Disclaimer -This isn't a "I quit thread".

The rate at which people are quitting seems to be increasing. I've been saying the direction the dev team is taking XIV won't prove to be successful in the long run for a while. Just search for topics and threads I've posted in or started and you will see that.

But I didn't start this thread to toot my own horn, or tell the white knights "I told you so". I also didn't start this thread to start a debate or revisit the casual vs hardcore gamer endless argument.

Look to your community and please be honest with us and yourselves; aren't people dropping like flies?

My original 1.0 friends have all gone. They numbered somewhere between 20-25 people who started in 1.0 with me after making the switch from XI to XIV, and returned for 2.0.

We had the numbers to form an FC, so we did. Some of us formed a static coil group. We were successful and had coil down to farm status. Some others were also successful, but at least half were not. We quickly found ourselves in a situation where some of us were happy with farming coil and developing our characters together, while others felt left out. Incidently, there was literally nothing we could do for them other than guide them on TS and Vent while we watched them attempt coil and other content.

That didn't work out too well. Many of them just felt betrayed by our group's success. The situation devolved into hostility over time, and a sense of resentment towards us built. People we had known for as much as 10 years left our FC and decided to go at it on their own. They didn't last long with PUGs and within a month, unsubscribed.

Our FC, now broken, merged with another FC that were suffering from the same challenges. We tried to get people more involved this time round by mixing and matching strong and experienced players with those of us who were less skilled and with less wins under their belt.

The result was catastrophic. More resentment grew as the splitting of the static resulted in some of the members feeling less motivated to play. They logged on less, and felt that having to run others through coil and repeat the same painful learning experience was unfair. They argued for a return to the old group, and to let the weaker ones fend it out for themselves.

As leader I tried to talk 5 groups into reason, but while a person is reasonable and fair, people are generally selfish and irrational. The amount of personalities and different priorities in the mix resulted in a slow deterioration of friendships, and forming of new alliances and loyalties.

Fast forward 5 weeks, and all have unsubscribed but 3-4 members and 2 of them haven't logged in for 9 days as of this moment.

I'm in many Linkshells as well and see the same situation, more or less, being played out in other groups.

I scroll through my friend list sometimes to look for something to do and see a lot of "deleted" accounts, not knowing who it was, and where they went or why.

I played XI for many years. It was nice knowing people for many years and playing alongside with them. Maybe 64 man Dynamis was over the top, and maybe Absolute Virtue and Pandy Warden were too hard core. Maybe the exp grind was too long, and maybe the battles were a bit slow paced. But there was something there, and I'm certain it had something to do with the community.

I also played WoW for a few months and could never really get into it. There wasn't much difference between a PC and NPC; both were just names on the screen.

I'm not asserting anything here, just telling it like it is. Many of my friends have unsubscribed, and even more acquaintances.

I'd like to know if this will be the norm and the producers are happy with it, because if it is I just don't think I can invest any more time in it as it isn't living up to my expectations. That's not a threat, or an ultimatum. I'm no special snowflake, and the game will continue to prosper without me for sure. But I'm most definitely not happy with the current state of affairs.