Will SE pull a blizzard?

[Nezerius]

No, it was roughly 8 months between raids, and regardless of what you think people can handle there was still a rather large population drop. It would be against SE's best interests to repeat the same thing twice.

2.5: January 20
3.0: June 19
There was a 5 month gap between these patches, not an 8 month gap. Add another 2.5 weeks to it if you want to exact time between World of Darkness and Gordias (Normal)

This is hardly Blizzard-levels of 12-14 months between last patch and next expansion.

[Ryel]

There was a 5 month gap between these patches, not an 8 month gap.

it was roughly 8 months between raids

FCoB was released in 2.4 which means from 2.4-3.0 it was roughly 8 months between raid content since my initial post mentioned content of the highest levels.

Seeing as most other content only lasts a few weeks at best when you're already at the cap.

[MerleSirlos]

FCoB was released in 2.4 which means from 2.4-3.0 it was roughly 8 months between raid content since my initial post mentioned content of the highest levels.

Seeing as most other content only lasts a few weeks at best when you're already at the cap.

If I remember correctly, the gap between first coil and second coil and the gap between second coil and final coil was roughly 6 months.(feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) 2 extra months for an expension doesn't seem so long putting it that way.

[Nezerius]

FCoB was released in 2.4 which means from 2.4-3.0 it was roughly 8 months between raid content since my initial post mentioned content of the highest levels.

Seeing as most other content only lasts a few weeks at best when you're already at the cap.

As much as high end raiders seem to deny it, the 24-man alliance raids are still considered raid content, and World of Darkness just happens to be one of them.
Though, I can already assume that you'll reply with "WoD wasn't a raid" so I'm not sure why I'm even bothering.

Sorry, but it's still a 5 month gap.

EDIT: To add to the poster above, you'd also have to take into account that Heavensward was hit with an unexpected 1 month delay.
If it hadn't, that'd have made the months between Coil content almost roughly the same as the time between SCoB and FCoB.

[FoxyAreku]

I mean blizzard goes 12 to 18 months without so much as an update at times, I don't think this game will ever get that bad.

[Ryel]

As much as high end raiders seem to deny it, the 24-man alliance raids are still considered raid content, and World of Darkness just happens to be one of them.
Though, I can already assume that you'll reply with "WoD wasn't a raid" so I'm not sure why I'm even bothering.

Sorry, but it's still a 5 month gap.

While 24 man raids may be named as such in their classification, they do not fulfill the same role in the content hierarchy as the 8 man raids do. Sure they may be called "raid content" but their ilvl rewards and difficulty do not provide progression on the content ladder which is what remained stagnant up until the expansion release.

If I remember correctly, the gap between first coil and second coil and the gap between second coil and final coil was roughly 6 months.(feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) 2 extra months for an expension doesn't seem so long putting it that way.

To many players the fact that raids are released every 6 months but are usually cleared in less than a quarter of the time is already seen as an issue, catch up patches and 24 man content does very little to entice players who are already at the higher ends of the game as by that point many of them are gearing alternate classes through the same raid that they did for their primary.

An extra 2 months for a playerbase that has been bored for 3 is still a long time.

EDIT: To add to the poster above, you'd also have to take into account that Heavensward was hit with an unexpected 1 month delay.
If it hadn't, that'd have made the months between Coil content almost roughly the same as the time between SCoB and FCoB.

I did take this into account and if we go further and account for the delay to 3.1 as well as diadem's quick content decay this means that from 2.4-3.2 we saw what was effectively two 8-man raid releases in well over a 14 month period, something that sounds suspiciously close to the same issue players had raised with Blizzard.

[Nezerius]

While 24 man raids may be named as such in their classification, they do not fulfill the same role in the content hierarchy as the 8 man raids do. Sure they may be called "raid content" but their ilvl rewards and difficulty do not provide progression on the content ladder which is what remained stagnant up until the expansion release.

To many players the fact that raids are released every 6 months but are usually cleared in less than a quarter of the time is already seen as an issue, catch up patches and 24 man content does very little to entice players who are already at the higher ends of the game as by that point many of them are gearing alternate classes through the same raid that they did for their primary.

