Fighting Desperately...

[Crysten]

You really think so? Perhaps you weren't the person with multiple Linkshells, 165 people on their Friend List, a working knowledge of the party search function, no reservations about shouting for an hour on the streets of Ul'dah for some party members to go out and grind with. For 3 days I did this, all in vain, and for the simple fact that everyone, I kid you not, everyone that could have otherwise went with me was either in Mun-Tuy or Nanawa, sitting AFK/asleep while a Lv50 THM or CON played their game for them.

So you tell me where the choice is in that?

You're parading your own experience as "the" experience. I don't remember having any trouble getting to 50 through a mix of parties (when they were still sparse on Mysidia) and solo grinding through leves. I even got a few PL parties to level my subs up. I think that's plenty of choice from my end and the majority of that choice came from my current linkshell or my RL friends.

If you had several linkshells and 150 people on your friends list and couldn't find a bloody party, I'd look a little closer to home for the core problem to the particular situation you found yourself in...

You can tell people this all day but they're not going to stop until they cause MMOs to go out of existence. I've seen it in other types of media, things are made to keep you on the hook and take a while, then something comes along that makes that experience instantly gratifying. Then everybody tries to copy, quality of the whole genre goes down and everybody gets sick of it then BAM the whole genre is dead.

You do know the entire design philosophy of MMOs is to keep people playing for as long as possible, right? You know, for example, Skinner Box techniques? Why on Earth would any sane MMO developer make an instantly gratifying experience when the entire point is to design content that can be completed slower than it can be developed?

WoW's flaws or positives aside, it changed the market trend into something that has widespread appeal. The age of most MMO gamers is increasing as time goes on and these people just don't have the time to dedicate to a hardcore MMO anymore. I've done all the crap in XI; I have an Aegis. I levelled three of my jobs pre-Aht Urhgan the "old school" way in Bibiki Bay. I've lived in the Aery for days.

And you know what, you can go piss right off if you want to feed me any of that garbage again. I'm perfectly happy in an environment where I can spend an hour or two in game and feel like I've accomplished something. That's the future of the genre, and if you don't like it, the door is right there and there's a bus to XI or EQ waiting right outside.

Fact of the matter is, those who say mid-game play should take a backseat to end-game play are only out there for the thrill of victory over others and apparently care little about the journey and adventure it takes to get there. They make games such as Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter for these kind of people. They don't belong in RPG's at all in the first place.

I really don't understand the connection between "end-game" and "the thrill of victory" and I'd actually like you to elaborate here. There's no competition in this game (and XI did the worst job of creating competition in the form of HNM, but that's another story) and there is mid-game content for those who wish to persue it. Once again, who are you to say what content a player may or may not enjoy/partake in? If I don't want to do Toto-rak or Chocobo escorts, that's not even your problem.

Exactly this sentiment that I believe is going to become a reality that resulted in my OP. Specifically, the first paragraph. Anyone who has any appreciation for anything in life knows that the journey is not just a means to an end. It is the defining characteristic of those ends.

Yet you're heavily implying that anyone who takes the journey a certain way deserves a certain kind of belittlement compared to someone who doesn't.