Not really seeing how Blizzard releasing sub numbers is a double-edged sword since they still have at least twice as many than most games with sub options. Sure, losing 8million subs sucks and people can poke at them for w/e reason, but what about the 5million they still have? Heck, can many games even say they at 13million in their entire lifespan? lol
As long as they are covering management costs then that's just more money in the coffer for the FFXIV dev team to maybe possibly make an actual PvP team and add more content besides fluff and content that 1/8th of the active population actually sees. As far as the 4 Million "accounts" comment was quite funny because of how quick Naoki changed it from 4 million "players" to "accounts made".
Here we go from the funny farm. You already was told that what you see is fluffy other players like. And BTW who in the market is putting out 2 to 4 new dungeons and either a 24 man or 8 man raid every 3 to 4 months? ANSWER NO ONE NOT EVEN BLIZZARD. Yea you failed again.
Beats hating the world and all games and never being happy with Anything we play; then bitching endlessly on forums.
Maybe he had a similar hatred like myself of his last bastion for MMOs turned into a casual fest dress me up online game. I don't really know much about this scorpe-x fellow but it seems his hatred runs a little deeper than mine, partly due to the fact I'm actively playing the game. While I can't say it's worse than 2.0, I'm still hoping for just a little bit more and Yoshi's latest letter has me a bit more hopeful.
As I've mentioned before Dan, it's not so much as moving on if you don't like it as something that had potential to be different but becoming just lite the more of the same that we having been playing for the past decade. Once again i'm not going to bother looking up his post history, but there is a possibility that he doesn't even have a ground to stand and complain on.
Sad that a lot of gamers now require free games in order to play isn't it?
Yes it is. And they come up with excuses why they cannot afford their games. Yet in 1998 I could afford my own computer, my own internet, 2 UO accounts and their monthly subs, oh and I also played 10 to 20 games of hockey a week roller and floor which was anywhere from $50 to $100 a week, and I paid for a car and car insurance. And that was with jobs like cooking pizzas, cutting lawns, cleaning the hockey rink I played at. I cannot believe today's group of gamers because it's a joke how they cry they didn't have
Food/gas/etc also didn't cost as much in the 90s and early 2000s. College tuition has more than tripled for tons of colleges since then as well. The country is facing an economic crisis atm which has caused lots of families to be forced to cut back in a lot of ways and not have as much money to spend so frivolously.
But yea please, don't pay any regard to the reality of today and continue wholeheartedly focusing on how things were(for you) back in 1998.
Here we go from the funny farm. You already was told that what you see is fluffy other players like. And BTW who in the market is putting out 2 to 4 new dungeons and either a 24 man or 8 man raid every 3 to 4 months? ANSWER NO ONE NOT EVEN BLIZZARD. Yea you failed again.
Yes I know, people like to pay $13.99 USD to do do something they can do for free in other social sites/web browser games. They do not produce all of that in a 3-4 month span, 2 to 4 dungeons applies to 2.0 since its 2 now dungeons every 6 months, LFR/Catchup content is introduced 3 months in between 6 month raid content drops (Which 1/8 of the actually playerbase does) of that that is heavily enforced with content walls (oh and forgot the metric ton of fluff in every major/minor patch) leaves this false sense of "brimming with content" as we have discussed. According to you though as long as I enjoy doing all the things we don't play a MMORPG for then there is "endless amounts of things to do".
What exactly did I fail at again, is this some kind of competition? You really need to learn to take constructive criticism because you seem unable to formulate discussion if someone has anything negative to say about your themepark utopia. You would think you would spend more time playing your "perfect" game and less time posting childish responses to thread posts. I'm not sure why you always feel so inclined to include blizzard in every response of this game, where have you seen me comparing it to anything let alone blizzard? I'm merely stating this game can offer more than the same experience we have gotten for the past 10+ years so NO I DON'T CARE ABOUT WHAT WOW DOES!?
Sad that a lot of gamers now require free games in order to play isn't it?
Yes it is. And they come up with excuses why they cannot afford their games. Yet in 1998 I could afford my own computer, my own internet, 2 UO accounts and their monthly subs, oh and I also played 10 to 20 games of hockey a week roller and floor which was anywhere from $50 to $100 a week, and I paid for a car and car insurance. And that was with jobs like cooking pizzas, cutting lawns, cleaning the hockey rink I played at. I cannot believe today's group of gamers because it's a joke how they cry they didn't have
Food/gas/etc also didn't cost as much in the 90s and early 2000s. College tuition has more than tripled for tons of colleges since then as well. The country is facing an economic crisis atm which has caused lots of families to be forced to cut back in a lot of ways and not have as much money to spend so frivolously.
But yea please, don't pay any regard to the reality of today and continue wholeheartedly focusing on how things were(for you) back in 1998.
I agree with what you are saying but are you saying people's budgets are so tight that $12-15 dollars a MONTH would break them? If that was the case for me then I wouldn't even bother playing F2P in the first place, I can stand firmly behind SE having this and FFXI always P2P. Now is FFXIV WORTH $12.99 a month is the real question, that depends on how much you get out of it. If I wasn't a legacy member and only paying $9.99 then even I would come to question it.
Sad that a lot of gamers now require free games in order to play isn't it?
Yes it is. And they come up with excuses why they cannot afford their games. Yet in 1998 I could afford my own computer, my own internet, 2 UO accounts and their monthly subs, oh and I also played 10 to 20 games of hockey a week roller and floor which was anywhere from $50 to $100 a week, and I paid for a car and car insurance. And that was with jobs like cooking pizzas, cutting lawns, cleaning the hockey rink I played at. I cannot believe today's group of gamers because it's a joke how they cry they didn't have
Food/gas/etc also didn't cost as much in the 90s and early 2000s. College tuition has more than tripled for tons of colleges since then as well. The country is facing an economic crisis atm which has caused lots of families to be forced to cut back in a lot of ways and not have as much money to spend so frivolously.
But yea please, don't pay any regard to the reality of today and continue wholeheartedly focusing on how things were(for you) back in 1998.
Dont give me that Garbage Sephiroso. If you watched your spending before the crisis you were fine accept if both people lost their jobs. You know what happened? People ended up taking out mortgages they could not afford and racked up credit cards. They spent money like it is water. And guess what? F2P are more expensive than P2P games. You know why? Because instead of making you pay a monthly sub you buy all the stupid shit in the cash shop and end up spending more when you could have paid $15 for the month and spent time in game and earned it. No they will find more and more ways of giving you less in a F2P game and making you spend more in a cash shop.
Interesting news story about how XIV is doing in China on its 1 year anniversary and some new cash shop developments involving instant level 50 services.
Naoki admitted the game's operation in the past year in China failed to
meet Square Enix's expectation. There were some reasons, according to
Naoki, that prevented the game's success in China: the impact of
flourishing Chinese mobile game market, the P2P model which was not
popular in China, and the time that needs to be invested to play the
game.
