Congratulations Square Enix! FF4 surpasses WoW this year. (Source inside)

[PMSJordan]

It has nothing to do with attitude. Many People, especially within FFXIV are forgetting how long WoW has been arround the block and i am not exaggerating when i say that the Time from classic to Wrath of the Lich King was one of the greatest Times you could have had compared to any MMO. It had both it's ups and downs, but back then, WoW was way more than just a game, which was the reason why many people mocked their community for having all those "no-life nerds".

If we compare FFXIV's progress with WoW, were currently reaching the equivalent of
Mists of Pandaria with Endwalker, in terms of Progress and we have yet to reach any of the greatness which WoW archieved back then.

I understand how large WoW was back in the day. I played it during its height. Several million people still play mostly because of their deep connection with the game, their guilds, and friends.

However, when you say FFXIV never reached WoW heights I don't believe anyone would argue with that. But its also in my opinion an unfair comparison. MMOs do not pull the massive audiences they used to. WoW at its peak with Wrath had 12 million players. It was pretty much the Fortnite of its age and MMOs were like the BRs of today in popularity. However, it has since then lost the majority of that audience over the years. I do not believe any subscription based MMO will EVER top 12 million players again.

But FFXIV does have the potential to surpass current day WoW in the years to come. FF has been growing while WoW has been declining. I'm not saying it will, but it has a decent chance. Depending on the quality of content both Square and Blizzard puts out in the future.

[Anhra]

I understand how large WoW was back in the day. I played it during its height. Several million people still play mostly because of their deep connection with the game, their guilds, and friends.

However, when you say FFXIV never reached WoW heights I don't believe anyone would argue with that. But its also in my opinion an unfair comparison. MMOs do not pull the massive audiences they used to. WoW at its peak with Wrath had 12 million players. It was pretty much the Fortnite of its age and MMOs were like the BRs of today in popularity. However, it has since then lost the majority of that audience over the years. I do not believe any subscription based MMO will EVER top 12 million players again.

But FFXIV does have the potential to surpass current day WoW in the years to come. FF has been growing while WoW has been declining. I'm not saying it will, but it has a decent chance. Depending on the quality of content both Square and Blizzard puts out in the future.

It is indeed as unfair in comparison as it is interesting. If i recall correctly, Shadowbringers had peaked with 7 Million active Players during its peak, which means it reached pretty much the halfway point of what WoW pulled off. In my opinion, the Lich King was one of the biggest factor on why WoW peaked so hard during WotLK. He had an amazing character build-up starting with Warcraft 3 which aged since then like a fine wine, since you knew during classic and burning crusade, that he is still arround.

Another factor, from what i think kept people playing the game, was the gameplay elements it had which kept combat always interesting:
-Weapons, trinkets and armor have special effects (which work in both pve and pvp) and iirc, some professions like engineering, could even add certain active effects like a rocket jump or a parashute for example.
-every class had 3 skilltrees with a limited amount of skillpoints to spent so that you could never have all at once, but enough to have alot of variety.
-not every Skill a Class had was all about combat, some have fun and handy skills such as Mages being able to create Portals to Towns or crate food, Warlocks can do a Ritual to create stones that can restore HP or another ritual that can summon people to your location for example.

And now, look back at FFXIV and what it has. I am not trying to make things look bad here, but my point is, FFXIV still has a very long way to go.

[linayar]

FFXIV still has a very long way to go.

Maybe, maybe not. The MMORPG scene (and even the entire Internet scene) has changed since the late 2000s. 12+ million active players might no longer be achievable by a subscription-based game and so would probably not be the milestone that should be set. What FFXIV has done is change from a game that had to be shut down to a game that continues to see new, higher peaks in active daily users, as mentioned by Yoshida himself in one of the recent interviews. It's not at the level of WoW's early increase, and it's not steady as not everyone stays subscribed and others quit entirely, but it still has a positive trajectory overall, no doubt helped by the generous free trial.

And that, in my opinion, is already more than good enough. Beyond that, the statement "a long way to go" could describe any game, including modern WoW. And we know FFXIV is in it for the long haul unless something happens to Yoshida or the management in general.