Support NeoGAF

[pringles]

As someone who has never played it, I find it mindblowing that there's still over 5 million people playing it. Like what the hell.

 

[kraspkibble]

The original FFXIV was probably the worst MMO ever made. I remember spending a few hours in the beta (a week before it launched) laughing at how awful it was. ARR at least did a good job upgrading every aspect of the game. I remember the original game was literally like corridors everywhere--it felt like an MMO on rails..

ARR is out on PS3.

 

[Chillz0r]

I'll just reiterate what others have said. Wow's current decline is not due to the subscription model. People are okay to pay for a quality content mmo, or at least theres a part of playerbase that thinks like that.

Its just Warlords of Draenor has been the absolute worst expansion released on pretty much all fronts. Not even a decent story to cling on, its offensively bad if anything.

Im sure Legion will reinvigorate subs massively, then we'll see if its another disappointment.

 

[neurosisxeno]

ARR is out on PS3.

True, but as far as I know the PS3 and PC version are quite different, and the Game Director that took over made sure they improved the PC version a lot. When I played it last year it definitely didn't feel as crappy and restrictive as even FFXI did.

Its just Warlords of Draenor has been the absolute worst expansion released on pretty much all fronts. Not even a decent story to cling on, its offensively bad if anything.

I disagree a bit. There is a lot to hate about WoD, but it did do some things well. The leveling aspect (right at launch) was actually great, and rewarding exploration made the world feel a lot more real. On top of that, the Garrisons were a cool idea, but making them the central hub of the game completely ruined the entire expansion. They built this great world for you to explore, but you ended up spending 9/10ths of the time in your own instanced garden. I think WoD had some interesting dungeons, and the zones were quite a bit of fun. The thing was, it seems like Blizzard built this amazing theme park of a world, and forgot to put anything resembling fun in it. There was a slow trickle of raid content, there were a surprisingly low amount of Dungeons, and the fact that all professions and a majority of the games progression was tied to Garrisons basically meant all you could really do was explore the zones and do some side attractions. I didn't actually resub for any of the major patches but the Timewalker Instances or whatever they were called (scaling old content) was actually something a lot of people have really wanted, so that is a major perk going forward.

It's surprising how much the quality of content released post-launch was compared to MoP which actually had really solid content patches--it was just that last slog after SoO came out that was horrible.

 

[lazygecko]

The garrisons really changed the whole dynamic of the game for the worse. Aside from the usual complaints about it killing the world and making players even more reclusive, I think that nagging obligation you get that you have to log in on your character(s) every day to handle garrison missions and other chores has massive negative connotations. Logging into the game really started to feel more like an unwanted obligation to me, rather than actually feeling excited over playing the game.

The same kind of psychological change was compounded by the addition of tokens, and I felt that I was worrying way too much over gathering as much gold as possible to fund game time. In the end I decided that all of this stuff just wasn't worth it any more when I could be having more fun doing other stuff, so I just canceled. It doesn't really feel likely that I will pick up Legion at this point. None of my old friends are playing any longer anyway so the social positives took a huge hit from that as well.

 

[Kosma]

I think what WoW needs is a complete reboot

-New engine
-New classes and mechanics
-Set in the same period as movie

Old WoW can continue on chugging along of course besides this new WoW "2".

 

[neurosisxeno]

-Set in the same period as movie

That's not really possible. Or at least not possible without hitting really early overlaps. The movie takes place during the first war which is only like 10 or so years in game be the beginning of WoW. As it stands WoW covers something like 8-10 years of in game events, and after the end of the second war nothing really happens for a few years. If anything they just wouldn't have enough established content and the game would be really empty and boring.

 

[Tillbo]

The movie will get a lot of hype and coverage and will definitely help bump the numbers again but WoW is getting on now, but unfortunately nothing ever came alone to replace it.

For years people were predicting the next WoW killer, whether it was SWTOR, DC or a Marvel MMO, Warhammer Online, Age of Conan etc. but nothing ever came close.

It is a shame as I loved my time with WoW but the MMO market is now quite stale...

 

[GusZamboni]

new expansion always do a boost in the numbers, used to love WoW, but now i dont have time to play it and its so time consuming for people like me that are collectionists, that i just step back

 

[RPGCrazied]

They should have did another Annual Pass to help the bleed sub numbers.

 

[Apt101]

Which is kind of a horrible metric, because a lot of things can throw that number off--banned account rebuying the game, bots, multiboxers, gold farmers, etc. It's it's a Pay-2-Play game active accounts is really all the matters. I bought FFXIV for something like $10 on a Steam Sale and never played more than the 30 days that came with it.

Well, as I said, it's something and not nothing. I wasn't suggesting they have 5 million active subscribers and neither were they.

 

[Tillbo]

It would have been cool if they could have done some kind of reboot with a console version around the time of the movie launch.

When Diablo 3 got announced for consoles I thought there was a chance but that's never going to happen now...

 

[Sölf]

Here's the thing:

They lost "mass" market appeal with Mists of Pandaria, but managed to maintain a steady 7m+.

With Warlords, the nostalgia hype and marketing got people to come back. The leveling experience was amazing.

