Final Fantasy 14 Players trying WOW?

[Melorie]

Let me apologize for my lack of clarity in my post. I realize that I failed to point out that I was responding to the "value your time" question and confusion regarding it. Basically, FFXIV values your time by giving you the freedom to play other games at any time while not feeling like you won't be able to raid when you return. This is currently not the case in WoW, where they give you a constant stream of necessary busywork that you must be able to complete all the time in order to be able to do the content that you want to do. So while both games do have a grind (as all MMO's do), in FFXIV you are not trapped in this grind treadmill. You can play other games if you want and not be behind when you return to do the newest patch content. In fact, Yoshi-P even encourages players to take breaks from the game because he understands that the player's time is valuable. WoW, on the other hand, gives you a bunch of tasks and chores that must be done - see all the videos on youtube on unlocking flying in Zerith Mortis, for example, and compare that to how easy it is to unlock flying in Endwalker. The whole flying thing is a simple example of valuing the players's time.

Oh, it wasn't really you're specifically talking about valuing time! But it is thrown a lot about people discussing MMOs in general, specially WoW. My point is, isn't these things - these grinds per se - part of playing the game, though? Don't get me wrong, I also enjoy how FFXIV chooses to do things, but at the same time, I don't blame someone that doesn't and prefer the feeling of progression that harder grinds give you. Getting the mount that flies in Guild Wars is a grind as well, but something I find enjoyable. I get that it's not everyone cup of tea though, but there's an audience for this kind of thing. I love grinding for things in Ragnarok Online or Monster Hunter - hours spent killing the same mobs over and over again to get a rare drop or a specific amount of xp. When I'm finished, after a long time, I actually feel pretty good about my progress, like I actually spent time on it. It's weirdly relaxing.

So, even though I enjoy FFXIV approach to things, I don't feel like EVERY game should follow it and that games that doesn't are not respecting players. Some games are meant to be a bigger time sink, and there's nothing wrong with that besides preference. If anything, these games value your time differently - the time you spent playing it actually gives you a bigger sense of progression, whereas in FFXIV you put very little time in order to achieve most things. I don't play and never played WoW, so I can't say if it is the type of grind I would enjoy, for example (I don't enjoy every grind), what I mean is that some people play MMOs because they offer time-sink and sense of progression.