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

[Despite]

Simply put, it's a very shallow game.
You can get to max level and complete all end games raids within a month or two. Crafting is next to worthless and there's no exploration or any sense of open world.
People are getting bored quickly.

[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.

[zeroumus]

I am going to camelot unchained when i am done with this game, not sure how long that will be, but seems to be coming fast

no more of this corporate crap for me for my next game

[Phelios]

For my best, I say the next big thing is an MMO interactive control console either like a wii, move, or a PS4 or Xbone 4 connect camera where you actually use real motions to simlate the character on screen. Anything short of that right now put people at their keyboard and monitor dedicated to one single game when they could be youtubing, reading up on their android, and alt tabbing to watch t.v show on their netflix while they sit on queue.

I think the final factor in any MMO is the queue time, most people want to come on and party up with folks, many feel that their day and or night is wasted away when they have to sit for 30 minutes and their group fail.

Is there an answer? There are just more stuff out there now for the average playerbase.

[Royze]

I think SE just doesn't want to learn from Tanaka's success.
In 5 years from now, Tanaka will probably be "that game producer that created that legendary game, our most succesfull title ever", rather than "Mr. Barance".

And Yoshi will probably be "that guy that tried to copy wow"

Learn from Tanaka... he created Japan's most succesfull MMO ever. If FFXI was marketed better, and supported better in none- JP communities, it might have rivaled WoW. But SE never put any money into marketing it outside Japan.

[astrobearthe2nd]

I think SE just doesn't want to learn from Tanaka's success.
In 5 years from now, Tanaka will probably be "that game producer that created that legendary game, our most succesfull title ever", rather than "Mr. Barance".

And Yoshi will probably be "that guy that tried to copy wow"

Learn from Tanaka... he created Japan's most succesfull MMO ever. If FFXI was marketed better, and supported better in none- JP communities, it might have rivaled WoW. But SE never put any money into marketing it outside Japan.

so tanaka was the producer for ff7? because that is SE greatest game ever.

edit. not personal opinion (i like ff12 way better), but public opinion.

[indira]

I think SE just doesn't want to learn from Tanaka's success.
In 5 years from now, Tanaka will probably be "that game producer that created that legendary game, our most succesfull title ever", rather than "Mr. Barance".

And Yoshi will probably be "that guy that tried to copy wow"

Learn from Tanaka... he created Japan's most succesfull MMO ever. If FFXI was marketed better, and supported better in none- JP communities, it might have rivaled WoW. But SE never put any money into marketing it outside Japan.

Tanaka put tons of depth in FFXI from aggro system, skill levels, magic, sub jobs, etc. he also said FFXIV 1.0 was not ready for launch.

[Genesis88]

so tanaka created ff7? because that is SE greatest game ever.

edit. not personal opinion (i like ff12 way better), but public opinion.

I agree Tanaka was original. He worked on alot of older FF titles, chrono cross, the successful ff11 and many others. Sad that he was thrown under the bus. The original crew wanted to steer 1.0 from ffxi, so he let them work on it with minimal interferance. Yeah wasn't the SE president at the time wanted to rush the launch of 1.0?

[DSX]

I think the companies lost sight of the MMORPG genre audience, because they thought they could get more money out of another audience.
The result is the companies being slammed by this new audience that are much like hit and run type of thing.
the new audience: demand easy to complete content or take short time to complete or both (because they don't have the time to spend on anything demanding and do not want to "tress" mentally on anything in a "game") > hit the game on launch > because the company made the content easy to complete with short time investment as they demanded they streamroll through it all in a matter of weeks or less > the company finds itself in a tight spot where the speed of development can't match how fast their easy content can be completed (some of them rehash content to buy more time) > this audience get bored waiting and leave instead as a result of boredom with the content they already completed. Of course a new game coming out too could speed up the process of leaving the game as they already finished what this game has and there is a completely new experience in that new game.

oh man i remember in xi when just seeing someone in full rdm af was drool-able and worshipy. If you wear af here it's a laughable and kickable offense. I -cried- happy tears when I got my rdm af2 hat after years of trying for it. Now the only thing im missing is full BIS gear for my already ilv 90 jobs and that's not that awesome as 80% of the population has it. Im not into fates so I haven't touched Arcanist yet and I miss exp parties.. not fate parties where the whm casts stone and never heals and the pt is 7 pld/wars. Where challenge isn't lag or if you can get to odin in the 1 minute hes up... Ex primals were a step in the right direction but even then I don't really find Titan fun at all.. more like crossing your fingers and hoping that this 89th party of the week has what it takes to dodge. This isn't the type of hard I hoped for

True.
and I like your sig about FFXI crafting

I think SE just doesn't want to learn from Tanaka's success.
In 5 years from now, Tanaka will probably be "that game producer that created that legendary game, our most succesfull title ever", rather than "Mr. Barance".

And Yoshi will probably be "that guy that tried to copy wow"

Learn from Tanaka... he created Japan's most succesfull MMO ever. If FFXI was marketed better, and supported better in none- JP communities, it might have rivaled WoW. But SE never put any money into marketing it outside Japan.

Tanaka put tons of depth in FFXI from aggro system, skill levels, magic, sub jobs, etc. he also said FFXIV 1.0 was not ready for launch.

I agree Tanaka was original. He worked on alot of older FF titles, chrono cross, the successful ff11 and many others. Sad that he was thrown under the bus. The original crew wanted to steer 1.0 from ffxi, so he let them work on it with minimal interferance. Yeah wasn't the SE president at the time wanted to rush the launch of 1.0?

That is all true.
Let me add that also SE refused to let tanaka creat a new game engine for FFXIV (just like he did for FFXI) and instead handed him the game engine for FF13 (yes an offline single player game) and told him to make due with it.