FF14 in 10 years

[DynnDiablos]

I expect it will be in maintenance mode. Personally, I don't see it continuing another 4-5 full expansions. It will make it to 9.0 I believe, but the current content cadence is so archaic and other games do a much better job at delivering quality content more frequently.

[FlopsyPrince]

ZOS seems to be working on killing ESO off, which is one reason I am here. Funny to see the comments about "less content for paid updates" as that is the same complaint of many there.

Fixing the inventory management game and the "walking simulator" aspect would help a lot. At least those are my major pain points. So much being gated by the MSQ is also frustrating. Not sure if I will tough it out or not. The inventory is probably the worst though, since cleansing stuff out is such a pain.

Having multiple job access is great, except when considering gear storage problems. A craft bag would be great, especially since I do have to pay a sub for this. (And extra increments for retainers where I have to figure out which retainer has what and shuffle far too much).

Someone else noted that not good alternative really exists and that is bad for MMOs overall since the lack of competitive pressure leads to bad things.

[FlopsyPrince]

I expect it will be in maintenance mode. Personally, I don't see it continuing another 4-5 full expansions. It will make it to 9.0 I believe, but the current content cadence is so archaic and other games do a much better job at delivering quality content more frequently.

Which ones? I have seen the same problems in other MMOs with my given limited experience.

A primarily solo player like myself can live with slogging through lots of existing content, but lacking new stuff certainly does not help the game overall.

[TaleraRistain]

EverQuest, a game released in 1999, just had its 31nd expansion pack in December. I think XIV will be fine.

Assuming MMOs as a genre stay around.

[VictorSpoils]

Could only imagine the unfunny memespeak and jargon in 10 years.

Perhaps if numbers dwindle enough they'll cave and combine XI/XIV's subscription models to keep people subbed longer.

[Striker44]

It's not the decrease in population from patch to patch it is the decrease in population from expansion launch compared to the next launch. The game peaked at the launch of endwalker and did not reach the same peak when going into dawntrail, presumably because the direction of the game that was chosen went against the wishes of the majority of players.

The peak of EW was an anomaly because it occurred during the infamous "WoW Exodus", so you had a significantly inflated # because it combined all the "WoW refugees" with the normal FFXIV players. The games, however, are different enough that while there will always be some overlap, in general they seek different audiences and most of those refugees were never going to stay. It's also why EW featured what looks like the biggest % drop in players. Remove the anomalous spike and subsequent trough and you see the game steadily gaining players from expansion to expansion, DT included (which had the highest presales of any FFXIV expansion). The "presumably" lacks any connection to reality whatsoever.

[Rein_eon_Osborne]

FF14 in 10 years will be playable by passing tadpoles from your waterways. Please look forward to it.

/s

[Kewitt]

I will have moved on to ff next mmo

[WillIrishclover]

personal opinion is they make another MMO in 5-6 years, enough time to chug out two more expacs before trying to move on.

Thats not to say this will be because the game failed but because Square may very well want to try another MMO, and XIV as its set up would be easier to port to an offline experience

[Voidmage]

personal opinion is they make another MMO in 5-6 years, enough time to chug out two more expacs before trying to move on.

I honestly don't see SE making another MMO in the future anymore.
That genre has completely changed over the years and frankly we are in the big gacha time now. They have also already said that they regret not having done what Genshin did.
I wouldn't be surprised if the next FF is some kind of gatcha-normal hybrid or at least follows the trend of the more popular ones in design. (but tbh SE is mostly too late for any trend anyways)

I think the future will be decided by how good the mobile game does.
If it is a huge win then they will try to keep FF14 around and if not and the retail version goes into a downward trend then we might see it sooner abandoned than we think.
FF14 doesn't seem to me to be the game that follows FF11 and end in maintenance mode. I think it will more likely end in a final full single player release at the end and the servers shut down.

Ten years from now FF14 will probably be still around because I think they actually WILL adress some complaints because they are not interested in losing players no matter how many say "it's fine".
The question for me is more what status this game will have then.
Will it still be the story mmo or will it be widely known as a niche "eh yeah it's alright" game?