Subscription deadline is coming up and the question is: will you subscribe?

[Wangstrong]

Definitely not. What a bland, unimpressive experience. It hasn't been a disaster, there just hasn't been a single genuinely good thing about this game.

SE chose the tried and true model instead of innovating but nevertheless managed to deliver two steps short of adequacy on every single front. Every aspect of this game is underwhelming and insufficient for a 2013 title. As soon as the initial curiosity wore off, it became obvious that the developers collectively phoned it in for three years and created something resoundingly below average that I'll have forgotten about in a month.

I won't even be angry, it didn't piss me off like GW2 or self-destruct on arrival like Warhammer Online, this game is simply a decisive level below par in every conceivable way. The only thing it has going for it is being new during an MMORPG drought. Enthusiasm is dropping like a rock, people are coming down from their New Game Smell highs, and all the game's inadequacies are becoming obvious.

The developers clearly had no idea how to make an interesting MMORPG experience and are now moving on to repeat displays of extreme incompetence (banning people for being rich, telling the players of the game's most underpowered class that they all just suck, etc.) which is the last straw for me. Unlike even the biggest MMORPG failures, FFXIV hasn't got a single noteworthy feature or accomplishment. Nothing is special about this game, and it isn't robust enough to get away with just doing the basics.

This game is like the precursor to WoW, not the successor. It's a step back to ten years ago when things like instancing, structured itemization and class roles were just becoming a real thing. For a 2013 title, this has been embarrassing. It's what I would expect in 2003 as the next step after Everquest had only just begun to define these elements of the genre. Square-Enix have slept for a decade and this game is only taken seriously at all because there are so many fans of the Final Fantasy franchise.

[Menubrea]

I played WoW for 7+ years...sure there was a lot of bad apples but my 300+ member guild that I was in for the same duration was down right mature and awesome over all. My faction was also great since we were under dogs so the community was super tight.

How long did you play WoW for? My guess is not very long if at all.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at? My experience with WoW was the same as yours, and I played the game from it's beta, with some breaks now and again.

[Jekhar]

Already have subbed for 180 days only cause they did not have an option to subscribe longer.

[sasakusaku]

I'm not really sure what you're getting at? My experience with WoW was the same as yours, and I played the game from it's beta, with some breaks now and again.

You pointed out that pretty much all WoW players (14+ mill back in the day) you have met were/are jerks in that post which is why I replied since that is simply NOT true.

[Altera]

Subscribed for 180 days, and will continue doing so until they shut the game down xD

[Brynn]

I won't subscribe, but not for the OP reasons. This game requires dungeons for advancement, but I hate dungeons, and especially hate waiting for one for an hour for a group.

[CrstyCaptin]

char limit lol

Kinda harsh but pretty accurate. I'm not impressed. I can see some of the endgame content raids are kinda cool, but the latency problems just ruin it. The problem of running AK until T2 capped or CM after AK caps as the only viable means of farming at launch was poorly thought out. The battle is clunky, not fluid at all(even GW2 was better). Simple things they deliberately didn't do (like tells in dungeons) for obscure reasons and refuse to change even with players asking for the change just baffles me. There's absolutely a lot more bad than good. I subbed for 90 days since I'm legacy and just want to hit my 300 T2 tokens per week(can't do coil cuz I'm on jp server!) and just waiting for 2.1 to hit. I'm assuming it will be underwhelming or delayed by the current track record, but that will be my final straw.

[ZyloWolfBane]

I only got two weeks for being a 1.0 player (Yeah, thanks for that SE) but the queues waiting for AK when I already had a full group were ridiculous (Upwards of an hour and a half to two hours!) and the fact that seemingly nobody could handle HMs in duty finder even with an optimal group setup.

It's just not fun when your only means for progression involve mindlessly grinding a dungeon only to have SE's shortsighted approach to instance servers making the experience take way longer than necessary, not to mention you don't even spend a 1/3 of the time in the dungeon that you spent waiting to get in, it's inexcusable.

So back at the beginning of the month I took down my payment info and let the account lapse, and unless something really ground breaking happens with the next content patch I likely will not return. Already turned off to the idea of PvP in a game that takes far too long to ping your location before deciding whether or not you actually dodged an attack.

And this is all of course not even counting the nightmare of launch, open beta, early access, etc.

[SoullessSvipdagr]

Subbing because I really want to see how SE implements pvp and if it ends up sucking then it might cause me to quit. If they do a good job on it though, then I'll probably be playing this game for a long time.

Couldn't agree more!

[M4Fade]

Definitely not. What a bland, unimpressive experience. It hasn't been a disaster, there just hasn't been a single genuinely good thing about this game. SE chose the tried and true model instead of innovating but nevertheless managed to deliver two steps short of adequacy on every single front. Every aspect of this game is underwhelming and insufficient for a 2013 title. As soon as the initial curiosity wore off, it became obvious that the developers collectively phoned it in for three years and created something resoundingly below average that I'll have forgotten about in a month.

I won't even be angry, it didn't piss me off like GW2 or self-destruct on arrival like Warhammer Online, this game is simply a decisive level below par in every conceivable way. The only thing it has going for it is being new during an MMORPG drought. Enthusiasm is dropping like a rock, people are coming down from their New Game Smell highs, and all the game's inadequacies are becoming obvious. The developers clearly had no idea how to make an interesting MMORPG experience and are now moving on to repeat displays of extreme incompetence (banning people for being rich, telling the players of the game's most underpowered class that they all just suck, etc.) which is the last straw for me. Unlike even the biggest MMORPG failures, FFXIV hasn't got a single noteworthy feature or accomplishment. Nothing is special about this game, and it isn't robust enough to get away with just doing the basics.

This game is like the precursor to WoW, not the successor. It's a step back to ten years ago when things like instancing, structured itemization and class roles were just becoming a real thing. For a 2013 title, this has been embarrassing. It's what I would expect in 2003 as the next step after Everquest had only just begun to define these elements of the genre. Square-Enix have slept for a decade and this game is only taken seriously at all because there are so many fans of the Final Fantasy franchise.

Great post. Pretty damn spot on too.

SE did not try very hard it seems. Perhaps their budget for 2.0 just wasn't much. Or perhaps their developers/coders/network designers just aren't up to par, which ties into their budget I guess..