FFXIV better stop doing what WoW's doing, because its losing millions of subs.

[Nadirah]

I think a lot of them left because of arrogance of devs. They removed things ppl enjoyed and made comments that ppl don't know how to have fun and only our way is allowed.

That's pretty much why I left.

"We know what's fun, you don't, shut up, pleb."

[Qfox]

one of big things make me always come back to ffxiv and leave wow .. is 1 character have all jobs. you think you want to do some quests again for exp but in reality they will be painful and taking really longtime. and Botters .. dont get me started .. they make me not want to join battlegrounds nor dungeons because there is a lot of them there.

[Cakekizy]

WoW was way ahead of its time. It had it's problems at launch but I don't think there was anything like it.

-SEAMLESS Open world (even this game isn't!)
-Could run on all types of PCs
-Had story built up already from Warcraft 3
-Entertaining Horde vs Alliance two faction conflict
-Unique and varied classes
-Intuitive UI. Compare it(first image) to Everquest(below)

I think EQ had a much better UI by time WoW launched, not to mention lots of customization for said UI.

[DreadRabbit]

the thing that kills wow is raid or die. if you don't do current raid content you might as well not play at all. fortunately for me that's what i'm doing therefore i'm still playing.

I completely missed that point, but this point right here is also why I found WoW boring.

People keep saying that they dumbed WoW down too much for casuals. I never played Vanilla so I can't comment on that. However, even if dumbed down the only "interesting" content is raids. And if you don't like raiding (I don't find WoW raids interesting in the least...it's more a zerg fest than here it feels) there is literally nothing else to do. And if the people they made things easier for don't even like raiding, you then literally ruined the one thing WoW was supposedly built around because it's too easy for hardcore raiders and still not even remotely interesting for those who don't raid.

You don't actively do Garrisons or the other timed events. You just pick which ones to initiate and then you wait for a timer to run out. That's it.

[Aeyis]

I think a lot of them left because of arrogance of devs. They removed things ppl enjoyed and made comments that ppl don't know how to have fun and only our way is allowed.

That..sounds familiar.

Funny, that didn't even come up in the list of reasons the friends of mine who left WoW for FFXIV gave.

What I've heard was:
- the story/lore is an utter mess and relies too much on things like tie-in novels
- the pace and amount of content updates is incredibly inconsistent (they had one update that was nothing but Twitter integration and a selfie cam)
- getting groups for raid could be a nightmare
- the terrain was terrible to navigate and they took away flying to make it even worse
- they hated the direction the story took after Mists of Pandaria
- the game stopped feeling like Warcraft a long time ago

Gating and caps didn't even come up in the conversation.

Sounds like you friend barely even played the game if he/she gave those reasons lol! The only true reason out of these is the ''stopped feeling like Warcraft''
Gating and caps, or as they liked to call them there ''the infernal dailies'' were a big issue for many.

Altho the OP is incorrect that it's a recent thing. People just finally decided to give up (again) on playing that game.

There arenew player post on reddit almost daily that left Wow for ff14 and not one of them have stated that gated content was their last straw.

Based on reddit responses a lot of ppl like some gear gated content b/c it gives people something to reach for. And ummm wasn't the tome cap here since 2.0?

Obviously. Someone that left wow because of issues with gating wouldnt leave it for FFXIV.

Hopefully FFXIV won't make the same mistake of sacrificing fun and engaging gameplay for the sake of accessibility.

I'm sorry but those changes have already been happening since 1.x

[MistyMew]

That's pretty much why I left.

"We know what's fun, you don't, shut up, pleb."

so so true!

Agree with this and many other comments made in this thread...as you can see from my sig...my wow sub is currently on hold. I found the dev. attitude horrid towards their playerbase, unacceptable tbh, bad enough to stop my subscription after 10 yrs.

But many others here have also hit on reasons that are definately partly to blame for loss of subs.

Im sure there are numerous reasons why ppl leave this game as well, it can never be blamed on one thing and one thing alone.

[Olil]

I think all will work out in the end. #optimisticfan

[Apeachs]

They should also get rid of the stupid Ps3 client that keep holding back the game so much... people wants features but cannot add because the ps3 client have very low resources.

[kaptainpancake69]

WoW is a great game. Everyone I knew who played it, quit, but not because it isn't good. It is good. They just want something different and fresh.

[Leshpar]

The reason WoW is losing subs has to do with the fact that the game isn't as fun as it used to be. Garrisons are horrible. Raiding is as fun as ever. Professions have been gutted and don't even feel like professions anymore. Basically if you don't raid there is NOTHING to do in WoW. The same is not true in FF14. This is why FF14 is better. Gating content has absolutely nothing to do with loss of subs.