What went wrong? Is it the game or the grenre?

[Skotie]

Game companies must now cater to the 'casual' player since the majority of their income is derived from the working stiff who has limited time to play. Time is a commodity that is getting more scarce in our ever changing world.

This is what I really don't understand. MMO's have always been a huge world for people to explore that you weren't going to finish overnight, or even in a few months. It's a game played for the long term and your trying to sell it to people who don't really have the time for that experience? *scratches head*

[Kaaylryn]

This is what I really don't understand. MMO's have always been a huge world for people to explore that you weren't going to finish overnight, or even in a few months. It's a game played for the long term and your trying to sell it to people who don't really have the time for that experience? *scratches head*

I am not trying to sell anything, I am not a gaming company. I was just stating that , 'casuals', will still see the huge world, but it will may take them longer. If it takes too long and they become disenchanted or feel left behind, they may leave, ergo, less money. If more accomplishment can be stuffed into shorter play times, casuals "win" and stay on. End game is the end all, be all of the modern MMO and everyone wants to see it. Either way, you have those who burn content to end game, and have nothing to do, or those that get to end game prematurely due to easy leveling, etc. and then get bored and have nothing to do. It is a quandary to be sure, and one I certainly have no answers for.

[Skotie]

I am not trying to sell anything, I am not a gaming company. I was just stating that , 'casuals', will still see the huge world, but it will may take them longer. If it takes too long and they become disenchanted or feel left behind, they may leave, ergo, less money.

I didn't mean to say you were trying to sell the game, rather SE is targeting a market that doesn't fit what a typical MMO is or perhaps used to be at least. I myself enjoy games that take a lot of time to get into them such as elder scrolls, fallout etc. If I didn't have the time to play them I guess I don't see what the point of buying them would be, if I didn't have much time to game I would probably only play games which didn't require much time to get into, not expect an entire genre of games to scrap some of the most important elements of the game to fit my unique constraints.

[dragonczarxi]

there is also the issue of being a new game. Alot of people are coming in hitting 50 running end game and gone inside a month or two. After about a year or so when there is alot more content to run, systems (Such as pvp etc...) are refined and smoothed outthe player base will stabilize and new players will stick around. Honestly WoW did the same when it started, every one i played with left in a month or so, but after a year or so...

[Andrik]

Lately I've been starting to wonder, did this game even NEED to be an MMO? How much of the FFXIV experience would be lost if this had been made as a standard RPG with online co-op? I haven't felt much of a community in this game, the economy might as well not exist, and the world, while undeniably pretty, feels small, static and disjointed, due to the over-reliance on instancing (seriously, I was so disappointed the first time I walked up to the so-called "entrance" to a dungeon and realised I couldn't just walk in and look around on my own. Felt like a big step backwards, really).

See, I don't have so much of an issue with this game's difficulty - it probably is too easy, generally speaking, but that's not the biggest problem for me. The main problem for me is that this feels less like a MMO, and more like a co-op dungeon crawler. Nothing wrong with that per se, but there are other games doing that better, without charging a subscription fee. I just don't think I'm getting much from this game that I don't get from, for example, Diablo, and that's why I've cancelled my subscription.

[Kaaylryn]

I didn't mean to say you were trying to sell the game, rather SE is targeting a market that doesn't fit what a typical MMO is or perhaps used to be at least. I myself enjoy games that take a lot of time to get into them such as elder scrolls, fallout etc. If I didn't have the time to play them I guess I don't see what the point of buying them would be, if I didn't have much time to game I would probably only play games which didn't require much time to get into, not expect an entire genre of games to scrap some of the most important elements of the game to fit my unique constraints.

I agree with you on this, but, that horse is already out of the barn.