Originally Posted by
dspguy
How long do you think this game will go on? If anything 7.0 is a borderline surprise.
While there aren't many fair comparisons that can be made between FFXI and FFXIV, there are a few important ones: both are subscription-based and avenues to make money for the company. Eventually, the graphics get worn out, the developers run of new concepts to add to the game, and they will have a hard time competing with eye-candy that uses a new game engine.
With that said, FFXI's last real expansion was 2013... essentially 11 years after the servers went live. We are approaching the 10 year mark (let's not count 1.0). By the time the expansion is released, we are at the 11 year mark. FFXIV devs have followed a pretty specific formula since HW. It is pretty easy to know the nature of new content (comes out like clockwork). The graphics are getting worn out (I'm personally fine with them - I'm old school and still play 8/16-bit games). The formula is getting tired.
EW sort of wrapped up one "era" of the game - the one that started back in 2.0. The next expansion might not tie in much with that, but it doesn't mean it will begin the next 10 year story arc. In my opinion, they'll like have this next expansion and possibly one more after that. Followed by "mini-expansion" - sort of a content dump to keep subs up a little longer. Then it will just go into maintenance mode.
We are closer to the end of the line than the beginning. It just isn't clear when that will happen. For myself, I'm enjoying the ride and would rather see the game sunset when it makes sense to do it instead of making a story that doesn't "fit" with the Eorzea we know. I'll cross my fingers that Dawntrail is not that expansion.