The difference a night makes. I was really thrilled with the way ARR looked to me as a free trial. Had I waited just 12 hours before actually purchasing, I would have chosen to move on. It wasn't until just after I bought the game that I was in Camp Drybone and for 15 minutes watched an endless stream of bots hitting up the MSQ NPC and moving on.

For a company that chose to completely re-make a game from the ground up after a disaster of a launch years ago, with all the talk of dedication to the game and the players, it seems like they have fallen back into the same mind set that got them in trouble in the first place. There are smaller companies that run free to play games that have bot issues under control.

It's also discouraging to see talk of the crafting-market bot combinations as well. FFXIV has some amazing detail. A stunning world, peppered with quality of life things that I haven't seen in a very long time. Now I understand why so many people just focus on DoW or DoM jobs/classes. DoL and DoH are rendered useless by the bots, and with the amount of gil you pick up with battle related quests, you're never lacking gil to buy anything you might want. If I craft something and want to sell it, but have to deal with another person undercutting me, that's how economies work. If I have to deal with marketbots that automatically update prices etc., there are other games I can get plenty of that in without a monthly fee.

The story is good, but I'm not seeing much incentive to buy anything beyond the base game at this point, nor to keep a sub active beyond the level cap in ARR.