The "Wow Refugee's" impact on the FFXIV Community?

[Aramina]

Finance departments don't look at a single year, they look at trends. If they keep to the release schedule there will be a trend of declining revenue and they will push for ways the increase revenue without pouring more money into the game. This means a heavier reliance on releasing cash shop items or scaling back the team that is responsible for those projects because they don't produce as much revenue but still cost the same to upkeep.

No company, absolutely not a single one is okay with not making as much money as they can. It's what a business is designed to do.. and if the finance departments don't make recommend scaling back low performing sections then their job is in danger.
So yeah, the "we don't mind if you unsub for months on end" is not the official stance of SQE; it's the friendly stance of someone who does more PR than programming.

You'll have to forgive me if I choose to believe someone that is on the Board of Directors for Square Enix over random_person_on_the_Internet.

[frostmagemari]

You'll have to forgive me if I choose to believe someone that is on the Board of Directors for Square Enix over random_person_on_the_Internet.

You don't have to trust a random person on the internet. You just need to talk to ANY person that runs a successful business, or anyone teaches business school or has gone to school for business. Talk to any of those people, and you'll learn that projects that require constant upkeep and development don't run very long if they ever stop consistently pulling their financial weight.

Now, i don't think that this game is in this situation yet, but if there becomes a trend that people subscribe for some patches but not for others in noticeable numbers; do you really think that they'll give old Yoshi a pat on the back and say "keep up the good work" if there turns out to be a drop in revenue at regular intervals because they people start to predict which blocks of time will interest them vs which won't through the year?

I'll make this my last post about all of this though. I believe we're diverging too far from the OP's original topic by keeping on with this.

[linay]

Finance departments don't look at a single year, they look at trends. If they keep to the release schedule there will be a trend of declining revenue and they will push for ways the increase revenue without pouring more money into the game. This means a heavier reliance on releasing cash shop items or scaling back the team that is responsible for those projects because they don't produce as much revenue but still cost the same to upkeep.

No company, absolutely not a single one is okay with not making as much money as they can. It's what a business is designed to do.. and if the finance departments don't make recommend scaling back low performing sections then their job is in danger.
So yeah, the "we don't mind if you unsub for months on end" is not the official stance of SQE; it's the friendly stance of someone who does more PR than programming.

Then sounds to me like it's a self-correcting issue if it truly is a problem. If it's not a problem, then that works for me as well.

[Ramesses]

Do you think the mass influx of "Wow Refugee" players will positively or negatively effect the community as a whole? And how so?

As a FFXIV player what are things that you would like to see change (or not change) within the game?

What is one thing you would want to say to "Wow Refugee's" before they enter the community?

You have established some interesting observations OP, and even though I never played WoW because I was wholly immersed in FFXI at the time... (thank God)... there are indeed several elements of FFXIV that have changed extensively since the population grew. From time to time, I keep an eye on several MMOs on the global market... analyzing them, comparing metrics and so forth-- mainly because I love FFXIV; plus, I thoroughly enjoy watching it's evolution towards the pinnacle of the MMO industry.

However, the influx of "WoW refuges" -- your words as you have described them--- has brought a unique... situation. And to that end...

This is where you say... "I want the truth"

And I reply... "You can't handle the truth"

[FoxyAreku]

Toxicity is pretty low when compared to other games, I find, but the skill of the average player is also pretty low. I think the low difficulty level of most of the content just makes most people not care how bad people are doing.

[Aramina]

You don't have to trust a random person on the internet. You just need to talk to ANY person that runs a successful business, or anyone teaches business school or has gone to school for business. Talk to any of those people, and you'll learn that projects that require constant upkeep and development don't run very long if they ever stop consistently pulling their financial weight.

Now, i don't think that this game is in this situation yet, but if there becomes a trend that people subscribe for some patches but not for others in noticeable numbers; do you really think that they'll give old Yoshi a pat on the back and say "keep up the good work" if there turns out to be a drop in revenue at regular intervals because they people start to predict which blocks of time will interest them vs which won't through the year?

I'll make this my last post about all of this though. I believe we're diverging too far from the OP's original topic by keeping on with this.

