I just don't get it.

[karateorangutang]

The real irony for me, personally... Is that when 1.0 came out, I thought it was beyond absolute garbage. Now after the same thing over and over, I'm missing a lot of aspects from it. Anything at this point. I'll go back to the ffxi unholy traveling and grinding. The camping nm's against other parties. The average monster kicking my butt but I'm at the same level. ANYTHING but another tome or endgame content that simply has a boss with mechanics and that's it.

This is the huge divide between players though. The unholy travel and grinding is what made XI such a "hardcore" game. Now, back in the early 2000's I was very appreciative of that game. You worked and grinded hard for anything you wanted. The problem now is that MMO's have changed, and they've had to change. That type of game that requires huge amounts of grinding and large team play would have a much harder time surviving now. Mobile gaming, games that have easier difficulties, and overall shorter games are more wanted now. Our society has changed to one of greater instant satisfaction and game developers have to be able to roll with the punches.

With all that said, if this would somehow turn into the grindfest that was FFXI, (which I have fond memories of to this day) then I would buy into another game and that would mean another company as well. Square cannot change this model at this point, because to do so would mean the loss of players.

The large difference is that we have a player base that this game is their main form of entertainment. We also have a player base that this is a secondary or even tertiary (myself) form of entertainment. It is impossible to please both groups in a single game.

That being said, there are alot more private developers now that are willing to make these types of games out of sheer nostalgia. Maybe players like yourself could get together and help fund one of these?

[Waliel]

So the core of the problem is that you know when new stuff is coming? That's a new one. I personally find that better than not knowing when and how devs decide to patch their game. Or is it about how this game is vertical and not horizontal?

Really cause last time I checked it had similarities that many mmos have. The two that come to mind is player to player trading and the fact the game had a server wide chat room for putting together farms, loot and special crafts. Diablo is a hybrid dungeon crawler mmo which is almost what XIV is, take away everyone sitting around Idyllshire and you're basically playing Diablo.

FFXIV is not an MMO as it lacks a global public chat channel. Technically you could say that Warcraft 3 is an MMO, because it has the same battle.net lobby system and you can trade resources between players in-game. There's nothing massive about Diablo, and I also find it really hard to call it a dungeon crawler.

The unholy travel and grinding is what made XI such a "hardcore" game. Now, back in the early 2000's I was very appreciative of that game. You worked and grinded hard for anything you wanted.

I find it quite interesting that I don't mind grinding in a single player RPGs, but absolutely loathe it in MMOs.