Congratulations Square Enix! FF4 surpasses WoW this year. (Source inside)

FFXIV is in a much better place than Retail WoW. I am not surprised to see more active players in XIV than Retail. Overall subs for WoW may be higher across Classic and Retail, but FFXIV is hands down the better game. As long as it keeps trending upward I don't doubt it will take the top spot overall... eventually.

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Originally Posted by Blackwing_Soul

FFXIV is in a much better place than Retail WoW. I am not surprised to see more active players in XIV than Retail. Overall subs for WoW may be higher across Classic and Retail, but FFXIV is hands down the better game. As long as it keeps trending upward I don't doubt it will take the top spot overall... eventually.

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Popularity doesn't make a game good, what matters is the gameplay, the contents it has, the endgame, the story and then anything else (in that order).

-Gameplay? I'd say that point goes straight to WoW, if WoW did anything good, it is the way it plays, the way classes work and the way they interact with each other and the enviroment. FFXIV? it is as basic as it can get.
-Content? to be honest, i can't compare the two games on this because i don't know every berry WoW has to offer.
-Endgame? On the PvP side of things, WoW has definitely the upper hand because of the gameplay aspect mentioned above.
-Story? Lich King aside, i'd say FFXIV scores this one, without a doubt.

That's at least, my two cents on the matter.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

Not disagreeing -- but I find it completely weird that WoW players would jump ship as the expansion ends to embrace a six month content drought in a different game to the point where a website surpassed LuckyBancho's census at the peak of ShB in 5.3.

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For those "jumping ship" who are seeking a different experience and have yet to dive into FF XIV, there isn't a 6 month (5 months-ish now and growing shorter by the day) content drought. It's all new to them. I don't think you understand that.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

There's a lot about WoW that I like better, but not enough for me to continue playing it. The main things I miss are some of the playable races such as the Blood Elves who I adored both in terms of their character models and the lore surrounding them. I also miss some of the classes - Death Knight, Warlock, Druid and Demon Hunter in particular. Reaper is coming with Endwalker and looks promising, though hopefully it is written to truly be a 'darker job'.

All in all, I think there's a lot of elements that both MMO's could take from each other moving forward.

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Agreed, but unfortunately I don't see either changing. FFXIV has sat quite comfortably in it's niche, and seems to be trying to cater even more to a casual playerbase, while WoW is there to cater to the more hardcore. I don't really see this as a good thing, I'd rather see SE branch out more in terms of content in FFXIV, and start giving us more in general as well.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

For those "jumping ship" who are seeking a different experience and have yet to dive into FF XIV, there isn't a 6 month (5 months-ish now and growing shorter by the day) content drought. It's all new to them. I don't think you understand that.

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Content drought? We will have new content and events coming out every month until EW, except maybe October. There's a TON of stuff to do, new content or otherwise!

This is sarcasm

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

For those "jumping ship" who are seeking a different experience and have yet to dive into FF XIV, there isn't a 6 month (5 months-ish now and growing shorter by the day) content drought. It's all new to them. I don't think you understand that.

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I think it really all depends on what the mindset is.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Content drought? We will have new content and events coming out every month until EW, except maybe October. There's a TON of stuff to do, new content or otherwise!

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Like what?

Make it Rain? If its anywhere close to what it was in 2020 -- it going to not be much of anything.

5.57 and 5.58 will most likely be similar to how the .57 and .58 patches were previous. -- system adjustments towards battle end as the expansion closes. Not really a lot of content that will be added between those two.

The FFXV event? Not exactly new content -- but Ill consider that; but its a short questline for goodies.

Outside of that -- you mainly have six months of not much different since 5.55 launch.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Content drought? We will have new content and events coming out every month until EW, except maybe October. There's a TON of stuff to do, new content or otherwise!

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We won't be getting much new stuff though outside of some holiday events. Personally, I still have a ton of things I want to do, and there's definitely content there for the next however many months until Endwalker. But there's not going to be any meaty content drops until the expansion.

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Originally Posted by Y2K21

I think it really all depends on what the mindset is.

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Not really, no. There's a lot to do for new players. A fair amount for us as well if we seek it out.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

Not really, no. There's a lot to do for new players. A fair amount for us as well if we seek it out.

