Why do you Play Final Fantasy XIV? What attracted you?

[Davorok]

Just curious what about XIV attracted you to it:

Was it the Armoury/Class system?
Was it the Animation, Graphics?
Was it the Storyline and/or Characters?
Was it that Crafting is a bona-fide Class?
Was it the idea that it wouldn't be a "grind-fest"?
Was it that it is Free to Play (for now)?
Was it the recommendation of a friend?
Was it the SquareEnix name?
Was it that you just love Role-Playing-Games because your Real-Life sux? (my reason)
Was it that you heard about the Forums and this is your chance to finally be recognized for your brilliant ideas and are gonna help create the most awesome game ever?
Was it that you are a Troll, just like to argue and get under people's skin?
Was it onsale for $9.99 at GameStop and you thought, "What the heck"?
Was it because you loved FFXI and hoped this would be better?
Was it because you hated FFXI and hoped this would be better?

What was it that 1st attracted you and is that attraction still there, enhanced or lost?

[TonyMontana]

At this point I play it because i have a few more classes to hit 50 on and its free to play. As of 1.19 or 1.20 I may have other reasons to play but for now thats the reasons.

[Fira_Bug]

Imma go with all of those reason. But mainly I was tired of XI. I wanted a new world, not a new expansion. Either way I'm still happy with the game. The improvements are getting better and better.

[yukaru]

my sis and I Play because we love ff games... we played ffxi for several years..... I liked the graphics and character design. we played ffxi for like three years... and really loved it... then after awhile we played wow... for like a year.... I liked it's vast world......but didn't like alot of other stuff.... I like the changes so far that ffxiv has done.... I'm a sort of play everyday casual player so my sis and I don't lvl fast of course there are things I can't wait for.... and we'll keep playing even when it goes pay to play..... I hope there is more storyline.... and maybe even more quests.... can't wait to see what will happen.

ps... and can't wait for choco... ^ ^

[Mikita]

As a complete newbie to games, but who is now addicted to FFXIV:

- The trailer I stumbled upon on Youtube looked amazing and piqued my interest initially.

What keeps me here:

- The friends I've made: I know it may sound weird, but there are really good people I genuinely care about now, and I look forward to meeting them in Eorzea every evening.

- The Armoury/Class system: I really like the freedom of being able to play any way I like and dabble in different classes. I recently gave Tera a brief try, but can't imagine being limited to just one class all the time.

- Animation and Graphics: I'm still amazed by the visuals, even close to 1 year later. I actually like the scenery and don't mind running around Eorzea instead of teleporting.

- Crafting: The grinding isn't so fun, but being able to make things and give them to friends is one of the things I enjoy most.

[Xatsh]

Things that attracted me to it.

-Abysea screwed up XI really bad (no where to go back to)
-Square.. Same basic dev team as XI so in time no reason to expect it not to live up to what XI was in time.
-Graphics (nothing out there comes close atm)
-Final Fantasy... to me still the best RPG series ever developed
-It is not a Solo quest based grind mmo ... I really really hate those (biggest one for me, sick of WoW style mainstream mmos)
-No need for alts... another big one for me.. I hate the 1 job 1 character system
-Focus on Partying (Faster Leveling, endgame ect... with the option to solo for less progression when I do not have time)

Reason I am still playing it.

Basically the same reason above.

-ToR, Terra, GW2, RIFT are all solo grinds with group raids (WoW style... blah to that)
-The graphics/animations on 2 of those 4 above is subpar
-I hate starwars so that is not helping me want to play ToR
-XIV is going in the right direction as long as they add content for both groups.
-Atm I do not see any mmos on the horizon that will be better then what this game will be when it is done.

[DoctorMog]

Was hoping for a FFXI "feel" but with a brand new game.

[Phenidate]

I bought the game and played through open beta, early access, and launch plus about 5 months after. Left, came back randomly to see what changed. Returned and been playing constantly since 2 weeks prior to 1.18. I'd remade and changed servers about 4 times in all this before I stuck to Figaro. I got the CE at original price.

