Quote Originally Posted by Puremallace View Post
Some prime examples for FF14 are Diadem, Deep Dungeons and Blue Mage. Now Square Enix has walked a fine line here of making all of these things optional but it is worth it to be educated about this topic.
I think the nature of an MMO is that a lot of previous expansion content will be "parasitic", if all you are expecting is that they maintain current relevancy.

However, I am of the opinion that the examples you point out are not *that* parasitic. Diadem attempts to make gathering and crafting--literally half the core gameplay--more engaging, and is still useful for leveling crafting classes for all the benefits those provide. And Deep Dungeon and Blue Mage provide differently playstyles outside of the core gameplay, similar to the Feast, Frontline, and Rival Wings. Given that the glamours, emotes, mounts, etc., many of which are highly appealing, maintain their value in a very visual/social game, it's clear why players still engage with them. And as for whether they are still "relevant", I would argue that at least Deep Dungeons and Blue Mage got expansions on their respective content. Perhaps the concepts were too limited to sustain larger, longer-term design, but they *were* fleshed out.