and spend it more on 11? They now have no way of going back and have to move forward into the future - where fun, easy, accessible games rules (notice the rise of casual gaming on iphone and facebook). The problem is how to balance the casual and hardcore contents - but this is why we pay them monthly fees - SE needs to actually do some work and keep us happy and not completely ignoring customer's feedbacks.