Quote Originally Posted by Vikor View Post
I came back to play OC after ubsubbing since 7.0 ending, I logged in and made it through the unlock quest, only to immediately not care about playing. It has nothing to do with difficulty or available time to play.

The "magic" for a lack of better terms just feels gone. I am probably paranoid here, but the current state of things and decisions just have that vibe that WoW did as we crept into WoD, where Blizzard felt they were on top of the world and could just go on content generation autopilot, not paying attention to what they were producing or making sure it had that "spark" that made it a Blizzard game.

I sat by and paid a WoW sub as that game spiraled to the ground, and I just can't let myself do that again. I hope 8.0 is stellar, I want a reason to come back, but current decisions just make me feel like we've crossed a threshold that is going to take a very long time to course correct.
I suspect part of it is SE is stuck in the mindset that all they have to do is throw in FF cross-references and everyone will get teary-eyed and clap.

This overlooks the COVID/WOW influx that was dominated by people who have never played other FF games.

I think it's possible SE is fine with "shaking off the fleas," and allowing the playerbase to drop back to FF fans, who they assume will put up with anything provided references from other games are dropped in on a suitable cadence.