How would you rate FFXIV's Community?

[Rowyne]

You could sit these forums side by side with WoW's official forums, and not tell the difference (if it wasn't for the colour scheme and branding of course).

I'll tell you why that is, actually. Ironically, both games are suffering from something very similar right now. And that's lack of fun.

WoW's newest expansion, Cataclysm, has dissatisfied a large portion of the community. Heroic dungeons and raids have had the difficulty tuned so high, that it's alienated many players. Healers are playing DPS alts or just quitting the game. And those who stuck around are so worried about completing the runs, they fly off the handle whenever a wipe happens. Content is both lackluster, stressful, and all about twitch mechanics now, so the element of fun is just plain missing. There are also a lot of other issues, like the fragmented questing, how things feel more grindy, and how the new Guild Advancement System has killed smaller tight-knit family guilds. And there are a lot of cranky people because of it.

Here, people are so bored and frustrated, coming up on a year (if you started in beta) waiting for fixes and content and the product we paid good money for, they're just as cranky. Albeit for a different reason.