is this game near the end of it's life?

[Faytte]

At it's end? Definitely not.

Has it hit it's peak already? Probably.

This. What is sad is, this game could have been far greater. Art Style, Design, lots of it was great.
But the things that held it back--chiefly game design and phantom ps3 limitations, REALLY held it back...

[Judge_Xero]

This. What is sad is, this game could have been far greater. Art Style, Design, lots of it was great.
But the things that held it back--chiefly game design and phantom ps3 limitations, REALLY held it back...

Well, luckily this game has a lot of room and resources to grow.

Look at FFXIV 1.0 -> It was pretty Innovative as far as what it was initially trying to accomplish as an MMO. It was mostly just lacking content and was limited by the Core Engine the game was run on, but the character development was there and the whole crafting and player economy had such a large presence overall, it gave the impression of a real living world - Especially when you physically had to sell your goods because there was no market board or retainer system. (People were really attached to their Character, and as such spent a lot of time just being logged in, essentially happy to do nothing.)

I think that 1.0 was basically built in the reverse order of how a normal MMO is made, or essentially how a Sand Box MMO would be made, where a lot of content is Player made, 1.0 just didn't have any utilities for any player made content outside of the Armory System since nearly everything in the game had to be made, levelling parties and exploring the worlds as groups (because you had to, there was ridiculously strong mobs in random places)

With FFXIV 2.0 they have built a strong foundation and world for players first, with a lot of initial content and purpose. This gives them the headroom to do innovative content. Why do you need headroom in order to give players new and innovative content you ask? In as few of words as I can describe it in.... 1.0.

I don't doubt in the Dev Teams ability to amaze and innovate, as there has been plenty of it so far. I'm luckily fairly new to MMO's so I'm not all that difficult to please - "Been there done that" comes to mind.

I feel it's just a matter of how long they have determined they need to play it safe in order to withstand any potential failures in content. Look at the diversity in player base, and determine for yourself if a single change that you enjoy wont alienate even 20% of the players.