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Really depends what they want for the game -- as much as there is to do: player have to have the drive to do it. Its why I dont necessarily buy into "theres a lot to do and people will seek it out".

Housing is already limiting as it is. Do we expect new players to dive head first into Eureka/Bozja? Do we expect them to pick up Blue Mage? Do we expect them to do Golden Saucer things?

Its all dependent on what the player wants to do. If a player just wants to quest and do instances -- it could get tiring after some time.

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

We won't be getting much new stuff though outside of some holiday events. Personally, I still have a ton of things I want to do, and there's definitely content there for the next however many months until Endwalker. But there's not going to be any meaty content drops until the expansion.



Not really, no. There's a lot to do for new players. A fair amount for us as well if we seek it out.

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Final Fantasy XIV has this pretty well known paradox going on. For while it has literally barrel loads of content. It also has no content at all.

This is especially true for newer players thanks in part to the unsynced system which allows players to consume a boat load of content in no time at all.. you wanna do the coil story for example. Can have the whole thing done in 90 minutes. Less if you don't bother reading the dialogue.

Alexander raids same thing. Eden again... extreme primal you can pretty much get clears for an entire expansions worth in 30 minutes... you can quite honestly consume years of content in a single evening.

One of the other arguements is that major patches in XIV really don't offer much new content either. You can quite literally have it all done in a couple of hours and then be back to the same old stuff you've been doing since you began playing.

Got a running joke with a couple of my friends in that everytime they drop round my house and catch me playing I am always doing the same pieces of content. Which comes up with comments like dam dont they ever add new content to this game your still doing the same things...

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Originally Posted by Dzian

Final Fantasy XIV has this pretty well known paradox going on. For while it has literally barrel loads of content. It also has no content at all.

This is especially true for newer players thanks in part to the unsynced system which allows players to consume a boat load of content in no time at all.. you wanna do the coil story for example. Can have the whole thing done in 90 minutes. Less if you don't bother reading the dialogue.

Alexander raids same thing. Eden again... extreme primal you can pretty much get clears for an entire expansions worth in 30 minutes... you can quite honestly consume years of content in a single evening.

One of the other arguements is that major patches in XIV really don't offer much new content either. You can quite literally have it all done in a couple of hours and then be back to the same old stuff you've been doing since you began playing.

Got a running joke with a couple of my friends in that everytime they drop round my house and catch me playing I am always doing the same pieces of content. Which comes up with comments like dam dont they ever add new content to this game your still doing the same things...

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And then you have the people saying it’s your problem if you rush through content and it’s like...i’m not TRYING to rush through content. There just isn’t much depth to it. Am i supposed to just purposely like, play bad so content takes longer? I don’t get it.

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Originally Posted by SturmChurro

Agreed, but unfortunately I don't see either changing. FFXIV has sat quite comfortably in it's niche, and seems to be trying to cater even more to a casual playerbase, while WoW is there to cater to the more hardcore. I don't really see this as a good thing, I'd rather see SE branch out more in terms of content in FFXIV, and start giving us more in general as well.

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WoW requires a certain amount of basic competence when it comes to certain endgame content, which is only fair on the long run. Catering to casual players too much, especially in endgame content brings more trouble than it solves solutions. Why? Because the moment you hit the True Endgame of FFXIV, what do you got left to keep youself occupied for all those months until the next big update hits?
-PvP is a no-go because it is one of the last things Squeenix cares or even understands about.
-Raiding? Once you got what you wanted, even that chapter is behind you in no-time, all you can do is just helping other people reach the same void you reached already.
-Hunts? Lol.
-BLU? See Raiding.
-Triple Triad & Mahjong? I guess you do have some sort of endgame with those, especially the latter. But i play FFXIV not for the Minigames it has.
All that is truly left out of this, is archievement/mount hunting and i am confident to say that most casual players will burn out on this way before they reach the 50% mark.

If content is being created to be more difficult and complex, it slows down the progress of reaching what i would call the "mastery of the game", where you can proudly say that you did everything and experienced every fruit this game has to offer. And once you reach that point, you will most likely sooner or later, quit the game for at least a few years (if not forever), just so that you can be occupied for a few more weeks before going into hybernation again.