Is this game slowly dying?

[Ahmbor]

Unfortunately, as a player returning from a long break, I believe the player base has dwindled down from my observations so far.

Time in ques(tank), Twitch viewers, etc., all small clues that can give insight into how the game's population is doing. Hopefully, subscription numbers don't dip down to the point that they consider F2P.

The game is doing well.

[Vespar]

Hopefully, subscription numbers don't dip down to the point that they consider F2P.

In my opinion the game is no where near dying... but in regards to this comment, let me give you some insight. I highly doubt SE will ever go F2P with this game. If you look at their other long running MMO Final Fantasy XI, there are often less than 700 people on any given server at any given time and that game is still a subscription model and has been for over 10 years.

All this being said, How are people basing their judgements on whether this game is dying or not? Because if your referring to quuee times being long for tanks, thats a poor way to judge considering hunts took away from queues, and now the new Nexus weapon lights make most folks just spam trial duty roullette. So the rest of the queue's for various dungeons have probably suffered.

[Fornix]

The game remains to have a very healthy playerbase. And will have for a long time to come. Sure there may be a small portion of players turning inactive. But that's just regular MMO business. With every new major content patch, activity picks up again as if nothing happened.

[TheMoonflow]

I feel the same way as OP.
I've played too many mmo's that ended up dead.
Nowadays I just stick to the big studio, high budget publishers.
So, the only two mmo's I put time in to is this and WoW

[Seiryuukishi]

No! ARR is dying!! Yeah... not so much. Truth is the closer we get to Christmas the more games are released. People are fickle when it comes to entertainment as well. The mmo gaming community is, well, the worst in this regard as newer, shinier things are released. We also have what is called "wandering". It may not be so much that people who play and leave dislike the the game insomuch as it doesn't fit their niche. My nephews could most likely never get into this game, though they'd try it. They're used to things like FPS and solo games. Some people just do not have vast amounts of time to invest and if something comes to interupt what they did have, well you get the picture.

[StrejdaTom]

This game will die one day as every other MMO, but this isnt going to happen in a few years. If you are looking for a game which you will be able to play for 60 years untill you go blind or die, I am afraid that this isnt the right game for you.

Dying looks like Wildstar or TERA, Aion. Not like this (dont know exact number, just lets say like 30% of community went on break before patch or left, which is normal, every MMO loses players after a few months).

[Yukiko]

For those wondering what’s been going on, I’d actually stopped playing FFXIV back in June/July, (still have time left on sub though, so I’ve hopped back on a couple of times since then). I’d played too much and run out of stuff that was fun for me to do. Technically, there was still a lot for me to do, but I just didn’t find them very entertaining. I just didn’t agree with the decisions behind much of the new content released. I haven’t exactly been quiet about them either. Strongest defense made for them was, “THEY’RE OPTIONAL, so just don’t do them.” I hated this argument; mainly because of how true it was.

I loved FFXIV, and wanted to keep playing. But I couldn’t find the fun in the RNG grind, the constant wiping to a single player’s mistakes, and just the general latency-induced headaches. When you think about it, everything at endgame optional, isn’t it? Aside from the main scenario and getting a battle job to 50, you don’t really have to do anything else if you didn’t want to. I love getting gear as much as everyone else; I loved the idea of the relic weapon and wanted it. I just couldn’t deal with all of the time-wasting that came with it. I realized that I had better things to do in my gaming time than to kill low level monsters repeatedly and stand in a single spot for hours on end waiting for something to happen so I could start playing the game I wanted to play, so I stopped.

I decided that I’d start playing and writing the comic again if they ever released anything that piqued my interest again. Hence, the “hiatus”. They never really did. I came back for Syrcus Tower, MSQ and Ramuh for a week or two, but that’s about it.

Now, why was “hiatus” in quotes? Well, at the start of May, I got accepted to a very intensive entertainment design school that begins in October. This put a hard cap on how long I’d be able to do the comic for. By the time I announced the hiatus, I already knew the comic would stop for sure in October, but I didn’t want to officially stop it before then. And now, 3 weeks before class starts and my subscription expires, X|V Nomnom! is ending its run.

We made it to comic #35! It was my first attempt at making comics on a regular basis, and persons who are not my mom actually liked it?! Having people actually enjoy what you do is about 95% of what a creative could ever hope for (the other 5% is self-fulfillment). Running into fans during instance runs always made my day. I’d met so many wonderful people in-game on Excalibur, created the most awesome community I’d ever had in any MMO, and even started gaming with some of them outside of FFXIV. All-in-all, it was the best.

So, here’s a very heartfelt THANK YOU for your support and kindness, whether they be in the encouraging comments you’ve left or donations and tips you gave. You’ve helped make this year a very special one for me.

Much love, all the best, and thanks for reading.

-bchart, Omn Nomnom

Sad, lets hope she will come back one day...
Hope never dies, I liked her comics. Here the last one so far (it was before they fixed B-Ranks):

[Delsus]

Unfortunately, as a player returning from a long break, I believe the player base has dwindled down from my observations so far.

Time in ques(tank), Twitch viewers, etc., all small clues that can give insight into how the game's population is doing. Hopefully, subscription numbers don't dip down to the point that they consider F2P.

Just FYI, when the game does eventually die (it happens with them all eventually) Yoshida has said on multiple occasions he will close the game down before he considers F2P.

[Zaiken]

It already died once, that's why it is now call A Realm Reborn. It can't died anymore. Because you can only be Reborn once.

[NovaUltimatum]

Yoshida has said on multiple occasions he will close the game down before he considers F2P.

I remember reading that as well, since then though I saw something else:

It could be a positive change for a game to move from subscription based to F2P as long as the change is based on the users' needs rather than trying to turn an unprofitable game around.

If there's an impression that I'm determined to stick to a subscription service, that's a mistake.

Source = http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/120...=1#post6061123