Quote Originally Posted by ToniRomo View Post
WoW started giving legendaries to everyone two expansions ago. MMOs aren't made for the hardcore crowd anymore because that crowd is not large enough. Players got older (work/families/etc) and the newer people coming into the genre don't want to do those hardcore grinds. Your FFXI glory days are over.
Well,

1) MMOs gonna be for the hardcore crowd, always; offline games are not enough for those players who just want more.
2) Hardcore and hardcore grinds are two different things; actually the only grind we have is this game with extremely boring dailies, weekly clears, beast tribe quests and relics.
3) Fans and hardcore players are those who will sub forever if the game gives what they want, casuals gonna jump around on patch day for few weeks and then freezing their accounts.

'My' FFXI was one of the greatest MMORPG ever, same goes for WoW in their golden age.
New or old generation doesn't matter, a FF signed by Hironobu Sakaguchi gonna be better than Motomu Toriyama games. Bravely Default's numbers (a classic jRPG) moved Square-Enix (thanks to the new CEO) into the old way already (Link), that's why I am Setsuna is coming and I hope the new wind gonna involve FFXIV: ARR as well. If Tanaka can get close again to the game we'll start to see something different (or we just need to wait for the next MMORPG by SE), I really have no faith in this team unless Yoshi-P gets the Squaresoft's core around him.

In a nutshell;
Final Fantasy XI Online was a classic Final Fantasy in an online world, ARR is just a post-WoW pattern MMO with 1/20 of its content and with FF references.