MMO addiction

[NaoSen]

I agree that if you don't have anything to lose then just move on and come back when the game looks better however its not that simple and I think some of what I say falls into being human and not MMO addiction.

To get this out of the way, Square Enix's "We want you to play other games / Take breaks during down time" is more accurately translate to, "We want you to play other games / Take Breaks but don't unsub or we'll burn down your house and those friendships we encourage you to make? Forget about them".

1. Friends (Personal Experiance)
2. Housing (Personal Experiance)
3. Coping Mechanism (Know multiple people for this.)
4. No alternative

Friends:
There are multiple mechanisms in place to build friendships in the game, be it through Free Companies, Social Venues (RP Cafe's, Clubs, Bars), Communities (Eureka, Deep Dungeons, Gposing), to leave is to neglect/lose at the same time you cannot force people to stay so you are at a situation where you stay and others leave due to content who don't mind tie cutting / maintain friendship out of game or you leave and the same thing. Yes, discord exists, yes other games exist, however "Games we both enjoy that also facilitate the same atmosphere" is not exactly the same. Some are desperately lonely in real life and just cannot make friends there, I know multiple people like this and FF is basically their only social outlet.

Housing:
With such a broken housing system requiring demolition if you do intend to unsubscribe during a content drought then bye bye house since a content drought isn't exactly 6 weeks, so be sure to subscribe at least every 6 weeks to not lose your house. If there was no-lose instanced housing (Like Guild Wars 2 has recently introduced) this wouldn't be an issue.
You are not just dealing with the structure itself but also the location, you're looking at a handful of plots per housing zone that are really premium (and as a result held on to), losing it would mean next to no chance of getting it again.

Coping Mechanism:
I have met multiple people over the years who basically live life through this game, it's not healthy at all to make your first life your character in a MMORPG but we're talking about those with such a raw deal in life be it due to physical, psychological or location that it's their way of living because everything else just sucks, it's the only place they can be close to normal. That's dumbing it down a lot and blanket generalising but I'm not a psychologist and it's a answer point.

No Alternative:
If you were willing to drop your community, friends made (if any), house (if owned), yet still want the same "feel" that FF can give, variety of activities both gameplay and social you don't really have any popular ones at least that come to mind other than pure virtual worlds.

There we go, maybe something in there to think about.