Quote Originally Posted by Zantitrach View Post
Isn't WoW much more successful than XI?
By at least an order of magnitude.

Obviously it's not fair to attribute all of that to things like horizontal gear progression vs vertical gear progression. FFXI was barely (if at all) marketed in the West, compared to the marketing of WoW which has been almost suffocating at times. FFXI was essentially impossible to progress in solo, compared to WoW where you've always been able to go all the way to the level cap without ever interacting with another person if you choose. FFXI was very slow progress even when you were interacting with other people, and that progress was 95%+ though grinding away levels on the same mobs for hours at a time.

But it's also not difficult to see why a vertical progression model attracts players better than a horizontal progression model (which appeals to a much more niche population). I don't think it's much of a leap to say that most players of RPGs want to see their character get markedly stronger over time, and to find that the things that used to be challenging, as they increase in strength, become easier and easier until they're eventually trivial.

It's certainly possible that FFXIV lets us get too much stronger too fast, but if they slow it down it greatly restricts what they can do with new content. It's a tough balance to strike.