I find his excuses for the failing to be very silly personally, blaming mobile gaming, the p2p system and that you have to spend too much time playing it?... but he had to say something I guess.
I think another factor is the fact that the Chinese government has been getting the populace more worked up than normal over Japan. Lots of Chinese nowadays are going out of their way to boycott Japanese products. (you guys remember 2 years ago they were having mobs walk around destroying Japanese cars etc).
While China on a daily basis promotes its nationalism by reminding Chinese people to hate Japan (i.e. their news reports, newspapers, general propaganda, and WWII tv shows which dominate both TV and the big screen locally), over the past 2 years its really gotten a lot stronger. This could have to do with it, but maybe its just not mentioned as no one at Square wants to draw attention to it.
IMPORTANT: Please keep all replies to my posts about GAMING. Please no negative or backhanded comments directed at me personally. If you are going to post a reply that includes how you feel about me, please don't bother replying & just ignore my post instead. I'm on this forum to talk about GAMING. Thank you.
Beats hating the world and all games and never being happy with Anything we play; then bitching endlessly on forums.
Maybe he had a similar hatred like myself of his last bastion for MMOs turned into a casual fest dress me up online game.
Then dont play and stop complaining about it. They are not going to do a dam thing about it because you come to MMORPG.COM and BITCH like a 2 year old. Want something done go to the in game Suggestion and say what you want. Dont come to the MMORPG forums because you just make this site look like a site for a bunch of babies. No really you do. You hate the game like Scrope or what ever his name is. GOOD FOR YOU STOP CRYING ABOUT IT.
O and the Casual shit. Guess what, they spend development time on it. It's something my wife likes and keeps her playing because she loves all that little stuff. She likes raiding too but if she did nothing but raiding like she did in Vanilla WOW with me we wouldnt be playing this game. So Yes things that I dont care for too like you does not piss me off and make me come to the forums and cry about it. I just accept it because its a part of what players want. I want raids and Dungeons, guess what they give that too me. I am happy too and I also do not play hardcore anymore, WHY? Because the MMO realm is no longer hard core and will never be again because anyone with large amounts of money invested in MMOs will force the MMO casual. The Indie games will be hardcore but a shadow of a game, none will equal a well polished AAA MMO. So take it or leave it.
Food/gas/etc also didn't cost as much in the 90s and early 2000s. College tuition has more than tripled for tons of colleges since then as well. The country is facing an economic crisis atm which has caused lots of families to be forced to cut back in a lot of ways and not have as much money to spend so frivolously.
But yea please, don't pay any regard to the reality of today and continue wholeheartedly focusing on how things were(for you) back in 1998.
Dont give me that Garbage Sephiroso. If you watched your spending before the crisis you were fine accept if both people lost their jobs. You know what happened? People ended up taking out mortgages they could not afford and racked up credit cards. They spent money like it is water. And guess what? F2P are more expensive than P2P games. You know why? Because instead of making you pay a monthly sub you buy all the stupid shit in the cash shop and end up spending more when you could have paid $15 for the month and spent time in game and earned it. No they will find more and more ways of giving you less in a F2P game and making you spend more in a cash shop.
Sigh you people will NEVER learn.
I know, you can pay less that 15 USD to get all the vanity you want in FFXIV without having to buy shit out of some idiotic cash shop for hundreds of dollars. Some of the vanity is crafted but still easier to just farm mats for it yourself and pay a crafter to make the vanity for you. Playing on a level playing field is by far the most attractive aspect of a P2P game over a F2P.
Sad that a lot of gamers now require free games in order to play isn't it?
Yes it is. And they come up with excuses why they cannot afford their games. Yet in 1998 I could afford my own computer, my own internet, 2 UO accounts and their monthly subs, oh and I also played 10 to 20 games of hockey a week roller and floor which was anywhere from $50 to $100 a week, and I paid for a car and car insurance. And that was with jobs like cooking pizzas, cutting lawns, cleaning the hockey rink I played at. I cannot believe today's group of gamers because it's a joke how they cry they didn't have
Food/gas/etc also didn't cost as much in the 90s and early 2000s. College tuition has more than tripled for tons of colleges since then as well. The country is facing an economic crisis atm which has caused lots of families to be forced to cut back in a lot of ways and not have as much money to spend so frivolously.
But yea please, don't pay any regard to the reality of today and continue wholeheartedly focusing on how things were(for you) back in 1998.
I agree with what you are saying but are you saying people's budgets are so tight that $12-15 dollars a MONTH would break them? If that was the case for me then I wouldn't even bother playing F2P in the first place, I can stand firmly behind SE having this and FFXI always P2P. Now is FFXIV WORTH $12.99 a month is the real question, that depends on how much you get out of it. If I wasn't a legacy member and only paying $9.99 then even I would come to question it.
How much something is worth depends how much funds you have remaining after bills have been paid. Funds that have to be enough for gas every week, food, etc. Someone might think FFXIV is an excellent 10/10 game, but if all they have is a couple hundred bucks to spend w/e(or save). You're talking 7.5-15% for what is, at the end of the day, a -game-.
That's a hard pill to swallow even if you love the game and think it has very few faults.
So yes, i am saying people's budgets are so tight that 12-15 dollars a month would break them. It's sad that you think that isn't really common. There are people who are consistently month to month digging themselves into bigger and bigger debt with the use of credit cards and loans and even resulting to those ridiculous title loans or payday loans.
Now, one may think well why would games even be in the mind of someone in such dire straits? Well, that's a discussion for another topic but i'll just say people play games for a lot more reasons than just "for fun".
Sad that a lot of gamers now require free games in order to play isn't it?
Yes it is. And they come up with excuses why they cannot afford their
games. Yet in 1998 I could afford my own computer, my own internet, 2
UO accounts and their monthly subs, oh and I also played 10 to 20 games
of hockey a week roller and floor which was anywhere from $50 to $100 a
week, and I paid for a car and car insurance. And that was with jobs
like cooking pizzas, cutting lawns, cleaning the hockey rink I played
at. I cannot believe today's group of gamers because it's a joke how
they cry they didn't have
Food/gas/etc also didn't cost as much in the 90s and early 2000s.
College tuition has more than tripled for tons of colleges since then as
well. The country is facing an economic crisis atm which has caused
lots of families to be forced to cut back in a lot of ways and not have
as much money to spend so frivolously.
But yea please, don't pay
any regard to the reality of today and continue wholeheartedly focusing
on how things were(for you) back in 1998.
Dont give me that Garbage Sephiroso. If you watched your spending
before the crisis you were fine accept if both people lost their jobs.
You know what happened? People ended up taking out mortgages they
could not afford and racked up credit cards. They spent money like it
is water. And guess what? F2P are more expensive than P2P games. You
know why? Because instead of making you pay a monthly sub you buy all
the stupid shit in the cash shop and end up spending more when you could
have paid $15 for the month and spent time in game and earned it. No
they will find more and more ways of giving you less in a F2P game and
making you spend more in a cash shop.
Sigh you people will NEVER learn.
