I sure hope HW is not going to be more armor grind treadmill!

[Jasmine_Aurelia]

Sapphic, thanks for saying everything for me.

[Gilthas]

...What's the point of making an MMORPG, a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER online role-playing game, solo-able?
Why not just play a single-player game if you want to play by yourself?

Just because a game has "multiplayer" in its name doesn't mean that everything in it needs to require a group. That sucks.

[Amocoru]

This is what has me worried the most about the future of the game. If we're just going to raise the level cap and make the previous gear useless then it's not going to have the same staying power. If you look at FFXI you had content from every expansion you were still doing well into the late years of the game. It didn't "feel" as old because you were doing something different every day/week. That's what I want for the future of FFXIV as well.

[dustbunny]

Am I the only one that thinks is strange that people seem to want MMO's to be chat rooms first and games second?

Nope. I really enjoy playing with other people, and I do like talking to them as well, but when I log on, I want to play, not stand around and chat.

[Shuon]

...What's the point of making an MMORPG, a MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER online role-playing game, solo-able?
Why not just play a single-player game if you want to play by yourself?

because mmo as a genre has changed. In its early days it was designed to emulate an alternate reality and immersion being its utmost priority where everything needed to be as real as possible (waiting for boat, waiting for airships, travelling, danger of entering caves alone etc).

Then because wow, gw, eq etc got so popular and everyone wanted to experience it (esp wow because Warcraft had such a huge fan base that wanted to follow the stories of arthas), the genre is now more 'game' than an alternate reality. And if it is a game it needs to allow people to play.

I lovee ffxi and it was one of my best gaming experience but I won't ever play it again because of how time consuming it was to just to start 'playing'.

[Asmodaeus]

I guess this is a topic where you can argue for years. People have different opinions and sadly the "I want it all, I want it now!" is much more present then what I and a few others think about it.


This is the last thing I will contribute to this discussion because its just the way I feel about it. There is nothing else left to say for me.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news...-the-MMO-Genre

[Amelia_Pond_Behemoth]

I started FF11 with the PS2 launch. But because of school and work, I couldn't put in as much time as everyone else. I wasn't 75 on my first job until after WotG. Because of this, it was much harder to find CoP groups, NI runs, and Salvage. The only endgame I was able to regularly do was Dynamis.

There were times I'd spend hours in Jeuno just hoping to get a party invite. Leveling MNK was done almost completely solo with Field Manuals. It was horrible. At least with FF14 if I hit the DF button, I can be certain of a group, even if I have to wait a little for it to happen.

I look forward to when FF14 has an extensive amount of content, and look forward to many more expansion packs. I hope the game gets packed with many endgame options. Please find a way to keep ARR content relevant.

[GenJoe]

So you'd rather SE release all the best gear in 3.0 and we just use the same gear until the next expansion?

That'll have even more people quitting due to running out of things to do.. Gear treadmill is what keeps people playing MMOs.

Am I the only one that thinks is strange that people seem to want MMO's to be chat rooms first and games second?

Hell at this point, that's pretty much what FF14 is to me, a giant chat client.. Because I've run out of things to do, just waiting for HW at this point.
But I do realize that using the game as a chat client comes as an eventual decline of interest, it's not and shan't ever be a primary feature of any MMO.. Although, this game does have quite a few of those people.

[Gramul]

Sorry you're unable to accept the validity of my statement.

MMOs being bad is only a minor impediment to people enjoying those games. When the enjoyment of an MMO comes because of the players and in spite of the game, the game is bad. The players can be amazing and cool and people you want to spend the next five years playing games with and how you derive all of your enjoyment from the game.

That doesn't make the game good.

Indeed? Well let's see your proof then Mr. Wright.

[Instrumentality]

Indeed? Well let's see your proof then Mr. Wright.

One of EQ's producer and one of its lead designers was Brad McQuaid in its defining years.

QED.