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

[synaesthetic]

Did you actually read Zfz post or did you just roll in here to drop some insults to increase your post count? Zfz makes a lot of great points on why these current MMOs loose so many players so quickly. Of course the company wants to make money but wouldn't it be a good idea to retain those players for the long run? MMOs released these days seem to have a massive spike in numbers for the first couple months then crash. Why do you think that is?

None of Zfz's points are good, because the only thing Zfz, and players like Zfz, want is to block "lesser" people from accessing content. They somehow derive pleasure from seeing other people unable to enjoy and experience content.

There are many good reasons to nerf deprecated content. If it's not nerfed, then new players, less skilled players, players with less time to play, players who don't actually enjoy challenging content will be left further and further behind. They will become quickly locked out of much of the game's content.

What do you think will happen next? Actually wait, I'll go ahead and answer for you, since thinking is clearly too hard for you. The people locked behind deprecated tiers that continually stack up, making playing catch-up more and more unlikely, will simply give up and unsubscribe. Square-Enix will, as a result, lose money, and this will damage their ability to continually release new content in a timely manner.

[Mortikhan]

What do you think will happen next? Actually wait, I'll go ahead and answer for you, since thinking is clearly too hard for you. The people locked behind deprecated tiers that continually stack up, making playing catch-up more and more unlikely, will simply give up and unsubscribe. Square-Enix will, as a result, lose money, and this will damage their ability to continually release new content in a timely manner.

As much as this might be true...the same will happen in reverse if players are not challenged enough and can run to end game, complete what they want to complete and push the "I won FFXIV" button. They will simply go spend their time and money elsewhere until new content comes out (2-3 patches later). There has and always will be separation for those who give effort and spend time and those who do neither. SE needs to find a balance for both groups. That will be the real innovation that the MMO genre is looking for.

[synaesthetic]

As much as this might be true...the same will happen in reverse if players are not challenged enough and can run to end game, complete what they want to complete and push the "I won FFXIV" button. They will simply go spend their time and money elsewhere until new content comes out (2-3 patches later). There has and always will be separation for those who give effort and spend time and those who do neither. SE needs to find a balance for both groups. That will be the real innovation that the MMO genre is looking for.

That happens regardless, but the number of people who do this is far, far smaller. Reducing churn is an important part of keeping an MMO profitable, but it's rank foolishness to cater to the top 5% of players at the expense of the bottom 95%. Old MMOs got away with doing this in the late 90s and early 2000s because the genre was very, very niche and only the most dedicated players even really cared to begin with.

For example, I started playing FFXI back around the NA launch and then I left for World of Warcraft. I decided to give FFXI another chance shortly after Wings of the Goddess came out. I was stuck behind the Chains of Promathia roadblock literally for months. Not a single day went by where I wasn't thinking about just quitting, hanging it up, after spending the sixth day in a row shouting in Jeuno and Whitegate for hours and hours to try and get people to help me. I literally had to pay people to help me through the CoP missions so I could access Al'Taieu and learn all of my blue magic. I may have stuck it out, but I was really close to saying screw it and unsubbing. I'm sure there were far more people who did unsub than those who just stuck it out, and all of that is lost revenue.

That's the sort of fate new players would have waiting for them if they didn't nerf and remove restrictions from old content. Because they do it's fairly easy for new players to catch up and be current. This is good for everyone, because it means endgame companies can more easily recruit new members, fill spots, more people are engaged with the current content and the world is more lively as a result.

[Despite]

What do you think will happen next? Actually wait, I'll go ahead and answer for you, since thinking is clearly too hard for you. The people locked behind deprecated tiers will simply give up and unsubscribe.

History has shown otherwise. In WoW 90 some odd % of players never saw AQ, BT, etc and yet this didn't stop them from gaining over 10 millions subs by the end of Burning Crusade. Burning Crusade era WoW had punishing dungeon difficulty and raid attunements. Difficult / gated content doesn't hurt the game. If the game is good enough (which this isn't) it doesn't matter how far off the carrot is.
As far as I can tell, this game is so damned shallow and poorly designed that they are knee jerk reacting and scrambling to keep subs. Nerf the content so fast and many veteren MMO players will leave.
What you're left with are the diehards, unskilled casuals, FF fanboys and curious newcomers.
Doesn't look too promising at this point.

[DSX]

The "modern" way time and again killed every single game that went that route save for the inventors of said way. none of them survived half as long as the old way games yet people will try to convince themselves and convince others that its the only way to keep subs and acting blind to the grave yard of games that what it actually is. I guess the main reason is those people is they never liked the MMORPG as it was (well at least didn't like some aspects of it but sadly those were vital for the genre) but still wanted to play and whatever changes that will suit their fancy will be welcomed and considered "correct" way of doing it regardless of if it will just kill every game in few months or a couple of years if they are lucky, in the end they get to play these games and sleep at night thinking yeah they are MMORPG players, that genre is not beyond them (for whatever reasons legitimate (like school or real life) or otherwise (like "too diffecult for me to comprehend this complex gameplay mechanics") that they can tackle anything (even if it was sedated first so they can win).

The result? yeah send this recently released game to the grave yard, make the next fresh one so we have new toy for a while then send it to the grave yard too and see what company will go in head first next for our future toy.

The old way longevity (whether you like how it was done or not) made the gaming companies big and small alike take notice and salivate over the profits that was made and the money flow for decades (yes I know you think those player base number are not big but it was a cash flow for decades that the companies saw as gold mine otherwise they wouldn't even try to cash in). The new way (which those companies think will earn them the same stability of the cash flow the old way got but with larger player base) is making those companies bleed money and be lucky if they broke even or if they made a small profit that is not worth the time and effort they put in the project (even if you think it was enough just go to the financial department of those companies and see what they had to say to the management about the numbers).

Its a matter of time. The old way profits made the companies rush in this genre for cash, but the new way is wrecking so many bank balances that you will see less and less get into this genre and whoever actually do it will be a cheap fast cash grab. A big change needs to happen otherwise this "modern" way will keep sending games to the grave yard and haunt the makers of said games and the others who consider going the same bath for all eternity.

The genre fans will suffer for it as they can never have a game they can call home for decades as they used to and will only have cheap knock offs on their hand for the foreseeable future.

[Ri_ri]

Difficult / gated content doesn't hurt the game.

Then explain me how WoW's decline began in Cataclysm (difficult content), and is worse than ever in Mists of Pandaria (gated content).
Or how the moments it could stop the decline, was on Mists of Pandaria launch (gear reset) and 4.3 patch (gear reset).

The comparison isn't valid anyway. Back in Burning Crusade WoW had no rivals. Now there's themeparks everywhere.

"MMO veterans" aren't any more valuable than "diehards, unskilled casuals, FF fanboys and curious newcomers". I'm willing to bet they're the ones who spread hate ingame towards anyone who doesn't meets their standards.