With WoD in a month, what do you feel will happen in to FF14's population?

[Noshpan]

We honestly won't know how the launch of Warlords of Draenor* will affect FFXIV until that time.

For me, for the first time in 7 years, I'm not interested all that much in WoW. I'm not excited for it at all, and am considering not getting the expansion (and resubscribing) at launch. I may wait until the expansion's price drops from $60 to $20-40, though. It's not the game itself but the community that has killed all of my enjoyment in WoW. Well, that and only having one friend who still plays WoW.

*I can't call Warlods of Draenor "WoD" because that abbreviation makes me think "World of Darkness", which is a table-top RPG using the storyteller system. Published by White Wolf from the early 1990s until it was purchased (and gradually gutted) by CCP. Now the majority of White Wolf's gaming repertoire is printed by Onyx Publishing, which consists of a fair amount of former White Wolf employees.

[HakuroDK]

I think anyone who hasn't already gone back to WoW by now will probably go back to WoW, realize why they don't play WoW anymore, then come back to FFXIV.

It'll hurt FFXIV about as badly as a papercut, and just like a papercut, it'll heal with a little bit of time.

[Tupsi]

I think anyone who hasn't already gone back to WoW by now will probably go back to WoW, realize why they don't play WoW anymore, then come back to FFXIV.

Which is Odd when yoshida designed XIV after WoW and didn't even do that good of a job in some areas that WoW still does far better. One of the main things going for XIV is that it's better than 1.0 (2010's launch.) ARR is still a 'new' MMO, but recent updates lots of people have been leaving, the game won't crash and burn just like XI didn't when WoW released in 2004, but a good portion of the population has to do with WoW having no updates during, coincidentally, the same year ARR came out.

[Marael]

Do you think that the population of FF14 will decrease not just for a short time but for a extended period of time after WoD release?

Wtf is WoD?

[Cid_Grim]

I am not a fan of WoW, so I will not be playing it, but I'm sure there are many people who will.

They will probably check out the new stuff and come back to FFXIV when there is new stuff here. My FC was a ghost town after destiny released. People just want to play new stuff. Doesn't mean it will destroy FFXIV or anything.

[ZReport]

There's no doubt people will leave to go play WoW & WoD. That's just the very fickle nature of MMO gamers -- they play whatever is new or becomes a fad within the genre. This same fickle nature doesn't keep the players around if they immediately find content stale or follow game reviewers, who hold a decent sway on the masses. It's essentially why LoTRO, SWOTR, Aion, Rift, Wildstar, & GW2 all started off very strong and then plateaued over time, with some games actually losing a great deal of subscribers. FFXIV: ARR will also plateau with subs, but it won't fall into the same trap as LoTRO, SWOTOR or Wildstar because it is an ever changing game and the devs have made it their mission to jampack the game with content every month, bringing fickle players back. The game now has a set amount of devout followers who will never play another MMO as long as content keeps coming regardless.

FFXIV: ARR will be fine and in fact Yoshi-P encourages that people play other games [MMOs] and then come back to a wealth of content after a couple of months. FFXIV: ARR <=> WoD <=> FFXIV Expansion will be no different.

I will likely play both myself.

Wtf is WoD?

Warlords of Draenor, a World of Warcraft expansion.

[HakuroDK]

Which is Odd when yoshida designed XIV after WoW and didn't even do that good of a job in some areas that WoW still does far better. One of the main things going for XIV is that it's better than 1.0 (2010's launch.) ARR is still a 'new' MMO, but recent updates lots of people have been leaving, the game won't crash and burn just like XI didn't when WoW released in 2004, but a good portion of the population has to do with WoW having no updates during, coincidentally, the same year ARR came out.

That sounds like an obnoxious amount of speculation and conjecture.

WoW is a very old and very tired MMO that has been suffering from playerbase losses since, AFAIK, Cataclysm. Mists of Pandaria did nothing to help with that other than pander to new and returning players that couldn't be retained and this new expansion will likely be much the same.

For the record, Yoshida borrowed a lot of elements from a lot of MMOs. Most of which were admittedly features in WoW, which oddly enough, were also features that were taken from Everquest, and that conversation ends up just turning into a huge "Who is copying whom?" debate that solves absolutely nothing because ultimately, 90% of features that people claim WoW did first were actually features Everquest did before WoW was even a thing, and the other 10% were features taken from other MMOs that came out after WoW that WoW adopted.

The fact of the matter is this: People who played this game and preferred WoW to this have either migrated back to WoW already or they have too much invested in FFXIV to quit for some reason. Anyone who goes back to WoW now will probably just come back once the new Expansion Pack smell wears off, because those are the people who just want to see if their issues with WoW are gone and they will very likely be disappointed to see that it's exactly the same game with just a little bit more content.

[Zaiken]

WoD won't put any dent in any game. Wow was peak at 12mils subribers, but that number have been dropping rapidly. Down to 7 mils, now less then 6 mils. Sure, people may check it out for a Month and two, then just realized it just another expansion with more Raids and area to explored. Upgrading Character Model won't save the game. Wow died a long time ago already. Right now, there tons of Bots and China players left.

And you got to be kidding if you think WoD Graphic will be comparable to FFXIV. They only add more polygon to the Characters model, their Graphic Engine is so old that they can't do much with it while FFXIV can do much more.

[Tupsi]

That sounds like an obnoxious amount of speculation and conjecture.

Go back to interviews and even browse the 1.0 forums around ARR's development (since beta forums are inaccessible) - You'll see pretty quickly Yoshida wasn't exactly secretive about using WoW as the base model for ARR like they used EQ for the base model of FFXI.

For the record, Yoshida borrowed a lot of elements from a lot of MMOs.

Indeed, but he kept reiterating he feels WoW is the standard and wants to build ARR like that. That's why I said WoW still does it better since ARR is still having some issues in the 'borrowed' areas. So it's not that it's the only MMO they borrowed from, it's the fact he wasn't hiding that WoW is basically ARR's "role model." Which is why I said it'd be odd to go to play the MMO they based ARR around, dislike the more efficiently designed features, then come back and enjoy the more broken versions of the same systems.

[Lufir]

Its pretty common for subs to take a hit once a new MMO comes out. Especially a WoW expansion, since it is without a doubt the top MMO out there. I personally quit WoW around the mid to early-end of Mists of Pandaria. So, I most likely will not be going back. Although what does concern me about ARR is that its been up and running for a year now, and it feels like the content is already getting stale.