The future of the game

[Kajidourden]

As someone who never got into WoW, I'm curious about something. Where do you see this game heading given what we've seen so far in the way of progression/endgame?
The comparison i hear regularly is that this game is going EXACTLY the way of WoW. New patch, few new dungeons, some fixes, so on and so forth.
As someone who played FFXI for years I have to say that having been doing endgame related things for a while now....I'm pretty darn bored. I log in, do my duty roulette and maybe run some Crystal tower, and then i'm out. After all, what else is there for me to do (PvE) if I don't plan on getting into PvP? Right now endgame boils down to grinding dungeons for no reason other than to get tokens for new gear.

[Deifact]

I think the first expansion will make or break this game for a lot of people. I don't want this game to be a constant instanced dungeon grind. I'm hoping an expansion will drastically increase the over world (new continent?) And provide alternative content to dungeons.

At the moment I'm pretty bored!

[ApolloGenX]

I think the first expansion will make or break this game for a lot of people. I don't want this game to be a constant instanced dungeon grind. I'm hoping an expansion will drastically increase the over world (new continent?) And provide alternative content to dungeons.

At the moment I'm pretty bored!

This.

The first expansion will reveal the direction of this game. Either it will be instance spam, or they will innovate or add some depth. It will likely determine whether this game ends up a long term success or a throwaway game.

[Kajidourden]

I seriously think the game in it's current state should be called "Dungeon spam: the game"

[Cons]

I like the game, Im at end content but still find certain aspects challenging

[i2agnarok]

Serious question here, as a person not normally doesn't play an MMO long enough to see the expansions or the interest to go back once I've quit:

Just what is it that other games add so much per expansion that makes them so "omg, I can't wait for this!"? Across the board, it always seems like:

-Cosmetic stuff.
-New dungeons.
-Maybe a new map to do the exact same stuff with a new background.
-New classes/races.
-Rebalance to existing content.
-PvP-related stuff.

I'd really like a specific story of something an expansion did that dramatically increased your interest in a game that you were previously bored with. I've always sorta viewed Endgame expansions in MMOs as sinkholes; it just gives you an "updated" version of all the stuff that people called boring before, until you've beaten the content and the cycle continues anew.

[Kabooa]

Serious question here, as a person not normally doesn't play an MMO long enough to see the expansions or the interest to go back once I've quit:

Just what is it that other games add so much per expansion that makes them so "omg, I can't wait for this!"?
.

Depends entirely on the game.

in Warcraft, it tends to be widespread system changes; Changes to stats, basic class mechanics, game mechanics, and so on.
In Aion, it's level caps and more broken PvP.
In SWG classic, it was new dimensions of gameplay (Spaceships)

As far as FF14 is concerned? If they do everything they said they want to do, it's going to be a mixture of Warcraft (new stuff, changes) and new dimensions ( Airship battles, gooo)

[Blitzace]

Something i really miss from XI are notorious monsters, this was one of the reasons for me to explore alot of areas, just go out and find some NMs even though the drops were crap i had a blast. i miss alot of things from XI especially my summons rawr.

[Cons]

Something i really miss from XI are notorious monsters

+1 for Elite random spawning (hard) mobs that have a very small chance to drop something interesting

[Kajidourden]

Something i really miss from XI are notorious monsters, this was one of the reasons for me to explore alot of areas, just go out and find some NMs even though the drops were crap i had a blast. i miss alot of things from XI especially my summons rawr.

Well, the wings of the goddess expansion for ffxi is a pretty good example for me. This added a whole new PvE element called Beseiged where an entire city-state would be overrun with enemies and the goal was to beat back the oncoming horde. There were several other elements to it such as certain NPCs missing if you lost, etc. There were also the same scale of battles that took place out in the open world. Dynamic things such as this are what im talking about.

Also, outside of the expansion discussion, I miss NMs as well. Both open world and burning circle. THOSE were true tests of your abilities and the rewards were very much worthwhile (assuming you got a drop)