Quote Originally Posted by LiadansWhisper View Post
None of this, in any way, changes that XI has never been nearly as successful as this game currently is.
Don't mean to play devil's advocate here, but you are basing these two games off completely different eras of MMO's. Upon FFXI's release, there is a lot of factors to consider. For starters, MMO's were no where near the popularity of what they are today. MMO community back in the early 2000's was a very particular interest and online gaming in general was not very accessible. Internet gaming as a whole was not very big at the time.

Secondly, people were naturally distant of an online Final Fantasy for several reasons. Namely people were not fond of the fact that Final Fantasy, a known offline game series, took the series in the direction a lot were not fond of. Not to mention to play it, at the time did require not the best PC, but did require a higher than standard PC at the time. It was a graphically intense game. It was also an expensive purchase to get the PS2 version and was a hassle to get it set up. All in all at the beginning, FFXI was not entirely friendly to get into.

While I am on the side that FFXIV should go in it's own direction and any ideas from FFXI should only be ideas that doesn't affect ARR's vision as a whole, you shouldn't be comparing the sales and success of two different products of two different eras. FFXI was successful for what it could do at the time. A time where MMO's in general were not accessible and friendly to an open audience.