Can we end this?

[Tigercub]

It's hard to take you seriously when you imply FFXI, a highly successful MMO with solid subscription numbers, was niche.
Maybe compared to WoW. Speaking of which, this game will never be the next WoW. It missed that boat a long time ago, and to be honest, I doubt the FF name even has what it takes to draw in the kind of subs that WoW has. WoW is an accident; it achieved some kind of critical mass, it sparked an unexpected social phenomenon and there's no way to replicate that. It is the facebook of MMOs.

It's time to come down to reality. A lot of the creative ideas in FFXIV failed and now have to be replaced with ideas which we know work just to make people reconsider playing. FFXI is a good example of what works and what doesn't and is closer to FFXIV mechanically than other MMOs like WoW and LotRO. This doesn't mean FFXI-2, it just means fixing the stuff that sucks by using working ideas from FFXI (which usually aren't even exclusively FFXI's ideas), not replacing the heart of the game.

I browse these forums fairly regularly and haven't seen any threads about turning this game into FFXI-2.