What went wrong? Is it the game or the grenre?

[LioJen]

The third subculture is the newcomers to the genre. I feel like most of these people are the ones who might enjoy this game the most. The game is pretty standard in MMO terms and fairly easy to learn making for a good experience for new people to the MMO market. They might not stick around either though, once they have gotten used to what an MMO is I think they'll either quit altogether or join a one of the other subcultures.

This is where I fit in. ARR is my first MMO, and overall I have enjoyed it so far for the free month, but I don't think I'm going to sub once that's over because this:

It felt like I was a part of the world and an actual person in this world instead of "Neo the chosen one". You were a member of the party, instead of playing the entire party in a Final Fantasy game every member of the party was an actual person.

...is what I wanted out of a FF MMO and exactly what I'm not getting in ARR. It feels like every player is in their own little bubble world, and all the other players are just NPCs with names over their heads. Not to mention the super fast pace of combat and the rush rush rush of the FATES and dungeons make it impossible to socialize while playing, forcing you to either sit in town or not talk to people at all, unless you already have a group of people to talk to on Skype or something. Being new to MMOs, I don't have a previous group to draw on and this game does not help in finding one.

So I decided to start playing FFXI and so far, despite the low population and the fact that the trial version doesn't let me talk to anyone, it seems more like a FF game and I feel a sense of adventure in the world that I wanted to feel in ARR. I honestly think I'm going to sub XI and see how that goes, and maybe check out ARR again when it gets another update. I got my 20 bucks worth of fun out of it, but I don't feel like it's worth another 15.

Edit : problem with XI now though is you have to power through some early levels to get to the point where other people are.

I'm not going to really power through anything, I want to go through the game at a normal pace though I'll probably have to grind a bit to do story missions since you apparently can't take Trust NPCs with you. If I'm successful in getting my friend to start playing too we might be able to roll through it together. I didn't try to powerlevel in ARR either, but I still found it unsatisfying. The overworld is too small and easy and the story battles and NPC quests don't really have any weight to them... just run from one exclamation mark to the next.

[Battlewrench]

So I decided to start playing FFXI and so far, despite the low population and the fact that the trial version doesn't let me talk to anyone, it seems more like a FF game and I feel a sense of adventure in the world that I wanted to feel in ARR. I honestly think I'm going to sub XI and see how that goes, and maybe check out ARR again when it gets another update

I'll encourage you to try what I consider the golden age of MMOs. Some of the past MMOs like everquest, XI, and others really help with a sense of community. When I rejoined XI some months ago with some friends I still managed to get another linkshell and do some endgame content. My friends stopped playing again (abby killed it for them) and so I started looking for more people to do content with. The big difference between XI and a game like XIV is people want to bring you to higher levels, they want to help gear you, and they want to help you. It may not all be generous because by helping you they help themselves because you'll end up helping them complete the content. The older games tend to be slightly less helpful with showing you what to do or how to do it, but you can usually find players willing to help you instead. This is just my experience though. Some people hate the experience because they can't end up finding anyone and sit around not being able to complete the content. It can be rough but if you find a group of people then I think you'll enjoy it much much more. I think you'll have a better shot finding people in a game like XI though.

Edit : problem with XI now though is you have to power through some early levels to get to the point where other people are.