"F2P are more expensive than P2P games" Yea...for like 0.01% of the
players that play F2P games which the industry and other players like to
call whales.
For everyone else that's a laughable conclusion to come to. Not gonna bother commenting on the rest of your drivel.
How much something is worth depends how much funds you have remaining after bills have been paid. Funds that have to be enough for gas every week, food, etc. Someone might think FFXIV is an excellent 10/10 game, but if all they have is a couple hundred bucks to spend w/e(or save). You're talking 7.5-15% for what is, at the end of the day, a -game-.
That's a hard pill to swallow even if you love the game and think it has very few faults.
So yes, i am saying people's budgets are so tight that 12-15 dollars a month would break them. It's sad that you think that isn't really common. There are people who are consistently month to month digging themselves into bigger and bigger debt with the use of credit cards and loans and even resulting to those ridiculous title loans or payday loans.
Now, one may think well why would games even be in the mind of someone in such dire straits? Well, that's a discussion for another topic but i'll just say people play games for a lot more reasons than just "for fun".
Dont give me that Garbage Sephiroso. If you watched your spending
before the crisis you were fine accept if both people lost their jobs.
You know what happened? People ended up taking out mortgages they
could not afford and racked up credit cards. They spent money like it
is water. And guess what? F2P are more expensive than P2P games. You
know why? Because instead of making you pay a monthly sub you buy all
the stupid shit in the cash shop and end up spending more when you could
have paid $15 for the month and spent time in game and earned it. No
they will find more and more ways of giving you less in a F2P game and
making you spend more in a cash shop.
Sigh you people will NEVER learn.
"F2P are more expensive than P2P games" Yea...for like 0.01% of the
players that play F2P games which the industry and other players like to
call whales.
For everyone else that's a laughable conclusion to come to. Not gonna bother commenting on the rest of your drivel.
I suppose the bottom line is if you are having fun with what you are playing then its all that matters, making this entire F2P vs. P2P subjective for the most part. If I could find a F2P MMO that focused on providing a fun gameplay experience rather than figure out the best way to pull money out of my wallet I'd move to F2P. Free to play games are more often than not really "free" to "play". Games that employ pure cosmetic benefits are fine but it never really is just that. While not all game are "pay to win" more often than not they are still a combination of extreme RNG and pay to advance, where you can purchase more spins on the RNG wheel to get you that marginal upgrade or provide extra progression to you due to a limited resource system the game is built upon.
What this devolves into is while the "whales" pay for your entertainment you still suffer from always being behind or at a massive disadvantage. As a free player you are either forced to embark on a grind that can only be rivaled to games like Lineage 2 (which was also P2P mind you and still is) that borderlines play hours comparable to a second job or barred from specific content all together. This is not a win/win as you try to sell it as no matter how hard you try to deny it a company still has to make money from more than just whales to ensure wealthy update cycles (which even some of the best F2P games suffer from). Share this with most F2P games being asian based MMO's and the only thing that supplements the long massive content cycles and slow localization resulting in being several patches behind is a massive RNG induced grind.
I'm not going to delve into your personal matters but there was a time not so long ago where I used MMO's as a form of escapism from my financially burdened life and the fact of the matter is that finding an extra job/activity/chore to get my bills paid and offer extra $$$ for a P2P MMO was far better than playing a "free" to play MMO so I can spend all my extra hours in a mind numbingly boring grind just because it was "free". The very idea of being miserable AND grinding until my eyes bleed felt like a very poor activity to use as my form of escapism BUT that's just me.
I digress because your ideal has some merit to it, just like Dan's view has merit in the P2P vs. F2P argument. On the flip side to all what I just said you can be hard pressed to find a game that's worth "paying monthly" (mind you I'm talking about MMOS ONLY!) then I can't say I blame you. There has been some very nice gems among our console game market in the past years but the MMO market (to ME) is as stale as ever, for what now seems like 10+ years? On one side regurgitated endless WoW clones and on the other, founders pack elaborate scams and failed promises of vaporware. If that's where find yourself standing I can't say that I feel your view is wrong, I simply don't respect F2P games as a fair entry level form of entertainment when you can do much better (in my opinion)for pennies on the dollar a day and while P2P does NOT always mean =/= Value/Quality it can sometimes at least ensure a even playing field.
Lets set this straight. I do understand how people can live paycheck to paycheck and have just a few dollars a month break them. I been there before when I first moved out on my own with maybe a few hundred dollars in the bank as an emergency fund. I also was there when my father was hurt at work and could not work and our family got help for 2 years from the church. I know all that, I been there. However with that said there is a core problem that none of you tend to accept. There is a growing number of people who are lazy and refuse to get a job. I know several right now, one is a guy I played WOW with for nearly 8 years. The last 5 years he has been unemployed living off of what his parents gave to him. Now he is hurting for money and bitches about subs and needing F2P games because he cannot afford them anymore. Has he looked for a single job in 5 years. Hell no.
Yet I have 2 friends, she works at walmart and he works as a line cook. They have 3 kids and yet can afford for the most part their lives and MMOs, 2 subscriptions at that. Maybe they cannot afford their broke down van to be fixed right now but its because its got a broken Axle and will cost them around 2K to get fixed. But they dont have a problem with their other car and do just fine with that.
Now lets add today's generation to the fire. All of whom bitch that shit is not free because their parents are not paying for it. This same generation I will interview for a Jr. Systems Engineer job that will pay between $14 an hour and $16 an hour. Yes its has some of the worse on call weeks always holiday weeks and so on, they also will be asked to work a lot of weekends for low level deployments that they can handle. However since they would be hourly and all they could make 40K to 42K a year so it works out for them. Yet when I interview them they say well they just got out of school and they should be the Sr. Systems Engineer and get my pay just because they got their degree. Yes I understand student loans, I have them right now from my degree. Yes I know it's a pain to pay off. HOWEVER that does not mean that you are entitled to start at the top at top end pay. No you need to work your way up. I tell them that and they just scoff in the interview and say thats what they want take it or leave it. Then in 1 case I had the one kid's mommy call me bitching that I didnt give their kid the job. I told them basically their kid wanted to be X when the Job was for Y and to get to X job they needed to do Y job and he does not want to do Y. Then she hung up.
Sorry but I do understand that people have a tough time. I do. HOWEVER that does not absolve them of responsibility to go out their and support their own habits. If they want to play a game they should have to pay. Just like when I had a friend of mine who owned a Business who paid for 75% of our teams hockey season. The rest of the team came up with the last 25% up front which was just a few hundred dollars. We had people who wanted to play for our team but didnt want to pay for a spot and use to say, "Well its already paid for so I should play for Free". Again people dont what to be responsible for themselves and want others to blame. Too often people like you give them the excuses they are looking for to not have to take responsibility.
