Quote Originally Posted by SenseiMaria View Post
People use tiny dataset (steam) & personal anecdotes that mean nothing in the grand scheme to doom & gloom when reality is contrary to their cherry-picked worldview, a tale as old as time. In other news, water is wet.
Game's more successful than its ever been with a constant higher active playerbase than even the highest point in SHB, even in these content lulls. Factoring in the deficit of MSQ players that disappear at the beginning of each expansion only to return at the next, 7.0 is on track to shatter player number records once again.

But I'm sure Square will think something major needs to be done to their formula as they walk to the bank depositing their record high profits this game generates from a formula that finds such insane success by targeting the new reality of the video game industry that is accessibility & simplicity in game design.
I was about to write a rather large wall of text why steam data is completly representive of the playerbase but i know you will continue to live in denial. Maybe you are lucky and Blizzard does something stupid with Dragonflight, maybe then the next expansion can "shatter player number records". Because thats the only way FF14 got relevancy: people getting tired of WoW. But people already get tired of FF14 and its half as old as WoW.