I was originally attracted to the game for a number of reasons:
FFXI nostalgia
Promise of a more active combat system (was looking for something similar to CoV, CO or what GW2 is promising. There is a video of a Hyur fighting Dodos around La Noscea that made it look this way. TOTALLY didn't get that...),
More involved combat
The Promise of more interesting non-combat content (crafting, exploration, treasure hunting, parley...)

By involved combat, I'm referring to a variety of things here. Positioning was supposed to be important, there was supposed to be more group v. enemy group combat, more cooperative maneuvers, and each class was meant to fulfill a distinct role in combat...

There are some vestiges of 'what could have been' depending on how you look at it,
If you attack from anything other than the front the game mentions it,
Incapacitates promise the parts breaking mechanic I enjoyed in Monster Hunter, though most monsters die to fast right now so incapacitates are very hard to do on anything but NMs. More visual feedback on how incapacitates are affecting the monster would be nice (chunks of shell missing from a crabs back, noticeable limp/slowed movement with incapacitated legs, flying monsters struggling to stay airborne or being grounded with broken wings etc., the way Wight's lose their head is awesome)
Many cinematics show protect (or maybe it's barrier?) being a very positional and vital defense move for mages. Most spells in game though are extremely direct, or are just shallow buffs (almost none of the spells in game alter the course of a fight like the barrier spell would)
There are charts advising each class stand a particular distance and position in a fight, i.e. lancers flanking and a ways off to better use polearms, pugilists attacking from behind to exploit an enemies blind spot, gladiators standing in front to better distract an enemy.
Battle Regimens, which offered a way to debuff or buff and do extra damage.

My guess is alot of these mechanics that were being shown or talked about by the devs leading up to game launch were lost somewhere in the 4 years.

My main turn offs with this game,
How plain combat is,
How mindless most of the game play ends up being, rewarding mashing one button over and over again about as much as it does making different choices. i.e. Standard spam is what rapid spam used to be but slower. No real thought needs to go into crafting.
General lack of dynamic content in the game. Its a dead world with not to much that's exciting about it's execution.
Most of what the game does is done better in so many other MMOs in the past few years.
Far far far to much UI lag. It's gotten better, but its still sluggish compared to any other AAA MMO's UI. Mix in how convoluted many of the menus end up being, and it becomes down right punishing.
Consolized UI. If a game is going to be put on the PC, it needs to be accessible to PC players. This is more a trend in the game industry in general, personally I find it to be downright insulting how many developers pull this kind of crap.

I'm still around because of what 1.18 did and Yoshida's plan to gradually stamp out Tanaka's legacy of incompetent leadership and direction. My comment links to the interview me that gave me hope that all the things I hate about this game will go away given time. Yoshida keeps posting about his plans and every day the direction this game is going gets better. All that's missing are the actual patches.

[Jim]

Main reason, cause I'm having a good time.

1. It's an ff game
2. Free to play
3. Graphics
4. Too much free time so I wanted a new mmo
5. Being able to play multiple jobs

[Cyan]

Just curious what about XIV attracted you to it:

Was it the Armoury/Class system?Was it the Animation, Graphics?
Was it the Storyline and/or Characters?Was it that Crafting is a bona-fide Class?
Was it the idea that it wouldn't be a "grind-fest"?
Was it that it is Free to Play (for now)?
Was it the recommendation of a friend?
Was it the SquareEnix name?
Was it that you just love Role-Playing-Games because your Real-Life sux? (my reason)
Was it that you heard about the Forums and this is your chance to finally be recognized for your brilliant ideas and are gonna help create the most awesome game ever?
Was it that you are a Troll, just like to argue and get under people's skin?
Was it onsale for $9.99 at GameStop and you thought, "What the heck"?
Was it because you loved FFXI and hoped this would be better?
Was it because you hated FFXI and hoped this would be better?

What was it that 1st attracted you and is that attraction still there, enhanced or lost?

For the bolded. Oh, that and Abyssea. I know it probably breathed new life into FFXI, but it kinda ruined for me. I guess I'm just part of that little handful though. I still think about going back, but I find it hard to justify buying 30 dollars of mini expansions when I know that I probably won't play it much. Le sigh.