So talk to anyone.... except the company actually responsible for making THIS game? That hardly makes sense. However, as you said, we are diverging from the original intent of the thread.

[Imuka]

There is a limit to the number of skills you can have. So it's either stretch the distribution of skills or frontload it at lower levels and give almost nothing at the end. The latter option would make leveling up feel less rewarding unless you offset it by giving meaningful passive traits instead, which I don't necessarily like either.

From my View a nice way to solve it, would be to make the Skills evolve over time.
Let them start with a lower Pot or weaker effects or a shorter duration and let that expand over time. Some classes do that and feel okay on Lvl 60, like the Bard.
The Dots are longer and come with better Pot on Level 60, but he does not feel as broken as the Mch on Level 60.

They could sell it in a way, that the Jobstone starts to synch more with the WoL and so he/she can use those Attacks more efficent.
It's not perfect, I know, but something I heard pretty often from new Players is, that Combat feels slow and boring, especially for Players who already played 1 or more MMOs. And with a higher Level Cap, this keeps on going forever and many Players can't even learn the basic Rotation for their Class before they reach max Level.
You can't practice how to play the Mch till you reach Lvl 70 at the moment, because the Flamethrower changes literally everything about this Class.

1-50: add every Basic Element of the Class
50-80: evolution and new Skills, that are not important for the Basics of the Class.

Yoshida is fine with people not subscribing continuously.

Yoshi: maybe.
Investors: No, never.

[linay]

From my View a nice way to solve it, would be to make the Skills evolve over time.
Let them start with a lower Pot or weaker effects or a shorter duration and let that expand over time. Some classes do that and feel okay on Lvl 60, like the Bard.
The Dots are longer and come with better Pot on Level 60, but he does not feel as broken as the Mch on Level 60.

That already happens naturally via improvements in your stats as you level up and your gear improves.

many Players can't even learn the basic Rotation for their Class before they reach max Level.

That's not much of an issue with the way sync works in this game. You have time to adjust how your rotation works at each level and you should know how it works at each level because you'll be using it when you level sync to the respective level.

[Straynge]

First and foremost the main impact I've seen from these so called "wow refugees" is to bring new life blood into the game. Our numbers have swelled and new people are always needed. Without them the game would grow stagnant just like without the veterans the newer players would have a much harder time of it. I also vehemently disagree that wow has a toxic community. Wow is a different game. In it you have two factions at war: the Horde and the Alliance. That type of game automatically breeds a bit of tribalism. Also in wow you are not the main hero, you're just another grunt, a side note whereas in FFXIV you are the warrior of light. You are the hopes and dreams of Eorzea. All the kids who wish to grow up to be warriors look up to you and that in turn makes you the player want to "pretend" to be worthy of them. Every single character is the warrior of light. When you do dungeons or new quests they always tell you to gather your friends and afterwards it shows you in the middle along with the rest of the group surrounding you. Each player is he warrior of light in his own world and this is easily explained by all the various dimensions. At least that's how I see it.

Personally I don't view anyone as a wow refugee. They may have once played wow but anyone who plays FFXIV even for one day is a FFXIV player. I think they've assimilated very nicely into the game. I see a lot of ex wow players running around, especailly in the Golden Saucer right now. They are gaining new cute outfits, having fun and sharing their enthusiasm with the rest of us. I've noticed a LOT more twitch streams than I used to which is another good thing. I never found Wow to have a toxic community, sure there were some bad players but we're not talking about a few players here and there. We're talking about the community as a whole. FFXIV community still has a very friendly and family vibe to it. A lot of wow players felt the same thing in wow, especially those who were in like minded guilds or surrounded themselves with good people. So many people made great friends in wow just like they're doing here. It was just a different game than FFXIV and as such had a different feel to it. I for one am glad that so many wow players are trying ffxiv out and seem to be enjoying it. That can't be anything but a good thing.

[Crystal_Raven]

It showed everyone how truly toxic this community is.

Instead of labeling them as normal players, the community labels them as "WoW refugees" and tends to blame them for everything that goes wrong.

"FF14 community is nice", just take one look at the whole "WoW Refugees" situation and you will quickly see the opposite.