What do you think will happen to a failed data center?

[AwesomeJr44]

Is it dead and buried and we should give up?

Yes. Anyone who still thinks Materia wasn't a failure is coping hard.

[caffe_macchiato]

Truth to be told, it's not just OCE. Every worlds out there have been shedding players since Endwalker release, and have continued to do so even with new patch releases.

I feel that with the FFXIV has peaked at Endwalker with the conclusion of the Hydaelyn-Zodiark arc (one can draw parallels to the release of Wrath of the Lich King back in 2008 for WoW) and it's just downhill from now onwards, which makes the release of new data centers and worlds even more confusing as it's just going to split the already declining player base even further.

The content lull gives people time to play better video games. Therefore, by giving us time to play them, FFXIV is actually doing a good thing by having a content lull. This is by design. This is how the game was meant to be. I don't want to play FFXIV all day, I want to play something that's actually good. Thank you, Yoshida. My shrinking backlog of games thanks you. My WoW toon thanks you. My Pokédex thanks you. This 100-minute queue in Dynamis has really added a lot to my life.

[Iscah]

The content lull gives people time to play better video games. Therefore, by giving us time to play them, FFXIV is actually doing a good thing by having a content lull. This is by design. This is how the game was meant to be. I don't want to play FFXIV all day, I want to play something that's actually good. Thank you, Yoshida. My shrinking backlog of games thanks you. My WoW toon thanks you. My Pokédex thanks you. This 100-minute queue in Dynamis has really added a lot to my life.

There is indeed nothing stopping you from playing other games if you feel the need to be so sarcastic about this one.

[Shibi]

Yes. Anyone who still thinks Materia wasn't a failure is coping hard.

That opinion does spread to the smaller NA dc too. Dynamis is an absolute failure, to the point that it really won't warrant the other 4 new Dynamis servers for 7.0.

Whichever way you slice it a few things happened here:

* SE were caught fair and square with their pants down when the communitites grassroots push + Blizzard's toxic women problems hit. 6.0 was a disaster any way you look at it.
* SE royally screwed the pooch with Materia's release with the 6 month delay to housing - the community fractured as a result.
* SE continues to screw that well-screwed pooch by not giving Materia DC travel because Japan would be offended or whatever bull reason they spin.
* SE is sucking hard on copium to think NA needed another 8 servers. Dynamis is a dead duck with 4, and will only get worse with 8.

The game is now past that peak the community - and Blizz Toxicity - created in December and now well on the long tail.

[Oizen]

Pretty much this.

Unless someone is a roleplayer, prepping for 6.3 or going through MSQ for the first time/again on an alt, they're most likely not playing right now and haven't been since 6.2/6.25 launch. I think a lot underestimate how many play strictly for story and then dip out till the next story-related patch launches. Low pop is always a thing, especially if the patches themselves aren't giving enough content to keep all playstyles engaged for months at a time.

A lot of 6.x content has been pretty lacking in terms of longevity.

Ishgard Housing? Gone in a second.
Crystaline Conflict? PVP isn't for everyone, and there are far better PVP games out there for this expierence. Its fine but its gotten kinda stale and the frequent balance issues with it sorta makes it drag.
Island Sanctuary? Boring, Disappointing grind. Get to max level, get the mount you want and drop it. Probably the biggest failure of Endwalker so far, and SE missing the mark entirely. No one even talks about it anymore. Why can you visit each others islands if there's no customization or activities to do as a group?
Variant Dungeons? You do it 12 times if you want the mount, 1 time if you dont, the skills are boring compared to systems we had already for Bozja or Eureka. Neat story telling but you'll finish this content in a week.
Criterion Dungeon? Kinda got sabatoged by its rewards being so lackluster people don't care. I don't actually mind this content, I enjoyed the fights quite a bit, but they're still just 3 mini bosses.
Criterion Savage? Same as before except now its more punishing, not even an extra boss fight or more mechanics, just more punishing because it is.

Everything else is the typical copy paste that we always see, I enjoy grinding out savage tiers, and beast tribes can give a good story, but they're not exciting or new, they're the same formula this game has done for years. Square Enix doesn't take risks and it shows.

Hoping the Deep Dungeon in 6.3 delivers in being interesting content Endwalker, and not just the HoH framework copied and pasted to a T. But I'm not holding my breath.

[Edelgarde]

That opinion does spread to the smaller NA dc too. Dynamis is an absolute failure, to the point that it really won't warrant the other 4 new Dynamis servers for 7.0.

Whichever way you slice it a few things happened here:

* SE were caught fair and square with their pants down when the communitites grassroots push + Blizzard's toxic women problems hit. 6.0 was a disaster any way you look at it.
* SE royally screwed the pooch with Materia's release with the 6 month delay to housing - the community fractured as a result.
* SE continues to screw that well-screwed pooch by not giving Materia DC travel because Japan would be offended or whatever bull reason they spin.
* SE is sucking hard on copium to think NA needed another 8 servers. Dynamis is a dead duck with 4, and will only get worse with 8.

