Yet another interview..Kotaku however.

[Duelle]

Pretty much this. It had some good ideas but not every idea was good. The genre has changed since it was created.

I also agree with Alhanelem's post. You can't design a game exactly like FFXI today and expect it to do well.

I honestly don't see a difference between (play everquest for a year - make xi) and (play wow for a year - make xiv) because, to me, WoW was made by some dudes playing EQ and figuring out what worked well in it.

Agreed. It was a mix of D&D concepts and mechanics drawn from EQ and refined over time.

I'm hardly an advocate of XI 2.0, but you can't and shouldn't reinvent the wheel when a perfectly good and fully functioning wheel is sitting right in front of you. You aren't going to do better than the wheel. There is no better design there. Just dress it up to reflect your style and move on to areas that have room for innovation.

You do as you do with the competition in the market: look at what they do, research it and see if it'll work in your game. Try to device your own spin on the concept or even improve it in a way the competition has not thought of. Move on. I'm not entirely against borrowing from FFXI, but I'll oppose it if what they're gonna borrow is 24 hour pop drama-inducing bosses and niche-based class balance, for example.

I played WoW since the first one came out. I don't feel like typing a lot but here's the jist of it... I liked the game a lot. Burning Crusade came out (first expansion) still loving it. Then Wrath of the Lich King.. why is this so easy? Oh well, maybe next time? Cataclysm. Everyones standing in town teleporting to overly easy dungeons.

Part of the reason for the teleporting thing is really that the new zones in cata were disjointed, and the community didn't adjust well to it.

You can't just toss in a handful of new areas in existing continents and expect people to be out and about. TBC had Shattrath as the main hub city in Outland, and Dalaran played the exact same role in Northrend. Cata gave you your faction capitals with a bunch of portals. The fact some of the zones (Vashjiir, Deepholm) require portals to get to did not help.

The only thing that kept me for so long were the friends I made during the years.

This is the story of every MMORPG. I stuck to FFXI for as long as I did for the same reason, despite hating most of the systems in-game.

In my opinion a good mmorpg to me is a game where you enjoy playing from the start to the end.
Just to clarify myself here, My impression of WOW is bad based on these 2 weeks of play which made me to stop playing it. And yes, it is way too little time to judge a game fully, but the first impression is an important factor for me. This is why I continued playing XIV, I enjoyed it enough to continue after 2 weeks despite it's flaws and lacks.

I'm not sure this is an accurate way to look at WoW. The game presented steadier progression while leveling and more content with which to hide the level grind than any other MMORPG aside from City of Heroes out of that entire generation of games.

FFXI = grind mobs ad nauseum to level, farm beehive chips to buy overpriced gear
Ragnarok Online = grind mobs ad nauseum, sometimes in a party until you're high enough level for class transfers
Lineage II = grind mobs ad nauseum, try to avoid getting PKd while leveling