How Cataclysm killed WoW is how Heavensward will kill FFXIV.

[Arkenne]

It wouldn't be a normal day in any game forum without a "Game is dying!!!!" thread on the front page. xD

Life would be meaningless otherwise, right?

[Velhart]

It is the same thing for every MMO.

Patch gets released, people are happy. Months later when near the next patch, people go on the fritz and think the game is dying.

[Stanelis]

Yes but the 'average' player is only concerned with easy or hard. If things are too difficult most people will just give up and quit. When I first started playing mmos people didn't quit after wiping once or twice or even three times. They stayed and worked harder to get it done. But nowdays people quit if a group wipes once. Those that prefer more challenging content are very, very few. If a company wants to make a large profit they need to appeal to a wider audience. Still, that's no excuse for being lazy with development.

No, the average player isn't merely concerned whether the game is easy or not. The average player is concerned whether the game is fun or not.

People don't want to wipe in modern MMO because it is plain unfun. Back in the old days of MMORPG (like 10 years ago), killing a boss was more an issue of finding a good strategy for your group and executing it. Nowadays it is more about micromanaging your character while avoiding whatever the boss throw at you ("coordinated rope jumping"). In the first game design, competent players and beginners can play in the same group, because overcoming content was more about talking with each other. In the later, it is simply not possible, as you can't go to your teamates place to micromanage their character better. A beginner in an advanced player group would be yelled at, and the experienced players would be frustrated.

That's why raiding is slowly dying since WOTLK. MMORPG implementing the later game design are simply frustrating.

[Obysuca]

I am trying to understand how 2.0 was fine but 3.0 is ending FFXIV... yeah I don't see what changed that is going to kill it.

The problem is that nothing changed. 2.0 was fine since SE said they'd be building the foundation then they'd give us actual content come the first expansion. It's 3.0 and it's just an exact rehash of 2.0 with different scenery. There's nothing "new". Alex is basically coil, but less. Void ark will be CT. Neverreap/Fractal are WP/AK.

That formula is stale and you can tell more and more people are realizing it by the amount of topics on that popping up daily. A lot of people are bored because SE didn't even bother to try to give us variety or any sort of new content. They just took 2.0, changed the scenery and called it a day. Something doesn't have to change to kill a mmo. Changing nothing can also kill it too.
And because I know someone's going to jump in here all "It's an expansion, not a rebuild of the whole game". We're not asking for a whole new game, just something new thrown into the mix. And no, it hasn't "always been this way", as someone else will say. Countless other mmos have actually added something new (without completely outdating everything else) when they released an expansion.

[StrejdaTom]

Snip

You have written this really well and I couldn't agree more.
I put high hopes into 3.1 which seems to show that they have learned from our feedback. Hope I am right.

[Obysuca]

You have written this really well and I couldn't agree more.
I put high hopes into 3.1 which seems to show that they have learned from our feedback. Hope I am right.

Same :/ I really hope the island exploration is something new and fun, rather than dull and dies in under a month (golden saucer lol). With 3.1 being pushed back and releasing around the same time as other big name games, I can see the population taking a pretty big hit if 3.1 is lackluster.

[Craiger]

A lot of the problems with this game comes down to the size of the developer team in the end... If they are going to satisfy the demand in the future, they need to be able to put out new types of content, without having to sacrifice other content while doing it.

To be able to develop the airship exploration, they had to sacrifice 1 new dungeon for example, which is totally worth it IMO, but still... they shouldn't have to do that.

Patches should come out every 3 months like they initially advertised, and not 4-4.5 months. I know they had a vacation after 3.0, which is fair, but we've never got a patch every 3 months before, and I don't expect it to happen for 3.2 either.

It's pretty obvious to me that they're heavily understaffed, and they are working extremely hard to try and make up for that.

SE needs to invest a little into this title and get some more developers. The MMO market is dead right now(by that I mean, Wow is falling off, all other MMOs are failing and there are no MMOs on the horizon) so they have every opportunity to grab a very large player base the coming future, IF they can just produce some more as well as new content.

[StrejdaTom]

X

This is only my asumption and feeling as I really don't see into Square Enix and have no idea about their finances, but I really think that they aren't actually making any big investments into FFXIV, which is in my opinion a huge mistake. Once the game has proven to be a success in my opinion they should have put lots of money into it (instead to FFXV which will never return the money put into it).

I repeat once more that it is only me personal feeling about it, I am not part of SE to see into that.

[Craiger]

This is only my asumption and feeling as I really don't see into Square Enix and have no idea about their finances, but I really think that they aren't actually making any big investments into FFXIV, which is in my opinion a huge mistake. Once the game has proven to be a success in my opinion they should have put lots of money into it (instead to FFXV which will never return the money put into it).

I repeat once more that it is only me personal feeling about it, I am not part of SE to see into that.

I view it the same way.

It would be one thing if Wow still was that powerhouse MMO, and new big AAA MMOs were coming out soon or something. Don't get me wrong, Wow has lots of players still, but the interest has declined a lot, and many would jump ship if they saw FFXIV having cool content.

If Wow still was grabbing all players, and MMOs like SWTOR, GW2 etc were coming out soon (I know they failed, but was hyped up), I could maybe understand SE not wanting to spend a lot of money on FFXIV, because MMOs are huge risks, and titles like that could easily grab all players, leaving SE with big losses.

That isn't the case though, and what could really compete with them? I can't even name any new MMOs coming the next 2 years....

[Nadirah]

I think more of the problem is, that everyone played a whole boatload when the game came off(some folks took a week off work for example) and ran out of stuff to do recently because they burnt through it too quick.

I know I wouldn't be done with it all now if I had my friend's 3 hours a day regardless of day schedule. There is no taking off work for him. 3 hours a day. Every day. That's it.

He's still not 60.