What really should happen with F2P is thinks like WOW's token system. Still cannot pay for free you need to do X to get the game paid for by someone else. Or have a very stripped down version of the game where its huge walls everywhere and limiting in how much you can do. Do not use a cash shop to have others pay for ones subscription just because 1 moron is willing to spend $1000 to get fulled raid geared. This would force these players to make sure its their responsibility to be able to play the game by either A Farm gold for Tokens, B pay for the sub themselves, C play a shell of a game and never get anywhere. It stops people from pointing fingers and saying its someone else's responsibility to pay for X game.
O yes and I am a Jack ass because I expect people to take responsibility for themselves.
Between you and I. I agree that FFXIV does put a lot of things I would not consider worth development time. AKA Chocobo racing. However like I said things like that my wife likes and it helps to keep her in the game. I also think Housing in an MMO is bad unless it is a Sandbox MMO like AA or UO. Again there are other people that like it that are willing to pay for it, so I accept it.
So why do I accept this? First FFXIV puts out the best content in any MMO and yes more of it. So having more P2P players helps pay for Development of my content. Being an IT guy who works with Developers, I can tell you a good Sr. SQL DBA is is paid well over $100K a year in the mid west, and way more than that in CA. A good .Net developer is paid around the same. While I know FFXIV is written in C++ and likely running on Oracle the fact still stands that good Developers are not cheap. So to be happy I MUST accept that there needs to be more content than just dungeons now a days.
WHY? First there are too many MMOs and the MMO Population is way too spread out. So FFXIV needs to get players playing and paying for their product. To do this today you need more than just Dungeons and Raids. Thats just the market today
Second MMOs cost way more than they did back 10 years ago. This is for several reason and again boils down to people paying for the product.
Years ago I would bitch moan and groan over what I felt MMOs should do. It was not health for me nor is it for anyone. You should just say your feelings to the developers and leave it at that. Then vote with your wallet. Getting into pissing matches on the forums is about as useful as a 4 flat tires on a car.
My Advice is if you want more content you would be best to promote the game and get more players into it. Now you dont need to lie to people, just be honest with them. Give them the pros and cons and leave it at that. Do not complain endlessly about something because it does not help out the game or you in the long run. Be honest and upfront with people and leave it at that. Example, Yes FFXIV has good dungeons and they continue to make more of them, the down side is they could make more however they use that development time on other activities like Chocobo racing for people who do not like dungeons. You are not being dishonest however you are not shooting the game in the foot either by driving off more players.
"Not meeting expectations" doesn't really tell us anything about numbers.
SE will have done a deal with Shandra who operate the game in China. The deal will have been a combination of an upfront money from (SE to Shandra or Shandra to SE); so much per subscriber maybe on some sliding scale; so much from sales, cash shop etc. Shandra will also - I suspect - have built in some safeguards as well.
And the deal will have been constructed around assumptions concerning sales, subecription retention, cash shop sales.
So does the comment mean that SE/Shandra assumed 10M sales, 50% retention and FFXIV only has 3M. Or that they assumed 2M, 50% retention and they only have 500k. Or - whatever.
Why? Is it the game itself, the sub model, the economy, mobile - they don't really know, after all they obviously got it wrong pre-launch. (Mobile is something that SE have flagged up for the last couple of years in their fiscal reports as being "a danger".)
What it tells us is that less money than expected is coming into the coffers - which could impact development budgets. I suspect the most immediate problem however is whether the game making enough money to pay Shandra. The worst case scenario for SE will be if they are faced with paying Shandra something - to make up any shortfall - or to pull the plug with all that that will say about the brand.
I'd much prefer if they started applying lessons that can be learned from games that show the properties of a good expansion rather than saying "oh well, guess we should go free to play." Because I can tell you going free to play isn't going to "make the game do better." It means they gave up on trying to make an MMORPG worth everyone's time and instead want to nickel and dime the players as much as possible.
I don't mean that f2p is always that way, but in the unique case of SE and FFXIV:ARR, it most certainly would be the case.
I'd much prefer if they started applying lessons that can be learned from games that show the properties of a good expansion than saying "oh well, guess we should go free to play." Because I can tell you going free to play isn't going to "make the game do better." It means they gave up on trying to make an MMORPG worth everyone's time and instead want to nickel and dime the players as much as possible.
To be fair to SE they haven't talked about f2p - although your implied suggestion that f2p = poor, imo, is erroneous. That is not to say that all f2p games are good either, or b2p or sub based.
I think it is also worth differentiating however between f2p and free-to-download. GW2 (was), for example, f2p but only after the initial purchase, same with Destiny etc.
In e.g. China the default business model has been free-to-buy + f2p. GW2 pushed the boat out and launched as b2p. FFXIV pushed the boat out and drilled holes in the bottom - sub based games lose players. And in that regard I suspect FFXIV has struggled in the same way that e.g. WoW is struggling.
Between you and I. I agree that FFXIV does put a lot of things I would not consider worth development time. AKA Chocobo racing. However like I said things like that my wife likes and it helps to keep her in the game. I also think Housing in an MMO is bad unless it is a Sandbox MMO like AA or UO. Again there are other people that like it that are willing to pay for it, so I accept it.
So why do I accept this? First FFXIV puts out the best content in any MMO and yes more of it. So having more P2P players helps pay for Development of my content. Being an IT guy who works with Developers, I can tell you a good Sr. SQL DBA is is paid well over $100K a year in the mid west, and way more than that in CA. A good .Net developer is paid around the same. While I know FFXIV is written in C++ and likely running on Oracle the fact still stands that good Developers are not cheap. So to be happy I MUST accept that there needs to be more content than just dungeons now a days.
WHY? First there are too many MMOs and the MMO Population is way too spread out. So FFXIV needs to get players playing and paying for their product. To do this today you need more than just Dungeons and Raids. Thats just the market today
Second MMOs cost way more than they did back 10 years ago. This is for several reason and again boils down to people paying for the product.
Years ago I would bitch moan and groan over what I felt MMOs should do. It was not health for me nor is it for anyone. You should just say your feelings to the developers and leave it at that. Then vote with your wallet. Getting into pissing matches on the forums is about as useful as a 4 flat tires on a car.
My Advice is if you want more content you would be best to promote the game and get more players into it. Now you dont need to lie to people, just be honest with them. Give them the pros and cons and leave it at that. Do not complain endlessly about something because it does not help out the game or you in the long run. Be honest and upfront with people and leave it at that. Example, Yes FFXIV has good dungeons and they continue to make more of them, the down side is they could make more however they use that development time on other activities like Chocobo racing for people who do not like dungeons. You are not being dishonest however you are not shooting the game in the foot either by driving off more players.
Thanks for lowering the aggression level down a notch, I have to say I don't find anything wrong with any of your points outside of some small details. I feel housing in a MMO is a requirement but you have to admit this property holding at ransom is making it hard for me to assess the current market value of a mansion plot alone purchase one... I used to take the aggressive approach but moving forward I am marketing FFXIV as it is to potential players; the most polished themepark MMO to which its content cycles have beaten every MMO in the market.
