Quote Originally Posted by Draylo View Post
MMO's do work that way, what are you smoking? If you look at any MMO, the people who play two hours a week don't have the best gear in the game. I'm not sure how you can think otherwise, its clear as day. If you play with such little playtime, you shouldn't need to have the best gear in the game. This has been true for almost any MMO I've ever played, even FFXIV where you need ilevel gear to even enter some of the instances to do the fights. You can work towards the gear in FFXI just like the others though, even with minimal play time but it takes a lot longer. There are shouts for Delve all the time, and plenty of people who sell the wins to others where you can buy one and use the items mobs drop in the field to obtain plasm. None of the content in this game is out of reach of players, NONE, it is simply an issue of laziness or unwillingness to participate. How is it my problem that you have two hours a week to play? Why should I be penalized with dumbed down easy content just so you can obtain it? One guy even posted he doesn't have a win because he is a DD meathead who refuses to play support to help a party. Catering to people like that is ridiculous. I also think you are quite wrong about the hardcore players. If you haven't noticed, this game has a very niche userbase and the sub numbers aren't exactly super high. If all the hardcore players quit, I doubt you would have a game left.
Unfortunately your quite wrong here. Successful MMO's are successful because they make content accessible. Notice I said content and not rewards, this is because rewards are a result of content participation. Two players participating in the same content should expect the same reward, the difference between hard core and casual then becomes one of time. The hard core player has more time to devote to the game and thus can acquire rewards faster then the casual player who acquires the same rewards only at a much slower pace. This is a pattern seen in many successful MMO's. You release content A, the hard core players tackle and engage the content soon after release and develop an effective strategy, sooner rather then later they complete the content and acquire the rewards. The casual group takes longer to gear up and tackle the content, they generally trail the hard core crowd and copy strategies used, they eventually complete the content and acquire the same rewards. The design cycle of the developer is such that by the time the casual groups start to complete the content, new content is soon released, the hard core crowd isn't even a factor.

Your also wrong about the user base of FFXI. Folks, like yourself, with ample playtime and access to high end resources constitute a very small minority of the player base. Because you only hang out with and socialize with other people of your standing you begin to perceive that the entire game revolves around you. You couldn't be further from the truth, most players don't read the forums, don't research much information and generally engage as a form of escapism and entertainment. This very apparent to me as my time schedule and work / social obligations forces me to engage with and participate in content with the casual crowd. So yes if you, and all your friends, quit tomorrow, nothing would change, at most SE would revise content to lower it's difficulty which would actually be a good thing. If the casual players quit, you'd be finding a new game within a month or two. This is the reality of financing a MMO.