An extra 2 months for a playerbase that has been bored for 3 is still a long time.

It could be argued that the 24-man raids help raiders with a few extra pieces of gear to further progress in the current 8-man raid, since it's the minority that clears the 8-man raid in less than a quarter of it's lifespan.
That said, high end raiders are a small minority to begin with, so that part getting bored doesn't necessarily mean that half the playerbase will drop the game.

I did take this into account and if we go further and account for the delay to 3.1 as well as diadem's quick content decay this means that from 2.4-3.2 we saw what was effectively two 8-man raid releases in well over a 14 month period, something that sounds suspiciously close to the same issue players had raised with Blizzard.

Perhaps raidwise, but unlike Blizzard, SE doesn't completely focus on hardcore raid content tailored towards a small minority, and has released other content in that 14 month timeframe of yours.

[Ryel]

It could be argued that the 24-man raids help raiders with a few extra pieces of gear to further progress in the current 8-man raid, since it's the minority that clears the 8-man raid in less than a quarter of it's lifespan.
That said, high end raiders are a small minority to begin with, so that part getting bored doesn't necessarily mean that half the playerbase will drop the game.

It's not my intention to turn this into a doom and gloom thread so I'll try to keep this part short.

There's a major flaw in trying to compare subscription losses between WoW and FFXIV, while XIV certainly isnt going to drop half it's player-base over a patch or two it also did not have the nearly 10 year period of growth and success that WoW has had.

As much as many players loved WoW over the years the reality is that they very well can afford to lose massive numbers of players over the course of time (though as a business blizzard certainly doesn't want to) as by MMO standards the game is getting on in years and Blizzard is working on other projects.

Every unofficial census that has been posted to these forums has shown a significant drop-off in player numbers with each consecutive patch delay or period of downtime (the last being around 3.1 if i recall), additionally the current endgame scene is no where near as active as it was during the ARR period and less players are returning after unsubscribing each patch.

However you will never see the same sort of subscription dropoff in XIV as WoW no matter how long the content dries up between patches if for no other reason than the fact that FFXIV's numbers have yet to reach WoW's in it's prime so it's not an apt comparison to make.

Perhaps raidwise, but unlike Blizzard, SE doesn't completely focus on hardcore raid content tailored towards a small minority, and has released other content in that 14 month time frame of yours.

The issue is not the release of content itself but content with enough staying power, there's a 31 page debate on this very topic on the front page of this sub-forum if you haven't taken a look at it i suggest you give it a read as it's far from the first one posted.

[Laerune]

Personaly, I dont mind the 4 months downtime that got like with 2.55, I used that time to level all my classes and go on a hiatus to enjoy other games. I came back a week before the expansion was released, with a fresh mindset.

[TankHunter678]

There's a major flaw in trying to compare subscription losses between WoW and FFXIV, while XIV certainly isnt going to drop half it's player-base over a patch or two it also did not have the nearly 10 year period of growth and success that WoW has had.

As much as many players loved WoW over the years the reality is that they very well can afford to lose massive numbers of players over the course of time (though as a business blizzard certainly doesn't want to) as by MMO standards the game is getting on in years and Blizzard is working on other projects.

Blizzard did not lose subscribers because it is 10 years old. The reason that Blizzard is losing subscribers, losing 5 million subscribers in only 3 months into Warlords of Draenor and driving blizzard to release a game time token you can buy from other players for gold to stabilize the bleeding, was a massive drop in the quality of the content they put out and the long droughts between content releases. After making the game raid or die and swinging between extremes with knee jerk reactionary expansions. As well as a shift towards trying to shove out an expansion every year, which leads to them heavily cutting promised content from the expansion to get it out faster, in addition to them heavily simplifying the game because they sell character boosts with every expansion.

In WoW either you raid... or you wait till the next expac for more dungeon/world content. Which is going to be 14-18 months away.

Despite the fact that Blizzards WoW team is considerably larger then SE's FFXIV team it takes them considerably longer to make content.