This game is like Final Fantasy XI pre Chains of Promathia

[Fireseen]

Both MMOs are two different games under the same company and title is all. FFXIV does have alot of content (The storymode, all the quests, dungeons, gearing), just doesn't take as long to get to/through as old FFXI, that is all. If FFXI came out after WoW did with what MMOs have to be today... (I am only using WoW, because FFXI being an older game as well and it's a relevent argument for all MMOs) the game either would have thrived poorly or would have failed. FFXIV is the result of the WoW MMO generation (ease of access, instant gratification). ALSO all of you obviously have no seen what FFXI is now as well... IT IS NOT Chains or Zilart FFXI AT ALL.

[Ricky]

Maybe it is, but why would they be ok with making the same mistake twice?

[DSX]

If FFXI came out after WoW did with what MMOs have to be today... (I am only using WoW, because FFXI being an older game as well and it's a relevent argument for all MMOs) the game either would have thrived poorly or would have failed.

I disagree with that. In fact its quite the contrary:
FFXI NA launch: PC October 28, 2003 / PS2 March 23, 2004
WoW NA launch: PC November 23, 2004

As you can see both games were launched with a year gap and regardless of WoW direction and popularity FFXI still thrived and lived (through WoW best years) for over 10 years and went ahead to become the most profitable game in SE history. WoW had its direction and fandom but WoW audience was different than FFXI audience and therefore cannot magically take FFXI audience away because they were two different audiences to begin with. FFXIV is actually catering to WoW audience and for that it will be in direct competition with WoW and all its clones over that audience. Fans of WoW style has a lot of games to choose from and FFXIV is just one of them. FFXI was unique for its audience back then and for that style of MMORPG it was irreplaceable.

ALSO all of you obviously have no seen what FFXI is now as well... IT IS NOT Chains or Zilart FFXI AT ALL.

We know what befallen FFXI and what SE have done to it but the thread is talking about FFXI pre CoP specifically so that is what we are talking about.

[Fireseen]

Pretty sure FFXI hit very low points during WoW very high points, to comment on your "FFXI Audience."

I would love to go back in time to pre-WoW MMORPGs. Hard grinds, time sinks, where a level meant something, nothing handed to you. The past is the past, FFXI is/was a great game.
MMORPGs in this future, they take time to build content, graphics are more demanding to build, stories have to be more involved and longer, since they come at a faster pace. FFXI stories were short (good but short), mostly because it took FOREVER to get anything done/completed, so content was "easier" to make. But, FFXIV is a great game, they have 1.5+ subs... That is amazing, and this after a shutdown and re-release. with such and change and this much content (which is alot, since most people been 50 for so long you forget what it was to get there), world first SE!

[Fireseen]

Maybe it is, but why would they be ok with making the same mistake twice?

What mistake? FFXIV failing? There is WAY more content than 1.0... is this game going to fail? I don't see how it can.

[Ricky]

What mistake? FFXIV failing? There is WAY more content than 1.0... is this game going to fail? I don't see how it can.

I am not saying it's failing, I enjoy the game still, but it's my understanding that XI before the first expansion suffered from a big lack of content which is also what we have now. Limiting housing to the super rich for example is a huge mistake, they spent a LOT of time creating all these art assets for housing and nobody can even enjoy them, then there's PVP.. nobody enjoys it, yet they did spend and continue to spend time on it which could be used to get personal housing out faster, or make a monthly boss fight, etc.

[DSX]

Pretty sure FFXI hit very low points during WoW very high points, to comment on your "FFXI Audience."

I'm sorry but you are flat out wrong here. FFXI maintained a steady 500k subs (as per SE PR themselves) all the way up until around the Abyssea era (which was released in 2010) where the population started to drop sharply (mainly because of the changes they did in Abyssea not because of any other game performance). FFXI did not have any sharp drops during the years of WoW glory, WoW launch and success did not make any reasonable dents in FFXI population because it kept a steady number of subs before, during and YEARS after WoW launch and popularity. Seeing as the number of subs in FFXI was steady I think it is reasonable to think they are two different audiences.