I agree that having fluff and other various tasks is healthy for this game, but when it spoils the very meat of the game; the very reasons we PLAY MMORPGS then it isn't. I have to admit that there is a outstanding amount of players that come to this game to not play an MMO, but to do social interaction/activities does have me scratching my head from time to time but I've come to terms with it. The very reason that there are so many MMO's to play these days is WHY you try to create something that those games does not offer. While activities are more numerous in FFXIV, the cosmetic and vanity approach is not some new thing that is just apparent in FFXIV. Going on the OF, If I got a dime every time I saw a thread complaining about chocobo racing/Triple Triad tournament/E.T.C. participation I'd be a damn gazillionaire because SE has trouble balancing grind/reward/enjoyment factor to a lot of these activities.
When the only thing that separates your MMO from others is "Worldly events" then your game still isn't offering enough pull to grab those WoW/WoW clone players at the end of the day. People that make an investment in another MMO will stick with that game regardless of update frequency as long as there is some form of added content because other games do not offer anything different. Believe it or not FFXIV wouldn't of gotten the extra traction it has without its outrageous content cycles and level of polish of said content.
When you want to pull players from other games you need to offer varied "battle content" because that is what a large portion of MMO players play MMO's for (a big shocker I know). Dungeons and raid content is the primary minimal PvE content that's EXPECTED in a MMO (although FFXIV's is the most top notch so I'll agree with you). All this considered raid content in FFXIV like WoW, is only seen by a small fraction of the playerbase, That being said it can do better than whats "expected" of a MMO because Yoshi himself even said that Dungeon content is very low cost and can be supplemented with a something more.
To be honest I haven't been able to take part in Alex savage in HW due to the nature of my work and the sudden work schedule change of one of my RL friends and that really takes a chunk out of things to do... While this isn't square's fault sometimes I wish there were more activities we could do together to get alternate gear sets or different ways to farm Tokens. While the Hunts era of 2.0 were not exceptionally flawless they were still refreshing, being able to cap Tombstones without doing dungeons I mean. This game has a huge sprawling beautiful world but FFXIV just keeps pushing us into more and more instances....There are other things I can wrap myself around if SE took the time to refine them such as PvP and crafting but It seems crafting is always going to be doomed content.
As a personal note you shouldn't view wishing better for your game as bitching/moaning and you should still be doing so today. If anything, not challenging the very game you love to dare to be better shows how little attachment you have to final fantasy as a brand but more as just that "MMO you currently like". For this reason alone Is why you may look at FFXIV as a MMO and I view it as a timeless classic that has been a big part of my life. There is nothing wrong with wanting more from your MMO, especially when it offers little diversity from other MMO's currently in the market. If anything Yoshi has made it known that he hates complacency among players and he wants you to tell him what you think can be better instead of being like any other white knight.
The result of this bitching as you so like to claim is why 4.0 story will be separate from expansion features AS IT SHOULD BE and offer a synopsis of prior story (I know you disagree with this but this turns away more potential players than you think), because I want this game to attract more NEW players with new Jobs/features instead of turning them way due to stupid content walls. The result of all this "bitching" is why Yoshi came out and admitted dungeon content cost little time/resources and he his taking the extra dungeon out of the rotation in favor for adding new systems in the game knowing some will fail BUT still wanting to offer more than the same repetitive and predictable content cycles.
I'd much prefer if they started applying lessons that can be learned from games that show the properties of a good expansion rather than saying "oh well, guess we should go free to play." Because I can tell you going free to play isn't going to "make the game do better." It means they gave up on trying to make an MMORPG worth everyone's time and instead want to nickel and dime the players as much as possible.
I don't mean that f2p is always that way, but in the unique case of SE and FFXIV:ARR, it most certainly would be the case.
Last time I checked they had a good expansion and it may be p2w but only because Shanda games make it that way. How would you say is the best way they could improve the game? Mine would be more unique stats on armor, add another form of endgame to the mix, and in the next x-pac make one of the zones all one big open world dungeon. XD
THIS THIS THIS THIS AND THIS, someone give this man an award! But seriously driven you know that would bring some of the WoWboys over to this side of the lawn....
Interesting news story about how XIV is doing in China on its 1 year anniversary and some new cash shop developments involving instant level 50 services.
Naoki admitted the game's operation in the past year in China failed to
meet Square Enix's expectation. There were some reasons, according to
Naoki, that prevented the game's success in China: the impact of
flourishing Chinese mobile game market, the P2P model which was not
popular in China, and the time that needs to be invested to play the
game.
I find his excuses for the failing to be very silly personally, blaming mobile gaming, the p2p system and that you have to spend too much time playing it?... but he had to say something I guess.
Analyzing some potential reasons for a game not doing well is not an 'excuse.' Companies who fail at something attempt to analyze their shortcomings so that they don't make the same mistakes. Whether it's accurate or not, is another matter. The simple forum answer 'game sucks, nuf said' isn't always the end all of answers.
With 129 million Chinese, 73% of all
gamers, playing MMO games, it is by far the largest MMO market in the
world. China also has the highest number of gamers in the world (173.4
m) and 65% of these are paying players.
It's a rather big deal for gaming companies to do well there...
I hope they turn things around, because they have a solid game on their hands to promote. Granted not my cup of tea, but that doesn't mean a lot of people enjoy the game.
I was under the impression that to get into China you had to partner with a Chinese company and that company just happens to skimmed off most of your profits so being in China isn't nearly the big deal the numbers would indicate due to high levels of corruption.
I outright questioned the wisdom of releasing in China when I saw all those propaganda pieces whereby there were people decorated a room to welcome Yoshi-p and others. The business model FFXIV is committed to isn't a great option, and the game makes you work quite a bit to get anything done -- a breath of fresh air to the Western Markets, to be sure (and not surprising that it's doing so well, so far in Korea).
They needed to localize it a bit better beforehand if they really wanted to break through in the market, as they're all different beasts. Perhaps the Chinese market will get it's own A Realm Reborn of sorts that involves better management and game design decisions appropriate for said market.
Ultimately, the payment models they have can be a double edged sword, in any case. WoW has about five million, but people always question if more than half of those are premium priced $15 a month or not due to differing payment models.
I would say that the mobile market is inching its way into every genre or games company, who wants to put in minimal effort for maximum profit -- something that Blizzard has been adopting in recent years. Though to really say that's a reason for anything is an excuse, as it's true for all games.
That said, I concur with the other statements, as my writing here indicates. But that's really the fault of Square to begin with for not adequately preparing for a new market.
Thanks for the article and personal opinions with regards to only it (as opposed to turning it into a personal thoughts of the game thread), Scorpex-X.
