Anyone Else Getting WOW Cataclysm vibes from SHB?

[Dubont]

I have watched many of my favorite franchise burn to the ground, so I've been conditioned to raise any red flags I see for discussion. I see no reason why I should hold my tongue and give the benefit of the doubt and neither would I classify this as fear-mongering. My motives aren't so sinister. However, accusing me of fear-monger or these other posts telling me to "leave it out" of the forum is poisoning the well and may very well cause some bad-faith discussions so perhaps we shouldn't continue this any further.

This expansion has made many more people actually consider buying the game and starting fresh characters. People have seen Shadowbringers and thought "wow that must actually be a fun game. I should buy it"

You're worried for nothing

[LittleChickenNugget]

This expansion has made many more people actually consider buying the game and starting fresh characters. People have seen Shadowbringers and thought "wow that must actually be a fun game. I should buy it"

You're worried for nothing

Unfortunately this is also until people realize that it's a really, really long story to get to the newest content. "It's a story MMO, if you don't want..." Yes, yes, we've all heard it a thousand times before. Point being, it's still a really long road unless you drop money to skip it all. There's no other way around it either. Several other, most other, MMOs let you do whatever you'd like to kind of level up and go through the content without too many restrictions.

I hate to say how many friends I've lost because of the grind in ARR alone. "It gets fun at... It starts getting fast at..." It needs to lock people on right off the bat. And FFXIV is growing and that's amazing, but we also have so, so many who don't get through those long, boring spells.