Where do you see FFXIV in 5 years?

[Kayo]

Where do you see FFXIV in 5 years?

/points to FFXI

[Gilraen]

I still see this game going strong in five years. Now I'm not saying this in a blind, "OMG it roxxors!" way. After about a year subscriptions will taper off as the speed runners finally get their fill and move to whatever FPS has the spotlight or MMO promising instant gratification, leaving those of us more involved in the game to carry on. This will go on for a while before numbers start back up again as those who left get tired of what they left for and more new players join in hopes of experiencing something different. After about 3-4 years numbers will stabilize, with cancellations running par with new subscriptions. This will be the norm for as long as Square supports the game.

Where am I getting this idea from? Why, from XI of course, it's been going like this for 12 years now with no signs of lack of interest.

[Roric]

I don't think the game will be nearly as strong in five years as it is now. Like FFXI, it will survive on the small handful of players that decide to stay after the first two months who, for some reason or another, take pleasure in grinding the same three dungeons over and over again.

I'm not gonna lie: I don't see too many people sticking around for that long, let alone when subscriptions drop in the coming days. It's a good-looking game with nothing to do.

[SDaemon]

I would like to see more of the key FF classes, I'm sorry but SCH is not one. I hope for Thief, Ninja and Red Mage at least.

So by key FF classes you mean the class selection from FFI? Because scholar is in FFIII which is a classic.

[Arriverderci]

Will get better down the line, just like others.
People will stay, others will come. Cycle of life.
But honestly if this game doesn't boosts itself up, it's looking bad.
I'm having a hard time seeing any game getting a huge boost and stayed around for so long
like XI and WoW and the other games ended up F2P. Who's to say Wildstar won't go into that eventual route?
No games proved good enough I guess.
Also, I agree with Roric.
Good looking game with nothing to do.

[Roric]

Where am I getting this idea from? Why, from XI of course, it's been going like this for 12 years now with no signs of lack of interest.

Because FFXI actually had content. Part of the reason older MMOs were so successful was because they were designed to be a time investment: doing anything and making progress required a significant amount of effort on the player's behalf. And this is why the subscription-based model MMO was such a moneymaker: people wanted to keep paying to keep achieving far away goals and banding together to overcome challenges a little at a time. Leveling and reaching endgame in vanilla XI and WoW took months of your time. That's what kept people hooked, and that's why you only see older MMOs retain the numbers that they do as opposed to anything made in the last five years.

FFXIV does not do this. You can easily level a character to 50 within a couple of weeks and see everything the game has to offer well before your first subscription payment drops. There's little to achieve and almost no effort involved in doing so and the development team suggested on multiple occasions that they have no intention of changing the game's pacing or methods of leveling. And once you do hit the level cap, all you have is a scant few dungeons and the ability to craft universally worthless items. It's a game that is too fast, offers no sense of achievement whatsoever because everything is instant and given to you, and holds your hand the entire way.

Even if they have plans to change all of this, a good number of the people currently playing are going to ding 50 and skedaddle before 2.1. And it's going to take a lot to convince people otherwise.

[Hoodcat]

Server moves open I will think in 5 years soon.... sooon... mid this mid that.... sooon.... very soon... 5 years later woooo!

[Crashar]

All I can say is look at Tera, that game started healthy and then slowly went down the crapper because of an extreme lack of things to do, I'm going to potentially sub in portions so basically when content gets released as atm all I have to do is farm CM another 20 times to finish gearing my Bard up and then perhaps do it again to get my Whm geared up..., the problem atm is that the all of these end game instances are very dull and drawn out, take AK for example, that instance could be barable if it wasn't for the overly large pool of health that trash mobs have whilst dropping nothing of real use at all and giving 1 gil lol, then there's CM which is a rinse and repeat of slaughter trash mobs with aoes, lure mobs into cannons and blow them up and then rape the bosses face off over and over with no real challenge involved.

(cont)

[Crashar]

What I would personally like to see, is instances with either no trash mobs at all and just a bunch of bosses inside, or very few trash mobs in between each set of bosses, or if they keep the trash mobs in then perhaps reduce their health to a reasonable level as lets face is, the trash mobs are by no means hard to kill or any sort of challenge, they just take long to die and that does not equal fun or hard gameplay, just tedium.

[DanteMog]

In 5 years? everyone will be jumping to Final Fantasy XV of course or XVI hmm XVII?

These games are pretty much just till the next one hits, right?