Quote Originally Posted by Dfess View Post
Except you're wrong. The story isn't the pull for this game. The title is. Also, I accept that FFXIV is what it is but, it needs to change. What they have now is not sustainable in the market we have today. The only people who will continue playing are whales and hardcore fans. No new player is going to drop $60 on a game and then another $60 when they find out the game is locked behind a massive story. My friends quit because they couldn't jump into dungeons right away. Sure they are just a few people but they are the average mmo players. People like that don't stick around if they can't do what they want to do and are told they have to do it this way unless they are a massive fan of the franchise already.
Except I'm not wrong. The story is the pull for the game. I see new players all the time going "a friend told me this game has a great story so I decided to try it out". I see streamers who used to play other games, including WoW, say they decided to try FFXIV because some of their viewers recommended it for the story.

Just because it wasn't a pull for you doesn't mean it wasn't the pull for the majority of others.

What they have is completely sustainable. It's so sustainable that the active player base is almost double what it had been at the start of Stormblood. MMOs don't need the mega millions WoW had when WoW was at its best (and no longer has itself) to be sustainable.

Again, it's not sustainable to you because it's not what you want. It's still been working out great for what SE wants.

Stop thinking everyone wants only what you want because it's just not true. There's no game on the market that will satisfy everyone who plays games, nor is this game trying to be one.