MMORPGs in this future, they take time to build content, graphics are more demanding to build, stories have to be more involved and longer, since they come at a faster pace. FFXI stories were short (good but short), mostly because it took FOREVER to get anything done/completed, so content was "easier" to make. But, FFXIV is a great game, they have 1.5+ subs... That is amazing, and this after a shutdown and re-release. with such and change and this much content (which is alot, since most people been 50 for so long you forget what it was to get there), world first SE!

If they relegated items like the vanity system or the barbershop and other similar items that add nothing for the game play depth and content yet only take development time from high priority items to least priority then they would have more time and developers to work on content that actually directly impact the game actually playable roster.

If they would create content that actually takes time to clear (say months) with no lock outs then they would have longer development time for their next content item while the population is still busy fighting to clear whats already out. This "modern" trash content model where you stroll right through content is not doing them any favors in terms of saving them time to plan and develop more content items BEFORE the player base already cleared and bored with the precious content item. In less than 6 months FFXIV players cleared, finished and farmed all the content because they made it so it is easy to stroll through. Back then content items were not easy to make they took them long months and years to finish BUT they also lasted them months and years while the majority of the population struggle to complete them (it was worth it) compared to this "modern" style where its too much work that needs months of hard work to produce easy to stroll through content that lasts them only weeks then the majority of the population would be already cleared it and farming it.

In this "modern" style stories are more involved and longer?
I'm sorry but I personally find most of the quests lines to be weak and nothing but filler to throw free EXP points at the player to give them their cheap free level cap. Not to mention the meat of the stories in this "modern" style, to put it generously, are lets say "less than mature" compared to the meat of the stories back then.

In nowhere SE PR officially stated that they have 1.5+ millions subscribers although they like to flaunt their 1.8 millions sales/players that bought the game, in fact I think somewhere they admitted they had less than a million subs. The game had a relaunch but we saw a lot of its content to be just a rehash of the content that ver1 had (examples: Ifrit/Garuda/Moogle primals and dungeons like DD, CC AV...etc etc) and having a level 50 char or not didn't matter in the end because after all you could hit lvl50 in a day or two (lets say a week if you like) by just clearing the story quests which will through exp at you like theres no tomorrow.

[Fireseen]

When you step back forgo the fact that you have your completely ilvl 90 melee, tank, healer and caster, and look at FFXIV as a whole package, there is a ton of content.

PvP, ugg is terrible... waste of space, but that's to be expected in a PvE game, I personally don't factor it. It is a shame like you said that they even put resources into it. Housing I agree, honestly it is just a gil sink/ economy gil removal, and yes for the super rich, I cannot beleive they put so many houses in game (x5 of 3 instances, really?). But you can't force gil out willingly by making GIANT gil sinks. Other games have done housing so well, but also people suffered from the some of reasons they made them so expensive.

[Fireseen]

Ok so I was wrong. The FFXI audience, stuck with it, added none lost none (which doesnt look like much of a realstic trend)... that's good. But now you left, you want the game to be the same game you left which had a few years of content by that 500k mark platue. Im not saying I never played FFXI, or enjoyed it when I played it, or would like to see certain aspects in 14 (NMs not being one of them shudder).

[Lithera]

Yah the only difference is how long it took to grind out levels in FFXI. By NA launch though the Japanese players were at the 50 cap, had cleared SL, and were camping NMs n crap since that's all there was to do. In terms of content clearing, even the NA playerbase had groups regularily clearing all of Dynamis not very long after it came out and Kirin was downed pretty soon after Sky was implemented. Again the difference was there were a lot less people at the level cap to go around clearing that content. After the Northlands Dyna zones were released there was literally no more endgame content until Limbus launched almost a year later. Limbus and Sea weren't even hard it's just they were gated by the CoP Missions.