ARR has 600k subscribers

[Mezolitik]

In it's current form, though, the game has very little to offer save for more of the same, repetitive grind, be it Tomestones or otherwise.

It has recognisable characters, and that's what people will play it for.

Don't underestimate the power of Chocobos and Cactuars!

[Orophin]

For FFXIV, 2.1 will be the decisive sink or swim factor. If done right, it may yet hold. If not... Well, we all know where it goes for the "do nots".

I think the main disadvantage for 2.1 will be the fact that Crystal Tower precedes Coil in terms of difficulty and item drops. This only affects the very small minority of hardcore players I think, but I think SE will still lose some subscriptions until 2.2 unless there's some other things that will keep them playing. (Housing, PvP, new dungeons, new quests)

[ashikenshin]

I think the main disadvantage for 2.1 will be the fact that Crystal Tower precedes Coil in terms of difficulty and item drops. This only affects the very small minority of hardcore players I think

I don't think it affects them that much. There are a lot of coils players that are running around with only myth/philo pieces. Having another source of gear is good for everybody. Even moreso for players who go to the raids as a class that is not their preferred class.

Example:

favorite class: warrior
raid group already has two paladins as tanks and wont take my warrior to the raids so I take my conjurer there. I gear said conjurer with myth and drops since it is what I'm taking to the raid. I want to gear up my warrior with something else than philo gear. Crystal tower!

[Lord_Zlatan]

I think the main disadvantage for 2.1 will be the fact that Crystal Tower precedes Coil in terms of difficulty and item drops. This only affects the very small minority of hardcore players I think, but I think SE will still lose some subscriptions until 2.2 unless there's some other things that will keep them playing. (Housing, PvP, new dungeons, new quests)

True enough but even for the hardcore that have completed the content, Crystal Tower will facilitate gearing a second character. Filling the gap from iLvl 70 ---> 90. Running CT on secondary classes will be a good way to fill in AK+WP farming.

[amnie]

Every "big title" MMO has it's launch hype. Even the ones that come out really, really bad in the long run, like SWTOR.
For FFXIV, 2.1 will be the decisive sink or swim factor. If done right, it may yet hold. If not... Well, we all know where it goes for the "do nots".
In it's current form, though, the game has very little to offer save for more of the same, repetitive grind, be it Tomestones or otherwise.

actually, SWTOR had a drastic decrease right after launch and is NOW, 'in the long run' as you put it, doing great.

just saying. falling for the trap that is 'everyone hates it so it must do badly'
(then again everyone supposedly hates WoW and tries to act like the game's a failure for not having 12 mio subs anyway. lol)

[Pseudopsia]

This chart shows FFXI peaked at about 550k, it took a few years to get there.


Source: http://mmodata.blogspot.ca/

Edit: Oh I'm at 666 posts. Muhahaha

[Abriael]

Edit: Oh I'm at 666 posts. Muhahaha

Oh boy.

Mind you, the official presentation says they "Broke though" 600k, beating FFXI's peak. It didn't say by how much.

edit: Lol, Pandastirfry beat me to it.

In it's current form, though, the game has very little to offer save for more of the same, repetitive grind, be it Tomestones or otherwise.

You forgot "for those that spend several tens of hours a week grinding", which represent a vast minority in the MMORPG user base and are pretty much inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. There's tons of people that still didn't get a single job to 50, let alone running out of content.

[Andrien]

Great job, now give me those epic Final Fantasy content Square Enix.

[Pandastirfry]

Well. Your source even admits that SE released information stating FFXIV " 'broke through' the 600,000 mark set by FFXI" but not by how much. So in other words FFXIV has more than 600,000 but they did not release the actual number so it could be anywhere from. 600,001 to 1,000,000.

[Gilraen]

Naysayers aside, this is good news and I, for one, am glad to see it. Let us hope that XIV also does as XI did and maintain these numbers so that we can see the world of Hydaelyn grow and evolve as XI did.