The game is now past that peak the community - and Blizz Toxicity - created in December and now well on the long tail.

Not that it matters much, but it was a 3 and a half months of house delay for Materia housing. That's still a long time though for everyone in OCE to be homeless. I remember I did make a complaint that they should of opened up a few wards, and open up the rest when 6.1 releases.

But yeah. The game is passed its peak and a good majority have moved on. Materia was not even suppose to be released on January, and it was definitely a rushed release to fix the congestion issues with NA and JP data centers. They should of not done it during the time people were trying to clear the raid tier. It was awfully planned. If they wanted to release more data centers and worlds, they should of done it during X.5. It's during the time where we get back a lot of the casual players who are anticipating the next expansion as well.

[AnnRam]

A lot of 6.x content has been pretty lacking in terms of longevity.

Ishgard Housing? Gone in a second.
Crystaline Conflict? PVP isn't for everyone, and there are far better PVP games out there for this expierence. Its fine but its gotten kinda stale and the frequent balance issues with it sorta makes it drag.
Island Sanctuary? Boring, Disappointing grind. Get to max level, get the mount you want and drop it. Probably the biggest failure of Endwalker so far, and SE missing the mark entirely. No one even talks about it anymore. Why can you visit each others islands if there's no customization or activities to do as a group?
Variant Dungeons? You do it 12 times if you want the mount, 1 time if you dont, the skills are boring compared to systems we had already for Bozja or Eureka. Neat story telling but you'll finish this content in a week.
Criterion Dungeon? Kinda got sabatoged by its rewards being so lackluster people don't care. I don't actually mind this content, I enjoyed the fights quite a bit, but they're still just 3 mini bosses.
Criterion Savage? Same as before except now its more punishing, not even an extra boss fight or more mechanics, just more punishing because it is.

Everything else is the typical copy paste that we always see, I enjoy grinding out savage tiers, and beast tribes can give a good story, but they're not exciting or new, they're the same formula this game has done for years. Square Enix doesn't take risks and it shows.

Hoping the Deep Dungeon in 6.3 delivers in being interesting content Endwalker, and not just the HoH framework copied and pasted to a T. But I'm not holding my breath.

The problem with FFXIV its that nothing actually matters because a casual player who barely touch the game on the next patch will have the same power level than you, everything you do per patch its meaningless.
I mean why even bother farming tomes when green items from dungeons or previous tomes gives you gear enough to complete everything without that much difference.

For the second time I'm skipping relic weapons too I mean why even bother? the last one demanded dunno how many runs of the most boring raid ever (CT). SE ran out of ideas years ago, instead of working on world building(major cities haven't chance since ARR .. 10 years ago) , a real progression system etc.. I mean we got to the point that even the gils doesn't matter there is nothing to with them besides buying items for a house that you likely never going to have.

[Osteichthyes]

The biggest tell for how things will go will be how the MSQ progresses into 7.0. If there's even half as much interest as during 6.0 then the servers will be quite needed, however, if there isn't then the servers are going to be a massive hinderance, and might eventually cause the playerbase to become too diluted. Apparently, something really big is coming in the coming patches so it could go either way.

Not an easy position to be in, and one that I am glad that I do not have to make the calls about.

[caffe_macchiato]

There is indeed nothing stopping you from playing other games if you feel the need to be so sarcastic about this one.

Absolutely true. Playing FFXIV is a choice. And, you should be glad to hear that hundreds of thousands of subscribers are also taking a break from the game to play something else, just as you recommended.

But one slight problem. As a result, queues for everyone else are dead across the board. SE launched a new datacenter that now struggles to fill queues. Players need to log out in order to play most content. Materia fares even worse, because they can’t DC travel. Content for most players is simply impossible, and they cannot finish the game. Your queues will also slow down. Your party finder will die out, if it hasn’t already.

But, as you would agree: there’s nothing stopping us from playing other games, so what’s the big deal? More people will follow. Then the game will die. The end! And, with all the other games for us to play, is that really a bad thing?

[Osteichthyes]

Absolutely true. Playing FFXIV is a choice. And, you should be glad to hear that hundreds of thousands of subscribers are also taking a break from the game to play something else, just as you recommended.

But one slight problem. As a result, queues for everyone else are dead across the board. SE launched a new datacenter that now struggles to fill queues. Players need to log out in order to play most content. Materia fares even worse, because they can’t DC travel. Content for most players is simply impossible, and they cannot finish the game. Your queues will also slow down. Your party finder will die out, if it hasn’t already.

But, as you would agree: there’s nothing stopping us from playing other games, so what’s the big deal? More people will follow. Then the game will die. The end! And, with all the other games for us to play, is that really a bad thing?

Materia isn't actually as bad as most people make it out to be simply because we have developed to where if we need help we post a PF and you can generally get a decent response rate. We have quite a few people that love joining as helpers. Queue's can be hit and miss, though that mostly depends on the hours at which you play.

Content is possible to do for most players, and to say that isn't is simply wrong.

I can't speak for Dynamis as I have no first hand experience on that DC, but Materia isn't nearly as dead as people claim it is.