Wy XIV is failing as it's improved...

[FromZanarkand]

Final Fantasy, JRPGs in general even, are all about telling a story, about immersing the player in a dramatic world enriched with lore, music, and meaning. You simply can not create that same feel, that same uniqueness, if you're trying to listen to player demands - which to be frank, basically means appealing to casual gamers in the traditional MMO terminology. IMO FFXIV is doomed to fail as it will neither succeed as a Final Fantasy or as a standard appeal-to-all game trying to follow in WoW's footsteps.

I totally agree. I share the same fear for XIV (And Final Fantasy games in general). As for FF games in general, I think if they just take it back to its roots (maybe like FFIX? With some changes of course) they'd get a wonderful response and it would officially be the return of Final Fantasy. With XIII, it wasn't like XIV where they just didn't put in the work. Their visions and ideas for how to revolutionize JRPGs just wasn't great. They just need to go back and rethink it.

But as for XIV, yeah we all know it was half-assed and just never finished. Maybe never will be. It wasn't so much a problem of vision as it was a problem of vision execution. (except for the market wards vision. That can officially die) I agree that by compromising with traditional MMO standards, which they might end up doing, it will be harder for it to have that FF magic. I don't think it's impossible. If the story came first and was intriguing (and FF-like) and ranking up to get through the story wasn't such a pain that'd be a strong start. And if it was rich with FF lore, (*cough* Chocobos) plenty of summons and FF classes (which I know they're planning on implementing) then XIV might just have a fighting chance.