1 million subscribers

[Bluestar2kx]

Every MMO that has launched in the past 5 years (especially those that follow the WoW formula) has lost players from the first month and gone free to play within a couple of years. This happens for very basic reasons and it happens every time without fail.

They start big and decline.

Those basic reasons are actually pretty big and telling reasons in the industry: they all mimic Wow. A model of get to cap fast, get all the gear fast, and you're done in a month or two.
XIV sort of follows this but isn't entirely as stale like most MMO's.

For most MMO's, populations rise and fall throughout the months, esp between patches, but on average, good MMO's, tend to gain more followers then they lose in that time frame. FFXI was like that for a long time. And with FFXIV server populations still very high and sometimes still using queues, I'm inclined to believe XIV is slowly gaining subscribers, rather then bleeding them like Rift, SWTOR, Aion, and countless others.

Just because something typically happens without fail, doesn't mean patterns can't be broken by something exceptional, they aren't set in stone like math rules are. XIV could be the exception of this decade, or it could be the same old thing. There's absolutely nothing concrete until the fiscal report in april, not even recycled words from last years report.

Why you two keep arguing about this is beyond me.
Just let go until the report comes out this year. It's that simple, then everything will be solved.

[Elemmire]

Those basic reasons are actually pretty big and telling reasons in the industry: they all mimic Wow. A model of get to cap fast, get all the gear fast, and you're done in a month or two.
XIV sort of follows this but isn't entirely as stale like most MMO's.

For most MMO's, populations rise and fall throughout the months, esp between patches, but on average, good MMO's, tend to gain more followers then they lose in that time frame. FFXI was like that for a long time. And with FFXIV server populations still very high and sometimes still using queues, I'm inclined to believe XIV is slowly gaining subscribers, rather then bleeding them like Rift, SWTOR, Aion, and countless others.

Just because something typically happens without fail, doesn't mean patterns can't be broken by something exceptional, they aren't set in stone like math rules are. XIV could be the exception of this decade, or it could be the same old thing. There's absolutely nothing concrete until the fiscal report in april, not even recycled words from last years report.

Why you two keep arguing about this is beyond me.
Just let go until the report comes out this year. It's that simple, then everything will be solved.

I'd say FFXIV entirely follows that formula and is stale. What kills most MMOs for me is the item level crap that leads to elitism bs. That kills an MMO for me more than anything :\

[Alhanelem]

I'd say FFXIV entirely follows that formula and is stale. What kills most MMOs for me is the item level crap that leads to elitism bs. That kills an MMO for me more than anything :\

If that kills the game for you, why are you still here? FFXI has all that stuff now.

You don't need item levels for elitism. The elitism was just as bad if not worse in FFXI's early days. Everyone screams for horizontal progression but the only real difference with that and standard progression is you need to stuff your inventory full of a lot more items to perform the best. The only benefit is any one single item doesn't become obsolete as quickly. So I don't really feel like one is really better than the other.

One of the things that keeps an MMO fresh for me is PvP, even if it's just a sidegame/minigame. Even if I've experienced everything in a patch, the PvP is always fun to play since it's not predictable the same way AI is. This is one thing FFXIV is doing well with Frontline. I loved ballista in FFXI, it's a true shame nobody does it anymore. [grumble] If it was more pick-up-and-play-able and some other minor issues were addressed, it would have lasted a lot longer. As it stands its in dire need of an update to really be playable since it hasnt been touched in years. The new jobs in SoA can't even play in 60 cap which has always been the most popular mode because their AF is lv99. [/grumble]