Edit: I can definitely see the appeal of selling characters levels in an area where mobile games is dominating, though. If people are willing to spend $150,000,000 on that stupid Simpsons app to save a few hours or days of their time, just to get to the next time sink level... Then, yeah. As much as I loathed it back in Ultima online a decade ago -- and despise the WoW version -- it makes business sense. Still don't understand why this has become a thing in the entertainment industry. Skip entertainment to get to entertainment? Then again, if you develop it as such, then... yeah. People will buy anything to save time.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
Kind of off topic (but then again some of our banter was regardless) but I keep hearing this "mobile market" more and more as the weeks go by and how scared AAA companies are of them. To make sure I understand this right, are talking about android/iOS app markets or handhelds or both? If we are talking purely app markets It would make me really curious as to how they vary between NA and the asian countries, but then again I'm hearing it about today's NA market too. From all this doom and gloom I can't say I have ever to this day played a app game that even scratches the surface in terms of depth even compared to handheld games. This of course is an exception when dealing with said RPG ports to the iOS/android market but I wouldn't count them.
When attending PAX with this fresh in my mind I noticed a panel titled "Help us make a app game that isn't shallow like the rest" and at that point I realized it isn't just me. All I can see as a revolving trend of app games is a serious of pay to win/advance methods that are far worse than any F2P MMO I have seen to date and is apparent in all the app games I downloaded (and trust me I'm always poking around my android app store). Upon logging in to any of these games you are bombarded by "purchase gems" "gem discounts" and other of its ilk so when people start talking about the mobile market takeover it makes me scratch my head. Am I missing something here or do people seriously play these games and shell the money out for them and call these scams games?
I outright questioned the wisdom of releasing in China when I saw all those propaganda pieces whereby there were people decorated a room to welcome Yoshi-p and others. The business model FFXIV is committed to isn't a great option, and the game makes you work quite a bit to get anything done -- a breath of fresh air to the Western Markets, to be sure (and not surprising that it's doing so well, so far in Korea).
They needed to localize it a bit better beforehand if they really wanted to break through in the market, as they're all different beasts. Perhaps the Chinese market will get it's own A Realm Reborn of sorts that involves better management and game design decisions appropriate for said market.
Ultimately, the payment models they have can be a double edged sword, in any case. WoW has about five million, but people always question if more than half of those are premium priced $15 a month or not due to differing payment models.
I would say that the mobile market is inching its way into every genre or games company, who wants to put in minimal effort for maximum profit -- something that Blizzard has been adopting in recent years. Though to really say that's a reason for anything is an excuse, as it's true for all games.
That said, I concur with the other statements, as my writing here indicates. But that's really the fault of Square to begin with for not adequately preparing for a new market.
Thanks for the article and personal opinions with regards to only it (as opposed to turning it into a personal thoughts of the game thread), Scorpex-X.
Edit: I can definitely see the appeal of selling characters levels in an area where mobile games is dominating, though. If people are willing to spend $150,000,000 on that stupid Simpsons app to save a few hours or days of their time, just to get to the next time sink level... Then, yeah. As much as I loathed it back in Ultima online a decade ago -- and despise the WoW version -- it makes business sense. Still don't understand why this has become a thing in the entertainment industry. Skip entertainment to get to entertainment? Then again, if you develop it as such, then... yeah. People will buy anything to save time.
Simple to explain really. Linear questing sucks; no one wants to do it. Forcing new players to slog through hours of boring questing no one wants to do is just asking them to quit. It's so much easier to give them level boost with the current expansion.
The other alternative is to spend an ungodly amount of resources on a third redo of the leveling process and hope it doesn't suck this time around.
The choice is pretty obvious. I know some bitter vets think the leveling process is important, but in 2015 it really isn't. It's just another obstacle no one wants to climb over. Developers have spent the last 10 years trying to figure out how to make it fun and no one has really succeeded.
Comments
As I've mentioned before Dan, it's not so much as moving on if you don't like it as something that had potential to be different but becoming just lite the more of the same that we having been playing for the past decade. Once again i'm not going to bother looking up his post history, but there is a possibility that he doesn't even have a ground to stand and complain on.
But yea please, don't pay any regard to the reality of today and continue wholeheartedly focusing on how things were(for you) back in 1998.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
What exactly did I fail at again, is this some kind of competition? You really need to learn to take constructive criticism because you seem unable to formulate discussion if someone has anything negative to say about your themepark utopia. You would think you would spend more time playing your "perfect" game and less time posting childish responses to thread posts. I'm not sure why you always feel so inclined to include blizzard in every response of this game, where have you seen me comparing it to anything let alone blizzard? I'm merely stating this game can offer more than the same experience we have gotten for the past 10+ years so NO I DON'T CARE ABOUT WHAT WOW DOES!?
Sigh you people will NEVER learn.
I think another factor is the fact that the Chinese government has been getting the populace more worked up than normal over Japan. Lots of Chinese nowadays are going out of their way to boycott Japanese products. (you guys remember 2 years ago they were having mobs walk around destroying Japanese cars etc).
While China on a daily basis promotes its nationalism by reminding Chinese people to hate Japan (i.e. their news reports, newspapers, general propaganda, and WWII tv shows which dominate both TV and the big screen locally), over the past 2 years its really gotten a lot stronger. This could have to do with it, but maybe its just not mentioned as no one at Square wants to draw attention to it.
Then dont play and stop complaining about it. They are not going to do a dam thing about it because you come to MMORPG.COM and BITCH like a 2 year old. Want something done go to the in game Suggestion and say what you want. Dont come to the MMORPG forums because you just make this site look like a site for a bunch of babies. No really you do. You hate the game like Scrope or what ever his name is. GOOD FOR YOU STOP CRYING ABOUT IT.
O and the Casual shit. Guess what, they spend development time on it. It's something my wife likes and keeps her playing because she loves all that little stuff. She likes raiding too but if she did nothing but raiding like she did in Vanilla WOW with me we wouldnt be playing this game. So Yes things that I dont care for too like you does not piss me off and make me come to the forums and cry about it. I just accept it because its a part of what players want. I want raids and Dungeons, guess what they give that too me. I am happy too and I also do not play hardcore anymore, WHY? Because the MMO realm is no longer hard core and will never be again because anyone with large amounts of money invested in MMOs will force the MMO casual. The Indie games will be hardcore but a shadow of a game, none will equal a well polished AAA MMO. So take it or leave it.
That's a hard pill to swallow even if you love the game and think it has very few faults.
So yes, i am saying people's budgets are so tight that 12-15 dollars a month would break them. It's sad that you think that isn't really common. There are people who are consistently month to month digging themselves into bigger and bigger debt with the use of credit cards and loans and even resulting to those ridiculous title loans or payday loans.
Now, one may think well why would games even be in the mind of someone in such dire straits? Well, that's a discussion for another topic but i'll just say people play games for a lot more reasons than just "for fun".
"F2P are more expensive than P2P games" Yea...for like 0.01% of the players that play F2P games which the industry and other players like to call whales.
