what makes an MMO fell dead

[Shinkuno]

Interesting how this thread has become almost exclusively about FFXIV.

However, the thread title is "What makes an MMO fall dead" - therefore am going to look at that question itself without the FFXIV focus.

Having played another MMO for over a decade prior to a friend recommending FFXIV, I'll reflect on the issues that pushed me away from that game (with the fact that it's a F2P game in mind):

- Heavy over-reliance on lootboxes

- Overpriced items in their cash shop (£300 'bundles')

- Community manager who produces sloppy news blogs (doesn't proof-read them, posts incorrect dates for releases) and doesn't care, as has been doing this for literally years and has never once even acknowledged the matter. Sadly this tends to suggest that his superiors don't care either. Said CM also tends to be condescending and patronising toward players and completely abandoned that game's official forum - granted, they post some nonsense, about once a year, claiming that they'll "do better", but actions speak louder than words and said person never does "do better".
And secondary to that, the Devs don't listen to their playerbase. At all. There was a particular item that players had been requesting for over eight years. The Devs rarely acknowledged the request and on those rare occasions they did their replies involved insulting crap about their metrics saying that players actually didn't want said item and the game's (cherry-picked) metrics and heavily implied that player requests/opinions are worthless.

- The over-emphasis on producing loot box junk and expensive cash-shop bundles has impacted on actual game development. The Dev team for that game are too busy producing reasons for players to get their credit cards out to actually produce new story content for the game itself.

- Powercreep; another negative byproduct of the over-emphasis on selling stuff. A piece of repeat-play endgame content that used to take approximately 30 minutes to complete can now be done in 11 seconds and I gather the map for that piece of content will quite often glitch out as the game often doesn't actually realise the instance is over.
And to be honest, its possible to complete the entire game in about five days because of this.

- Toxic community. A byproduct of the content being too easy is that players gather in a few particular areas out of boredom. And, in my experience, that led to arguments and trolling.

I do keep in touch with some who still play that game, and I gather from them - and from what I read on social media - that said game isn't in a good place right now despite the Devs claims to the contrary (saying that, the word of cooperate mouthpieces who are paid to only say good things about their game are not worth a great deal in my mind).

nothing of this makes a mmo feel dead.

GW2 has lootboxes, yet it feels alive

WoW has powercreep, yet it feels alive

[magitekLuna]

To me what makes a game feel dead,FF14 to be clear, is the players. You can replace 99% of them to bots and nothing fells different. People them self fells dead.

[Rilifane]

I think it's misinterpreting the question due to the typo in the title?
Interpreting "fell dead" as "fall dead" in the sense of a game crashing and bleeding players to the point of failing overall as opposed to "feel dead" in the sense of the world not feeling alive and it feeling like an isolated single-player game experience despite many players playing it, which the OP strongly hinted at and specifically mentioned FFXIV for this.

[magitekLuna]

I think people getting clearly what I asked.

[Carin-Eri]

nothing of this makes a mmo feel dead.

GW2 has lootboxes, yet it feels alive

WoW has powercreep, yet it feels alive

Well, it kinda does - because it all contributed toward lots of players leaving (heck, almost everyone I know abandoned it in favor of FFXIV) since it became abundantly clear that the game only cared about the Whales.

[Shinkuno]

Well, it kinda does - because it all contributed toward lots of players leaving (heck, almost everyone I know abandoned it in favor of FFXIV) since it became abundantly clear that the game only cared about the Whales.

Whales in what game? GW2 is too different from WoW/FF14 so not many are leaving GW2 for one of the other, and WoW has a smaller shop than FF14 so its not catering to whales either

[Raoabolic]

Well, it kinda does - because it all contributed toward lots of players leaving (heck, almost everyone I know abandoned it in favor of FFXIV) since it became abundantly clear that the game only cared about the Whales.

*looks at all the mogstation exclusive glamours, mounts, extra retainers, and level/story skips*
*sweats profusely*

[MonteCristo]

After playing so long just wanna see xiv evolve and recapture some TRUE mmo magic...just hoping it happens sooner than later because it only a matter of time before other games try to capitalize.

[dspguy]

When discussing Limsa, the question should not be why people prefer to pop in and out instead of forming groups, but rather, why there is no public or global platform for communication. While it may be true that the Japanese culture does not prioritize this kind of communication, it is quite normal for Westerners.

We have a global platform for communication, as far as putting together a party is concerned.

Party Finder.

It is data center wide in many cases. And it is convenient. And I think we like the convenience and we accept it. That's why it is fairly uncommon to see parties form by people shouting in zone. We had that for a very short period of time. When Chimera and Hydra first came out, it is actually common to see people standing outside the dungeon shouting for people to join their party. Back then DF was pretty broken. It was as if you queued in DF it would take 30 minutes to put you in a dungeon, but in a premade it would put you in nearly instantly. I digress.

[Carin-Eri]

*looks at all the mogstation exclusive glamours, mounts, extra retainers, and level/story skips*
*sweats profusely*

None of which cost £250 - £300