Think the game will succeed?

[Ava]

How old might you be? Since a lot of older gamer does remember the video game crash because the industry was basically stagnated to the point it wasn't worth even producing consoles/games (basically, no real market in it.)

When I say the genre is dying, it's because nothing new is really coming into it, because people only want to play "standard" MMOs, you can't be standard and unique, since if all you're doing is copying a previous MMO and adding a new feature, that's not necessarily new and unique, it's just doing one thing different that doesn't really stand you apart, for example if Rift didn't have Rift content and it's skill growth/management style, it would be just another complete WoW clone. Doing something different for example, is like FFXI/XIV did, while XIV could have done it so much better, it wasn't the same style MMO you constantly played.

FFXI was inspired by EQ but they took it a very different route which people either ended up loving or hating.

I'm old enough to not want to share my age with random strangers and unless you're talking like way back pre xbox days, then I seriously don't know what you're talking about. Gaming has been growing quite rapidly in the last several years and when we're talking about MMORPGs, that's all that really matters since the genre is fairly new when looking at gaming as a whole.

The genre is not dying, there are new things coming in constantly. Rift was a major hit compared to most MMOs in the past. You know why? Because it was both standard and unique. I am so glad you used Rift as an example because it fits what I am trying to say perfectly. Rift took everything standard (UI, AH, Accessibility, Jump, Graphics, Easy Loot, etc), added the "Rift" uniqueness (Rifts, new storytelling, new class system) and people love(d) it. SWTOR is doing the exact same thing, and will also be successful.

I am not trying to say FFXIV should clone anything. On the contrary, for the love of all things that are good, they better not clone anything. But they need to make the game recognizable/accessible to new players, which means conforming to standards. Once they are meeting the standards that have been set by other MMOs (I wont claim WoW set them all, EQ did some as well, but I think even Rift helped solidify them as "standard"), they can start adding their flavor, their "rifts", their "heroics", their "warzones", their "companions", etc.

People can't keep thinking it's either unique OR standard. Using Yoshi-P's own analogy, MMORPGs are like amusement parks. You can have Roller-coasters, tilt-a-whirls, bumper cars, and ferris wheels just like every other theme park, but to attract people to your park you need the uniqueness. But without the standard theme park attractions, you don't have a theme park, you have something that's almost a theme park, that only some people might like because most will be too afraid to spend their money to try it because it's different. You need to be both.

e: Saw your link edit with the 1983 gaming crash and I don't see why that is even remotely relevant to anything being discussed. So, ok there was a crash, but really? Citing something that happened in 83 (before computers were even used) in a debate about MMORPGs is really grasping at straws.