For everyone else that's a laughable conclusion to come to. Not gonna bother commenting on the rest of your drivel.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
What this devolves into is while the "whales" pay for your entertainment you still suffer from always being behind or at a massive disadvantage. As a free player you are either forced to embark on a grind that can only be rivaled to games like Lineage 2 (which was also P2P mind you and still is) that borderlines play hours comparable to a second job or barred from specific content all together. This is not a win/win as you try to sell it as no matter how hard you try to deny it a company still has to make money from more than just whales to ensure wealthy update cycles (which even some of the best F2P games suffer from). Share this with most F2P games being asian based MMO's and the only thing that supplements the long massive content cycles and slow localization resulting in being several patches behind is a massive RNG induced grind.
I'm not going to delve into your personal matters but there was a time not so long ago where I used MMO's as a form of escapism from my financially burdened life and the fact of the matter is that finding an extra job/activity/chore to get my bills paid and offer extra $$$ for a P2P MMO was far better than playing a "free" to play MMO so I can spend all my extra hours in a mind numbingly boring grind just because it was "free". The very idea of being miserable AND grinding until my eyes bleed felt like a very poor activity to use as my form of escapism BUT that's just me.
I digress because your ideal has some merit to it, just like Dan's view has merit in the P2P vs. F2P argument. On the flip side to all what I just said you can be hard pressed to find a game that's worth "paying monthly" (mind you I'm talking about MMOS ONLY!) then I can't say I blame you. There has been some very nice gems among our console game market in the past years but the MMO market (to ME) is as stale as ever, for what now seems like 10+ years? On one side regurgitated endless WoW clones and on the other, founders pack elaborate scams and failed promises of vaporware. If that's where find yourself standing I can't say that I feel your view is wrong, I simply don't respect F2P games as a fair entry level form of entertainment when you can do much better (in my opinion)for pennies on the dollar a day and while P2P does NOT always mean =/= Value/Quality it can sometimes at least ensure a even playing field.
Lets set this straight. I do understand how people can live paycheck to paycheck and have just a few dollars a month break them. I been there before when I first moved out on my own with maybe a few hundred dollars in the bank as an emergency fund. I also was there when my father was hurt at work and could not work and our family got help for 2 years from the church. I know all that, I been there. However with that said there is a core problem that none of you tend to accept. There is a growing number of people who are lazy and refuse to get a job. I know several right now, one is a guy I played WOW with for nearly 8 years. The last 5 years he has been unemployed living off of what his parents gave to him. Now he is hurting for money and bitches about subs and needing F2P games because he cannot afford them anymore. Has he looked for a single job in 5 years. Hell no.
Yet I have 2 friends, she works at walmart and he works as a line cook. They have 3 kids and yet can afford for the most part their lives and MMOs, 2 subscriptions at that. Maybe they cannot afford their broke down van to be fixed right now but its because its got a broken Axle and will cost them around 2K to get fixed. But they dont have a problem with their other car and do just fine with that.
Now lets add today's generation to the fire. All of whom bitch that shit is not free because their parents are not paying for it. This same generation I will interview for a Jr. Systems Engineer job that will pay between $14 an hour and $16 an hour. Yes its has some of the worse on call weeks always holiday weeks and so on, they also will be asked to work a lot of weekends for low level deployments that they can handle. However since they would be hourly and all they could make 40K to 42K a year so it works out for them. Yet when I interview them they say well they just got out of school and they should be the Sr. Systems Engineer and get my pay just because they got their degree. Yes I understand student loans, I have them right now from my degree. Yes I know it's a pain to pay off. HOWEVER that does not mean that you are entitled to start at the top at top end pay. No you need to work your way up. I tell them that and they just scoff in the interview and say thats what they want take it or leave it. Then in 1 case I had the one kid's mommy call me bitching that I didnt give their kid the job. I told them basically their kid wanted to be X when the Job was for Y and to get to X job they needed to do Y job and he does not want to do Y. Then she hung up.
Sorry but I do understand that people have a tough time. I do. HOWEVER that does not absolve them of responsibility to go out their and support their own habits. If they want to play a game they should have to pay. Just like when I had a friend of mine who owned a Business who paid for 75% of our teams hockey season. The rest of the team came up with the last 25% up front which was just a few hundred dollars. We had people who wanted to play for our team but didnt want to pay for a spot and use to say, "Well its already paid for so I should play for Free". Again people dont what to be responsible for themselves and want others to blame. Too often people like you give them the excuses they are looking for to not have to take responsibility.
What really should happen with F2P is thinks like WOW's token system. Still cannot pay for free you need to do X to get the game paid for by someone else. Or have a very stripped down version of the game where its huge walls everywhere and limiting in how much you can do. Do not use a cash shop to have others pay for ones subscription just because 1 moron is willing to spend $1000 to get fulled raid geared. This would force these players to make sure its their responsibility to be able to play the game by either A Farm gold for Tokens, B pay for the sub themselves, C play a shell of a game and never get anywhere. It stops people from pointing fingers and saying its someone else's responsibility to pay for X game.
O yes and I am a Jack ass because I expect people to take responsibility for themselves.
Between you and I. I agree that FFXIV does put a lot of things I would not consider worth development time. AKA Chocobo racing. However like I said things like that my wife likes and it helps to keep her in the game. I also think Housing in an MMO is bad unless it is a Sandbox MMO like AA or UO. Again there are other people that like it that are willing to pay for it, so I accept it.
So why do I accept this? First FFXIV puts out the best content in any MMO and yes more of it. So having more P2P players helps pay for Development of my content. Being an IT guy who works with Developers, I can tell you a good Sr. SQL DBA is is paid well over $100K a year in the mid west, and way more than that in CA. A good .Net developer is paid around the same. While I know FFXIV is written in C++ and likely running on Oracle the fact still stands that good Developers are not cheap. So to be happy I MUST accept that there needs to be more content than just dungeons now a days.
WHY? First there are too many MMOs and the MMO Population is way too spread out. So FFXIV needs to get players playing and paying for their product. To do this today you need more than just Dungeons and Raids. Thats just the market today
Second MMOs cost way more than they did back 10 years ago. This is for several reason and again boils down to people paying for the product.
Years ago I would bitch moan and groan over what I felt MMOs should do. It was not health for me nor is it for anyone. You should just say your feelings to the developers and leave it at that. Then vote with your wallet. Getting into pissing matches on the forums is about as useful as a 4 flat tires on a car.
My Advice is if you want more content you would be best to promote the game and get more players into it. Now you dont need to lie to people, just be honest with them. Give them the pros and cons and leave it at that. Do not complain endlessly about something because it does not help out the game or you in the long run. Be honest and upfront with people and leave it at that. Example, Yes FFXIV has good dungeons and they continue to make more of them, the down side is they could make more however they use that development time on other activities like Chocobo racing for people who do not like dungeons. You are not being dishonest however you are not shooting the game in the foot either by driving off more players.
SE will have done a deal with Shandra who operate the game in China. The deal will have been a combination of an upfront money from (SE to Shandra or Shandra to SE); so much per subscriber maybe on some sliding scale; so much from sales, cash shop etc. Shandra will also - I suspect - have built in some safeguards as well.
And the deal will have been constructed around assumptions concerning sales, subecription retention, cash shop sales.
