Stop Raising Item Level and build foundation with Horizontal Progression first

[Pandastirfry]

One being released in the early 2000s when MMOs weren't exactly "mainstream" let alone most people were still on dial-up and the other after WoW bringing MMOs into mainstream? The fact XI could retain it's population for a decade on it's "archaic system" as some say, with WoW being beside it, and it's graphics staying the same since 2002... I'd say it did pretty damn well.

Except the "fact" that...it didn't. the 500,000+ numbers was a 1 year blip in I think 2006 (with both WoW and EQ1 still dwarfing it by orders of magnitude) and it has been steadily decreasing every year, it's now at less than 150k...

(I still run into people these days who are big fans of Final fantasy, even going so far as to own soundtracks and action figures from their favorite ones, that still wonder why XI was "never released in the US" and why SE kept the number for XII)