World of Warcraft died because the developers only catered to casuals and world prog

[Ghost_of_Ebina]

Wow died? It has one of the largest number of players in the world.
What exactly is the definition of "died" in such cases?
If something is easily and carelessly labeled as "dead" when they lose just a nanometer of enthusiasm, you are living a life with no problems.

[DPZ2]

At a guess, when you drop from 12 million active subscribers to a million or so active subscribers, a game is considered "dead", regardless of the fact that a million active subscribers has only been a dream for many MMORPGs through the years. A lot of those MMORPGs are still making money, mind you, with less than a million active subscribers. Many continue to do so over decades ...

[Mcg55ss]

As someone who played WoW from 2005-2022 the problem wasn\\'t any of those things. Problem was blizzard for some reason started pushing towards trying make it so you "bring the player not the class" at all levels which is absurd given Blizzard\\'s history of balance. There is always something dead AF and something borderline broken in the game and high end players always stack that. Ignorant mid-core see that and think "oh you only can clear this if you have X amount of warlocks or w.e. Casual didn\\'t care cuz...well they were casual working to just get AOTC is a challenge. Blizzard also became more focused on it\\'s eSports MDI over it\\'s casual community as well, take this and the still unbalanced flex raiding at some breakpoints (like 10m still being either insanely easy or near unkillable) and you got current state of WoW. If WoW was geared towards casual they the death of 10m raids would never happened in fact in all reality 20m raids would been one to die because in fact it had less people raiding in it. Most people who have came to 14 over WoW are the casual community not mid-core because of how it handles things like tribals rep grind and such and if 14 would invest more in pvp it probably could easily secure that community as well (because let\\'s face it blizzard ignores them completely).
Now you say you have problem with it catering to casual players yet casual players probably make up WAY WAY larger % of player base most HC -sHC so on will consume content at high rate and stop playing per normal and nothing ANY developer can do will stop that, If you know NEW WoW players that quit after one tier and are NEW at the game that\\'s kinda on them because and they would do the same with WoW consume 1 tier then quit and if they are new that\\'s just their problem as there is tons they haven\\'t even touched probably in the game they could easily go and enjoy but choose not to.
You say FFXIV loses 50% players between expansions and that\\'s bigger is hilarious meanwhile I have been in WoW expansion that lost that many or more in the first 6 months of a expansions releasing so please kid. Anyone remember WoD

[Renathras]

...people couldn't fathom the thought that WoW could be getting worse.

This is laughably untrue.

EVERY TIME a new competitor came on the scene, rumbles and rumors of "The WoW Killer" and as time went on "THIS time for sure/This time it's different, guys!"

People complained about homogenization, about button bloat, about button pruning, about how the game's best days were behind it (that started as far back as Wrath), and so on and so forth. Each new expansion brought new controversy - "Content's too easy!" "Now content is too hard!", "Kung fu panda?!", "Snorlords of Drowsmore!", "This game is only for Raiders!", "This game is only for dirty casuals!", and on and on it went - and still does. The great irony to me is that WoW's decline hasn't even come from its systems, it's come from irl PR disasters.

WoW was the only game (relatively speaking) in town back when there were few alternatives and it had the vast lion's share of the MMO playerbase. Consequently its troughs were shallower vs its playerbase. When you have 10 million players, 3 million quitting is less than a 3rd vs if you have 2 million players, 3 million quitting would leave you at negative 50% and be a loss of 150%.

FFXIV is not a perfect game - no game is - and they've made decisions I think are bad for the game - like not having an Exploration Zone or any grindy new content to jump in and out working on during downtime or late patch droughts (e.g. ARR/HW Relics OR SB/ShB Exploration Zones), and that shortage of content isn't made up by Criterion (premade) and Deep (premade) Dungeons that don't have the pickup group mentality of Eureka/Bozja or EVEN of ARR/HW Relic grinds, and Island Sanctuary isn't even on the same plane - it's more on the playing field of Ishgard Restoration...which was ALSO better, more pick up/grind in downtime compatible and felt like a big community effort!

But despite all that, I don't think FFXIV is doomed or any of that other nonsense. And plenty of people ARE talking about it. For all the people insisting this community pounce on any criticism of the game, that's not true at all. They don't like hysterical doomsaying or meanspirited attacks on the community of the Devs - if you make a critique and simultaneously bash the community as intolerant, the community is going to be antagonistic...because you did that SECOND part - but it seems to generally respond well to rational critique in neutral tone with workable suggestions. And I think the Devs likely do as well, they're just bad at communicating that.