So does the comment mean that SE/Shandra assumed 10M sales, 50% retention and FFXIV only has 3M. Or that they assumed 2M, 50% retention and they only have 500k. Or - whatever.
Why? Is it the game itself, the sub model, the economy, mobile - they don't really know, after all they obviously got it wrong pre-launch. (Mobile is something that SE have flagged up for the last couple of years in their fiscal reports as being "a danger".)
What it tells us is that less money than expected is coming into the coffers - which could impact development budgets. I suspect the most immediate problem however is whether the game making enough money to pay Shandra. The worst case scenario for SE will be if they are faced with paying Shandra something - to make up any shortfall - or to pull the plug with all that that will say about the brand.
I don't mean that f2p is always that way, but in the unique case of SE and FFXIV:ARR, it most certainly would be the case.
To be fair to SE they haven't talked about f2p - although your implied suggestion that f2p = poor, imo, is erroneous. That is not to say that all f2p games are good either, or b2p or sub based.
I think it is also worth differentiating however between f2p and free-to-download. GW2 (was), for example, f2p but only after the initial purchase, same with Destiny etc.
In e.g. China the default business model has been free-to-buy + f2p. GW2 pushed the boat out and launched as b2p. FFXIV pushed the boat out and drilled holes in the bottom - sub based games lose players. And in that regard I suspect FFXIV has struggled in the same way that e.g. WoW is struggling.
I agree that having fluff and other various tasks is healthy for this game, but when it spoils the very meat of the game; the very reasons we PLAY MMORPGS then it isn't. I have to admit that there is a outstanding amount of players that come to this game to not play an MMO, but to do social interaction/activities does have me scratching my head from time to time but I've come to terms with it. The very reason that there are so many MMO's to play these days is WHY you try to create something that those games does not offer. While activities are more numerous in FFXIV, the cosmetic and vanity approach is not some new thing that is just apparent in FFXIV. Going on the OF, If I got a dime every time I saw a thread complaining about chocobo racing/Triple Triad tournament/E.T.C. participation I'd be a damn gazillionaire because SE has trouble balancing grind/reward/enjoyment factor to a lot of these activities.
When the only thing that separates your MMO from others is "Worldly events" then your game still isn't offering enough pull to grab those WoW/WoW clone players at the end of the day. People that make an investment in another MMO will stick with that game regardless of update frequency as long as there is some form of added content because other games do not offer anything different. Believe it or not FFXIV wouldn't of gotten the extra traction it has without its outrageous content cycles and level of polish of said content.
When you want to pull players from other games you need to offer varied "battle content" because that is what a large portion of MMO players play MMO's for (a big shocker I know). Dungeons and raid content is the primary minimal PvE content that's EXPECTED in a MMO (although FFXIV's is the most top notch so I'll agree with you). All this considered raid content in FFXIV like WoW, is only seen by a small fraction of the playerbase, That being said it can do better than whats "expected" of a MMO because Yoshi himself even said that Dungeon content is very low cost and can be supplemented with a something more.
To be honest I haven't been able to take part in Alex savage in HW due to the nature of my work and the sudden work schedule change of one of my RL friends and that really takes a chunk out of things to do... While this isn't square's fault sometimes I wish there were more activities we could do together to get alternate gear sets or different ways to farm Tokens. While the Hunts era of 2.0 were not exceptionally flawless they were still refreshing, being able to cap Tombstones without doing dungeons I mean. This game has a huge sprawling beautiful world but FFXIV just keeps pushing us into more and more instances....There are other things I can wrap myself around if SE took the time to refine them such as PvP and crafting but It seems crafting is always going to be doomed content.
As a personal note you shouldn't view wishing better for your game as bitching/moaning and you should still be doing so today. If anything, not challenging the very game you love to dare to be better shows how little attachment you have to final fantasy as a brand but more as just that "MMO you currently like". For this reason alone Is why you may look at FFXIV as a MMO and I view it as a timeless classic that has been a big part of my life. There is nothing wrong with wanting more from your MMO, especially when it offers little diversity from other MMO's currently in the market. If anything Yoshi has made it known that he hates complacency among players and he wants you to tell him what you think can be better instead of being like any other white knight.
The result of this bitching as you so like to claim is why 4.0 story will be separate from expansion features AS IT SHOULD BE and offer a synopsis of prior story (I know you disagree with this but this turns away more potential players than you think), because I want this game to attract more NEW players with new Jobs/features instead of turning them way due to stupid content walls. The result of all this "bitching" is why Yoshi came out and admitted dungeon content cost little time/resources and he his taking the extra dungeon out of the rotation in favor for adding new systems in the game knowing some will fail BUT still wanting to offer more than the same repetitive and predictable content cycles.
I self identify as a monkey.
They needed to localize it a bit better beforehand if they really wanted to break through in the market, as they're all different beasts. Perhaps the Chinese market will get it's own A Realm Reborn of sorts that involves better management and game design decisions appropriate for said market.
Ultimately, the payment models they have can be a double edged sword, in any case. WoW has about five million, but people always question if more than half of those are premium priced $15 a month or not due to differing payment models.
I would say that the mobile market is inching its way into every genre or games company, who wants to put in minimal effort for maximum profit -- something that Blizzard has been adopting in recent years. Though to really say that's a reason for anything is an excuse, as it's true for all games.
That said, I concur with the other statements, as my writing here indicates. But that's really the fault of Square to begin with for not adequately preparing for a new market.
Thanks for the article and personal opinions with regards to only it (as opposed to turning it into a personal thoughts of the game thread), Scorpex-X.
Edit: I can definitely see the appeal of selling characters levels in an area where mobile games is dominating, though. If people are willing to spend $150,000,000 on that stupid Simpsons app to save a few hours or days of their time, just to get to the next time sink level... Then, yeah. As much as I loathed it back in Ultima online a decade ago -- and despise the WoW version -- it makes business sense. Still don't understand why this has become a thing in the entertainment industry. Skip entertainment to get to entertainment? Then again, if you develop it as such, then... yeah. People will buy anything to save time.
When attending PAX with this fresh in my mind I noticed a panel titled "Help us make a app game that isn't shallow like the rest" and at that point I realized it isn't just me. All I can see as a revolving trend of app games is a serious of pay to win/advance methods that are far worse than any F2P MMO I have seen to date and is apparent in all the app games I downloaded (and trust me I'm always poking around my android app store). Upon logging in to any of these games you are bombarded by "purchase gems" "gem discounts" and other of its ilk so when people start talking about the mobile market takeover it makes me scratch my head. Am I missing something here or do people seriously play these games and shell the money out for them and call these scams games?
The other alternative is to spend an ungodly amount of resources on a third redo of the leveling process and hope it doesn't suck this time around.
The choice is pretty obvious. I know some bitter vets think the leveling process is important, but in 2015 it really isn't. It's just another obstacle no one wants to climb over. Developers have spent the last 10 years trying to figure out how to make it fun and no one has really succeeded.