Why in god's green Earth do dungeons have a timer?

[chocomaid]

Please explain to me why a timer is necessary for FFXIV when it is not necessary by a longshot in any other MMO I've played (including some pretty heavy hitters). And incidentally, your derision towards roleplayers doesn't actually make you a better person. You're playing an MMORPG; there is no high horse here.

Servers. Different data. Experience.

1. Those other MMO's might not have the traffic/popularity as FFXIV, so they don't need a timer since there is plenty room in their server. Forecast probably shows that traffic won't change in the foreseeable future.
2. Those other MMO's HAD PLENTY OF TIME to adapt to the traffic. For example WoW, were you there at launch? And even a couple of years in, there were queues in the log-in screen. And timers weren't a problem then since the ease of "duty finder, dungeon finder" wasn't implemented yet. You had to make your groups and actually find then go to each and every instance you needed to go to. That will automatically reduce the load on their instances since people won't just be mashing the "queue up" button while waiting, they'll have to work for it and it probably discouraged a lot of people going to faraway places for example.
3. Their servers are set-up differently, every game does.

Well, they are harming certain people's enjoyment of the game and are a symptom of poor planning. Yes, they are real problems.

You described yourself as a RPer, nothing wrong with that. I just don't see how a session can last more than 90-120 mins, and if it does go over that, why not just re-do the instance? Will it inconvenience you somehow, maybe. But guess what, it applies to both RPers and players that run the dungeon normally. There are solutions to your (vast minority) problems, and the rest are happy they are there to mitigate long queues and apply balances.

[Naunet]

1. Those other MMO's might not have the traffic/popularity as FFXIV, so they don't need a timer since there is plenty room in their server. Forecast probably shows that traffic won't change in the foreseeable future.
2. Those other MMO's HAD PLENTY OF TIME to adapt to the traffic. For example WoW, were you there at launch? And even a couple of years in, there were queues in the log-in screen. And timers weren't a problem then since the ease of "duty finder, dungeon finder" wasn't implemented yet.

I would hope that SE is not repeating the same mistakes regarding server infrastructure that other MMOs made ten years ago (same goes for other aspects of game design). An industry is supposed to learn and grow. We should not have to retread the same learning period every single time a new MMO releases. (WoW, incidentally, does not have dungeon timers, and the only times I have ever received the "instance servers full" message were during the release of ToC following Ulduar, at the peak of the game's popularity, and a couple times in Cata with the release of a new dungeon. This message disappeared pretty much after a day or two each time.)

@Tiggy below me: Nothing is stopping you from leaving a group if you decide it's too bad to continue. You are never trapped in a dungeon, with or without a timer.

I'm a little misinformed here. Can you direct me to any source stating that games have had severe issues with dungeon timers that it was immensely game breaking?

A problem does not have to be "game breaking" to be a problem. What ever happened to consumers demanding improvements of the products they purchase? We should not allow MMOs the luxury of re-inventing the wheel every time a new one releases. Hundreds of MMOs have come before FFXIV; that's hundreds of opportunities to learn better system design.

[illuminapanic]

Cut

I'm a little misinformed here. Can you direct me to any source stating that games have had severe issues with dungeon timers that it was immensely game breaking?