[hunkygladiator]

This is laughably untrue.

EVERY TIME a new competitor came on the scene, rumbles and rumors of "The WoW Killer" and as time went on "THIS time for sure/This time it's different, guys!"

People complained about homogenization, about button bloat, about button pruning, about how the game's best days were behind it (that started as far back as Wrath), and so on and so forth. Each new expansion brought new controversy - "Content's too easy!" "Now content is too hard!", "Kung fu panda?!", "Snorlords of Drowsmore!", "This game is only for Raiders!", "This game is only for dirty casuals!", and on and on it went - and still does. The great irony to me is that WoW's decline hasn't even come from its systems, it's come from irl PR disasters.

WoW was the only game (relatively speaking) in town back when there were few alternatives and it had the vast lion's share of the MMO playerbase. Consequently its troughs were shallower vs its playerbase. When you have 10 million players, 3 million quitting is less than a 3rd vs if you have 2 million players, 3 million quitting would leave you at negative 50% and be a loss of 150%.

FFXIV is not a perfect game - no game is - and they've made decisions I think are bad for the game - like not having an Exploration Zone or any grindy new content to jump in and out working on during downtime or late patch droughts (e.g. ARR/HW Relics OR SB/ShB Exploration Zones), and that shortage of content isn't made up by Criterion (premade) and Deep (premade) Dungeons that don't have the pickup group mentality of Eureka/Bozja or EVEN of ARR/HW Relic grinds, and Island Sanctuary isn't even on the same plane - it's more on the playing field of Ishgard Restoration...which was ALSO better, more pick up/grind in downtime compatible and felt like a big community effort!

But despite all that, I don't think FFXIV is doomed or any of that other nonsense. And plenty of people ARE talking about it. For all the people insisting this community pounce on any criticism of the game, that's not true at all. They don't like hysterical doomsaying or meanspirited attacks on the community of the Devs - if you make a critique and simultaneously bash the community as intolerant, the community is going to be antagonistic...because you did that SECOND part - but it seems to generally respond well to rational critique in neutral tone with workable suggestions. And I think the Devs likely do as well, they're just bad at communicating that.

lmao you honestly sound like your avatar

[Denji]

wow died because you had to write a goddang resume to do any endgame content and nobody wanted a 2nd job where some dude with a mouth full of chips screamed into his mic because your DPS was 1% below average after you spent 40 minutes having a plugin tell you to run away and that you're a little girl.

[Renathras]

lmao you honestly sound like your avatar

...? o.O

Not...sure what to make of that...

[angienessyo]

Man, I can't believe in 2023 I'm sitting here agreeing with an old Skiros post. I was even one of those people that told him to go play other things and I can finally admit I was wrong for brushing off his criticisms. This is the exact way I feel about the game at the moment. The death of midcore has really sucked. The funny thing is I recently saw a WoW post about the way they're doing gear in Dragonflight and I was like "wow, Blizzard is doing something 14 should do, would be nice to upgrade my gear by playing instead of fighting 7 other people for a twine/glaze for months because Yoshi P wants gearing up to take forever".

[Alleluia]

Wow died? It has one of the largest number of players in the world.
What exactly is the definition of "died" in such cases?
If something is easily and carelessly labeled as "dead" when they lose just a nanometer of enthusiasm, you are living a life with no problems.

WoW dead. Final Fantasy dead. Guild Wars inherits the earth.

[Velvet_Lunarfang]

FFXIV since ARR has been 90%+ casual focused... and the game has been booming lately. Honestly the more things are simplified and content is streamlined the more popular the game is becoming.

To be honest I feel the vast majority of MMO players fall in the casual to very casual range and this game is designed for those players. It is not designed for mid cores or hardcore players in any way. Is there some challenging stuff... yes. But it is optional and more or less separate from the primary game.

FFXIV is a mmo for those who want to play a casual experience, in my opinion a MMO-Lite style game. This game is designed so you are not required to do anything, you are not punished for taking breaks, and you do not need to make spreadsheets to optimize your character. Progression is simplified, jobs are simplified, crafting/gathering/economy is simplified. Crafting is seperate from endgame more or less. PvP is separate from PvE. Raiding outside savage and ultimate are designed for easy clears without much prior knowledge, group coordination, and extremely rewarding in terms of gear distribution.

And Since the beginning this has been Yoshida's vision of the perfect mmo and he has not deviated at all from it. So I would not expect the game to change at all. Especially with the success it is seeing.

Now I won't say booming XD. I'm on Maduin and it is still quiet so I wouldn't say it's booming.