Quote Originally Posted by Mirh View Post
Once the game starts costing money I think the amount of people wanting a mediocre experience in content will drop. I REALLY hate to say it, but it's obvious most people who have played FFXIV during this time were here for the graphics and free play, not out of loyalty or interest. There are lots of fun MMOs out there, and if you're playing an MMO for a story/content, you don't skip it. It's just not logical.
Yes I agree that you don't "skip" a story if that's what you're after. When I was leveling my first 50, I did it entirely in "legit" groups. I had zero PL parties and I still "skiped" the content. At 50 I was able to do all of the story quests and switch to lower level classes, (that got powerleveld at times) and turn those in for the exp rewards. Regardless of having the option to powerlevel or not people can still enjoy content and story. It's illogical to remove a game style or leveling process because someone else doesn't agree with it.

Quote Originally Posted by Mirh
I'm not going to argue with your point - it is valid - but you have to understand how incredibly stubborn and devoted the secondary group is. The former group may bring in the cash, but the latter is where you will be gauranteed to keep recieving that cash. The trick isn't to absolutely, under any circumstance, please the first group only, but to trick you guys into throwing money at the game to keep funds up (Through patches that promise a better game - like how WoW does, and any of us who like WoW know how potent this is) while the more reliable, stubborn group plants down and stays under even the most harsh of circumstances - that is, once you prove, as a company, you care about us, too.

Hmm, which would explain why Yoshida mainly focuses on appealing to the non-loyal-FFXI potentials. How interesting.
Since you brought the subject of WoW. Yes Blizzard seems to be catering to less "hardcore" players recently. It is extremely easy to level to cap, run a few dungeons and get full epic gear. That is one of the reasons they lost so many people during WotLK and Cataclysm. Why would they continue to do this if they are losing people? Because the people that enjoy the quicker access to content (via fast leveling) and perhaps even the ease of access to epic gear (although not top tier) outweigh "the incredibly stubborn and devoted secondary group."

Both Blizzard and SE are major companies in a very competitive industry. They are going to make decisions based on profit margins a lot. Also SE is trying to erase the taint that the original ffxiv launch brought the company, and probably the best way to do so is to make the game succeed by doing similar things that wow did (in terms of time spent leveling vs time spent on end game content) to gain a larger number of subscribers. The largest part of MMOs is the endgame content, that's why new patches add END GAME CONTENT.

More people playing tells reviewers that the game is more successful and if they enjoy the game as well the game will receive even better reviews and bring in even more people to play and pay. They probably also see this "incredibly stubborn and devoted secondary group" and know they will stick with the game through "the good and bad". You said "trick you guys into throwing money at the game to keep funds up" well guess what, that's easier done to the "loyal" people who have been here for forever and a day because they want the game to "succeed". The game will succeed when more people are playing the game, not just the devoted few.