Did Yoshida went a bit too far by cloning WoW?

[Temjiu]

I don't think the issue is just "WoW". And Yoshi didn't make his teams play WoW so they could copy WoW. He made them Play WoW because WoW took allot of the things that an MMO needed to hit success, and capitalized on them. Specifically base mechanics, and design intent. MMO's developed the way they are due to the overall player base. WoW simply streamlined allot of these things, and put them in a package that your average person could get into.

I remember back in early Vanilla days in WoW, it was funny to see all the comments and articles about how "normal" many of the people who played WoW were. This should tell you something about the MMO market as it was then...and as it is now. MMO players tend to me more mainstream now then they were back then, and allot of it has to do with the changing market, technologies, and player base. Not to mention timing....like putting into the market right before a huge growth spurt. it isn't that WoW did this stuff the best...but they had the smoothest and most well rounded package with these things in it. Yoshi simply understood this concept, which is honestly WHAT SAVED THIS GAME.

FFXIV is now currently one of only a few MMO's that can actually keep a sub model. That should tell you something about the direction they took the game. I have my issues still...lots of clunky systems still exist, but I can't say they did wrong with the game.

On the flip side...this is the first FF that I've had an interest in playing...so i could be biased. But I've been playing MMO's solely for long enough that I know what works and what doesn't.