Quote Originally Posted by Zaaku View Post
If a number of subscribers will quit the game because everything isn't handed to them on a silver platter then so be it. The game, community, and SE are better off for it. Those who cannot be arsed to put up the effort to attain that which they want are fickle to begin with and will leave the game with the change of the wind. FFXI's limited the amount of people who would play beyond a few days with every day challenges. Those that stay stayed for YEARS and paid for years. Going for the quick buck easy mode is going to clip their tail profits in the end. While screwing the existing players by making what should be accomplishments into no-effort rewards for anyone who can sit around while someone else exploits the game.
Not going to happen. SE is a business. They'll do what makes them the most money and the money right now are the casuals. Guess why they completely mutilated FFXI with Abyssea? Same reason.

Masochistic game design is dead. The MMO genre nowadays is top heavy, achievement system based junk that can't create content faster than the player can consume.

Just take linear single player games for example. They are usually 20-40 hours ball park. If someone plays 8 hours a day, they'll be done in less than a week. Same problem in MMOs. How long does it take people in cliques to clear new content in current FFXIV? Couple days?

The only way to stop mass exodus of quitting is to roadblock players by adding silly token/point systems that are capped per week, have terribad drop rates or have some sort of real life time-based lockout.

The argument nowadays is "This is a game not a job."

Sorry, while I agree PLing is silly, this is 2012 and the EverQuest-era is over. Time to let go. Only a small niche of players enjoy the journey anymore evidenced by the countless number of "new" games that are released which are the exact same gameplay model and become rather successful.

Almost none of the current games have the "takes forever to level" system. Even the "beloved" FFXI doesn't have it anymore and the PLing in current FFXI is even more ridiculous than this game.