Do they take us for granted?

[Warlyx]

SE knows , Final Fantasy XI is the most profitable in the franchise....why? 10 years , subs , expansions and what not....

the point is that how many u can save and still keep getting ppl to pay (as examples? look at wow , WoD has been void of content since release outside Raids and the new island ) is no wonder they lost 5M~ of players in that time....now the question is if putting all this devs to work and create content is more profitable than doing nothing and still keep the others 5M of players...

Is a risk , use resources in creating content and keep the actual playerbase and maybe gain more? or do the min and try your luck....half the playerbase gone? oh...we still have 5M of players paying while the cost is at min (servers maint)

The main issue with mmorpgs is that losing a player is that u probably lose it forever....

[DPZ2]

The main issue with mmorpgs is that losing a player is that u probably lose it forever....

From personal experience I don't believe that is true. WoW lost my current subscription, but will get it back once the next expansion comes out. SWTOR lost my subscription after six months (2012), but I've started it back up recently, even though it is F2P. WildStar lost my subscription because of 'lack of story'. When it went F2P I started up again, did not subscribe. Rinse. Lather. Repeat.

The thing is, people get bored of doing the same thing. An MMORPG is really only the same thing -- it's the nature of the game genre. Once story time is over, grind time begins. Can't do much to change that ... although another poster on the forums did give me an intriguing idea about a story-driven MOBA ...

[BreathlessTao]

I have been wondering about this too. I don't know, and I guess we shall never know, if it is a case of "taking us for granted", or rather a "no actual grasp of the situation", as far as the suits up top are concerned. But they sure as hell keep milking us for more and more money, in worse and worse ways as time goes by - money that the project known as FFXIV apparently needs, money that it apparently doesn't seem to get. I mean ok, I understand, 1.0 was a disaster - but it's been more than two years since the launch of 2.0, and despite that we keep hearing the same excuses of why things can't be done, all of which ultimately boil down to money.

I don't know the situation when it comes to the Japanese servers. But quite frankly, I don't even care: "it's home" should not be an accepted reason for anything at this point. Not when the game is as international as it is, translated localised to multiple languages, available all over the world (even in some more special countries), enjoying success all over the world, having a completely global and international playerbase - no, at this point, "it's home" should not even be a bad excuse, much less an accepted reason. What I do know, one thing that I do know and can say: take a look at how we, on non-JP servers, have been suffering from quite consistently excessive RMT activity basically since the launch, RMT actitivity we all know can't be wiped altogether, but RMT activity we know could be made bearable. Take a look at how we have made dozens of threads with hundreds (if not thousands) of posts in those, giving all the suggestions we could think of (I'm willing to bet we completely depleted the pool of "potential anti-RMT tools"), time and time again. And here we are, more than two years later, and still none of it is implemented. From what we hear, there is no RMT issue on Japanese servers. You do the math - even without a penchant for conspiracy theories, the dots here are all too easy to connect, imo. This is definitely one of several things that makes me feel like we're taken for granted.
Another thing is: take a look at all the recycled/rehashed content. They started doing it like half a year after launch - from what I hear, WoW didn't do that for 7 years? But never even mind that. Just take the most recent example, this absurd and nonsensical monstrosity that is called Anima Weapon. Practically "zero-effort" content, and even this was how many months late?? It's outrageous. And this isn't even the only example for "zero-effort" or very late or "much too little much too late" content. They keep repeating.

But you know, at the same time, I can't even really blame them. I can't blame them when we keep eating everything they shove in our faces. Think of what I just described above, and think of all else I'm sure you can think of that just went in the "this stinks" drawer. There is more than enough to fill it, I'm sure; personally, my biggest file in there is titled "housing".
Considered all the gripes? Good. Now take a look at the forums (based on English, that's what I understand personally).
Here we are, most every thread at one point or another, usually more, getting hijacked and derailed into petty squabbles, personal disputes, things that really don't have anything to do with the game itself.
Here we are, with the "it's all optional" attitude, with the "if you don't like it, don't do it" attitude, with the "i'm enjoying it / i got lucky with it, so i don't care" attitude, letting important core issues, main points get lost in all this.
Here we are coming up with excuses like "did you see how tired he was?" for them; concerning ourselves over their wellbeing - I don't mean to sound rude, but what the hell? Are we all like a giant big family, because last time I checked, most of us here are complete strangers to each other?? Or do you concern yourself over a random stranger that falls asleep on a train late in the evening on the way home because they're so tired, do you suggest them to take a break and go on a vacation??? Yeah, I didn't think so. Yet for some reason it seems to be a "thing" around here. I'm sorry, but none of this is any of our business. It was a bad thing for them to mention whichever exact bit of this they mentioned the first time even as a joke, to begin with. We're customers, we are paying for a product/service - it's their job to deliver that, it's their job to figure out how to deliver it in an acceptable way. I get that most of us are (still?) passionate about this game and want it to do well and want the devs get the recognition and rewards of a good job, but come on. Some people have gone way overboard with that.
Here we are being so extremely apologetic for them, towards them, as if we're in the wrong, accepting every excuse, every reasoning, no matter how nonsensical it is. Because instead of that, we get caught up in the idiocies mentioned above.

Yeah, I can't blame them for taking us for granted. We keep throwing our money at them, despite getting so many very basic things that are just not good in one way or another; despite ridiculous excuses; despite completely absurd concepts - despite everything. Some of the stuff by now, I'm sad to say, is just outright disrespectful towards us - as players, as paying customers, as a community they claim to consider oh-so-important. At the same time though, on a certain level, I do feel bad for Yoshi&co, from everything they do, the interviews, the events, the livestreams, it's very clear that they are involved and they are passionate and they do live and breathe the game... But yeah, those above? I'm just not sure what to think of them.
And on a sidenote, I do blame media outlets as well. You know, big sites (smaller ones too, dw), for example IGN, when they report things like yet another oh-such-success for SE and yet more profit for them, or things like GASP Destiny servers going down for maintenance - and never anything about any of the issues, some of which are indeed big and glaring, that we do get more than disgruntled and pissed off about (have been for months and longer). But I guess we only have ourselves to blame for that too, considering we really can't unite against anything (see above). Even though I'm sure everyone's aware what kind of miracles a little negative media feedback can achieve.

It might just be that we're outright taken for granted. But if so, the blame is not with them - or at the very least, definitely not entirely with them.

[Kumori_Kumo]

snip

Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't put it quite the same way, but essentially I agree. I think the suits up top are squandering the good will that Yoshi P and company are working so hard to gain. Nothing else makes sense at this point- unless the devs got some kind of amnesia, a lot of their decisions have got to boil down to "we just didn't have enough time/money/people." Why else would they repeat a relic step that had such bad optics? Why else would so much of the content come off as disjointed and unequal in reward versus effort? It's not even that it's necessarily the worst ever, just that... it was acknowledged, so it really narrows the reasoning.