Quote Originally Posted by Kiote View Post
Actually, it was the willingness of the Development team to not sacrifice Solid Gameplay Mechanics and Lasting Content for the sake of Catering to casual players.

FFXI fans actually enjoyed doing HNMs a hundred times and Running Up 100 Floors of Nyzul Island because when you finally got it done, it felt like you did something. You didn't just win and forget it until the next raid in three months where you replaced all the Top Tier gear you worked so hard to obtain.

FFXI was the last of the Unforgiving Hardcore MMOs. Most people didn't give up on it until they gave in to the Casual Playerbase which they never actually needed.
Stop taking things out of your ass, first XI developers did not "Willingly" ignore the casual market, for there was NONE! *Gasp* XI was the successor of Everquest, it was a game meant to attract the same type of player, since it had the same type of mechanics, don't pretend like they went into a meting and said: "Well there is a huge casual market that has not been tapped, but we shall ignore it, because we want to deliver unforgiving mechanics and keep with the times."

Because that was not what happened.