Why are you still playing?

[darkstarpoet1]

i still play only because i made a great group of friends in game and enjoy playing with them. i'll still be paying just to spend time with them because i enjoy that, but as far as "is this the game i had hoped it would be originally?" no.

i bought the game because the vision is what i have been wanting out of a mmo. i made some great friends over the last year and enjoy playing with them even though i like the game less than i did on release. i play mmo's to play with friends. if the game was released today i would have not even purchased the game, but will continue to play it because of the friends i have made.

[Bahn]

Because I still have faith that the game will become better in a few months time. Much like a mother who gives "tough love" to her child by rebuking them from time to time (but in a constructive manner), I stick around, because I can generally see the game going in a good direction, but it still needs the help of the community to keep them "in check" if they make mistakes that are detrimental to the good of the game.

tl;dr - I'm stubborn, and I refuse to see the game for what the naysayers call it, yet I also refuse to see the game as "perfect" according to what many defenders call it.

[Pyretta_Blaze]

I play because I have fun and there are things in the game I want to do that are not done yet. True, sometimes I log in and ask my LS if anything is going on and then log back out if there isn't.

The game still has problems, some that drive me crazy. I occasionally will /nerdrage about something or another. Some of the decisions made by the game designers make me scratch my head but nothing so bad that has broken the game for me.

[Zephyrin]

I still playing because is free ... till January.

[TonyMontana]

Yup thats 100% my point.

ARC
MRD
GLA
PUG
ARM
BSM
THM
CON
LTH
LNC
WVR

and im sure im mising something all where updated quite a bit. You completely ignored that (and the fact that lots of UI changes were made) just to bitch about CUL.

You sir are a troll.

Heaven forbid I want to play the class of my choosing and expect it to be fun and worthwhile sometime in the first 15 months(456 days) of retail release.

[Lakefingers]

Everyone one who complains about anything SE do is automatically labelled to hate the game and see no potential in it by a minority on these forums, upon which time they jump on them about any aspect of the game and automatically argue the opposite because every single thing SE does is fine and a step in the right direction.

[Rowyne]

So do i...right now i rarely can even go past play screen...i log in...stare that play screen a while and just close the launcher. I really lost all the will of playing after 1.20.

Right now i just check the forums in a hope of a miracle...after all it's a good time of year for one to happen! =P

Same goes for me.

For a while now, it's been the same routine. I log in, I look at my friend list (which 9/10 times all the names are greyed out), try to track down people who have requested pearls, look at my LS lists (which never have more than four active people in a LS at any given time), stand around in Ul'dah, people watch, look at the stars, listen to the music.

All of the above usually takes 15 minutes or less. And then I log out.

My desire to play has been steadily dwindling. People no longer group up to do leves, so party content has shifted to old-school grinding (sorry, left that behind when I quit FFXI, I had no intention of getting back to that again). Powerleveling is out of control. Bypassing low-mid level content altogether is encouraged in favor of what little endgame exists. And now with the melee combat changes where you no longer have any active non-TP dependent abilities, you stand around and do nothing for the first part of the fight but watch your character auto-attack while you build TP. My husband pretty much rage-quit over it and absolutely refuses to play.

I had been losing my will, but patch 1.20 was definitely the nail in the coffin, for me.

I'm glad for the improvements we've gotten over the months, but there are core issues that have irreparably broken this game. And I don't see them being fixed until 2.0.

So, short answer... why have I stuck around? My four years playing FFXI, my linkshell family, loyalty, the beauty of Eorzea, the music, the community, and the hopes this will someday become the game I call home. But am I still playing? No. And I won't be subscribing come January 6th. Until then, I will continue to post my feedback, as I've done since closed beta. But right now, I just can't overlook the game's glaring issues.

[Victor]

People who point out trolls are just as much of a troll themself. (Yes, this post is rather trollish too)

[Crunkjuice]

i enjoy the sheep feeding me i never go hungry playing this game.

[SupaCancerion]

I was playing this game for so long because I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan and I loved the idea of this game, and still love the idea for it, and think it has a lot of potential. However, I've quit playing on a regular basis for many reasons. I logged in for the first time in about a month and a half the other day to check out the 1.20 changes, and I do have to say that I like them, and the mechanics of the game are actually starting to make sense now, and things seem to have a purpose and reason to them. But to be honest the game is still a work in progress. Much of the game is still a grind, and unlike many people here I simply do not enjoy grinding at all. I play games for immersion and fun, not numbers, terms, and repetition, and while I appreciate the idea of working hard for awesome rewards, there's a fine line between that and masochism. Also I've really become quite disgusted at this game's community, at least here on the forums. The way people treat each other and talk to each other on this forum is horrible. You can hardly state your opinion without being personally attacked by someone or being called a troll. It's rediculous. I am a moral person that believes in respect and treating one another as you would want to be treated and thus I do not wish to take part in this community anymore because those things simply do not exist here. Also people simply take this game WAY too seriously, which gets in the way of me having fun with it. If I say anything critical in game or even joke around about game mechanics people get super defensive, it's rediculous. And I really don't think that people should get that mad when someone messes up an AoE or draws aggro on accident or doesn't know all the correct terms or basically isn't turtle enough for the turtle club. It's just a friggin game after all, a flawed one at that, can't we all just have fun? Hopefully the community will get better when 2.0 releases and the game gets more subs and more casuals.

And let's face it, there are better, more quality games out there right now. I'm as much of a fan of Final Fantasy as most people here; been a fan for 13 years in fact. But I'm a man of varied tastes and don't restrict myself to one genre or series. I'm playing Skyrim right now (and I honestly wonder why a lot of people here aren't), LOVING it, and will probably be playing it for a while. And there are other games coming out in the first quarter of 2012, such as Mass Effect 3 and (dare I say it, I hope people lose their shit over this one) Diablo 3 which are going to be amazing.

With all that said I am excited for 2.0 and what it will have to offer. I might keep my subscription so I can keep checking back after updates just to see how things are going every now and then, but I think, for the most part, I am done playing this game on a regular basis unless it gets seriously awesome after 1.21.