Then we all woke up and realized that the entire end-game was unfinished. It was just sitting in your garrisons. And that's all WoD EVER was. Even Tanaan was pretty crap.

WoD is essentially a filler expansion in terms of the content it had, but I have little faith in Legion being any better.

This. I am currently not playing, because the endgame is just boring. It's not even that it is so much different, but there is less of it. The first few weeks at endgame were awesome as always, dungeons were still new, you had stuff to do (god I loved the treasures <3) but this time it just got old even faster. The apexis dailies were probably the most boring endgame thing they could have done. And yeah, you sit in your garrison most of the time.

I know I will be back for the next expansion because leveling and the first few weeks or maybe even months at max level are the best, but beyond that? My guild died and I haven't really found a replacement, so raiding is also not really doing it for me without people I know and like. And this expansion is more or less "raid or die", like it was in Vanilla.

 

[m_dorian]

I am not interested in WoW anymore but i had a great time peaked with WotLK.
I think we need a WoW 2.

 

[Arttemis]

WOW. That latest expansion must be horrible. Maybe shift focus back onto Diablo 3?

It seems less like a horrible expansions and more like Blizzard just can't retain its numbers regardless of what it does.

 

[Sölf]

But people, don't forget that Warlords was such a great expansion 2 weeks into Legion, when we all realize Legion is the second coming of Satan in terms of overall gameplay and stuff, okay?

 

[Lanrutcon]

It seems less like a horrible expansions and more like Blizzard just can't retain its numbers regardless of what it does.

I contest that.

Add proper housing. Add a customisable way to showcase (in game, not some fucking popup screen) all the gear sets, mounts, pets, cheevos, rare drops and event gear you've collected.

Bam.

 

[Paasei]

Terrible expansion and the game is 10 years old It's only natural that it loses it's charm after so long.

I also stopped playing this game early on in WoD.

I will try Legion, but we'll have to see how long that will stay fun.

 

[Bisnic]

I dream of the day where the monthly subs goes out. One day maybe...

 

[Skellig Gra]

It's dead, let it go.

Just no.

 

[Slayven]

I can't imagine the cluster it must be to get 40+ people together for raids nowadays. There is just so much to do.

 

[Vincent Grayson]

WoD lost its charm real fast for me, but I blame that almost 100% on their idiotic changes to flying, which has always been one of the major reasons I liked WoW over other MMOs.

Legion will inevitably get me back for a month, but I'll never be a regular subscriber again until/unless flying goes back to the old, much simpler method of simply being able to do it at max level with the investment of some cash.

 

[Renekton]

I contest that.

Add proper housing. Add a customisable way to showcase (in game, not some fucking popup screen) all the gear sets, mounts, pets, cheevos, rare drops and event gear you've collected.

Bam.

Bam 4.9M

 

[Arkeband]

Really? Even the current version?

FFXIV still doesn't even allow you to swim, and every zone is a highly dressed up cell. WoW had a giant seamless world a decade ago.

There's also zero build diversity within classes, no choices with skills, no talents, and there's only ever two end game dungeons that are barely relevant (finish the dungeon to get your raid gear tokens) and four raid bosses.

Heavensward was a pretty disappointing expansion outside of the story. Launched in June, finally getting the first content patch next week and it doesn't add anything further to the endgame, just some more weekly grinds to help summit the latter two purposefully overtuned raid bosses.

 

[Tillbo]

I dream of the day where the monthly subs goes out. One day maybe...

Is the monthly sub really that bad? When it goes the game will instead be filled with hundreds of $ worth of micro transactions. I'm not sure that'll be better?

 

[Draxal]

Game really really misses Ghostcrawler.

 

[SUPARSTARX]

5.5 million * $15/month is still a lot.

Thank you World of Warcraft for funding all these projects!

We need a World of Warcraft II.

 

[TatteredHat]

Is the monthly sub really that bad? When it goes the game will instead be filled with hundreds of $ worth of micro transactions. I'm not sure that'll be better?

Last I checked the game was already filled with plenty of micro transactions in the form of buyable mounts and pets and character boosts (and I'm not counting server/race/faction changes), it's hardly going to get any worse.

 

[LincolnSixVacano]

No suprise here. Not the current drop is the issue, the WoD peak was the remarkable thing here. Take that spike out and we still see the same trend. That will probably continue until the 1-2 million mark. After that I expect a stable core of around that size will keep the game going for another 2-3 years.

So all in all, numbers will drop, but I see at least another 3-5 years left in the game. Hopefully they'll stat thinking about the IP soon. Maybe a sequel, or just continue with Warcraft 4.

I can live with this, I still occassionally get a month's subscription to quest/level a bit. And to be fair, despite a lot of criticism, It's still the best MMO out there. I tried dozens of them, but none of them has captured my attention like WoW has.

 

[Houndi101]

We need a World of Warcraft II.

honestly, haven't played since Cata, but I would be so in

 

[Dunkley]

I don't think we know for sure how many subs XIV have.

The assumption from revenue and Lodestone survey is being somewhere just a bit short of 1 million subscribers. Square likes to prop it that number up however by talking about subscriber accounts and registered accounts instead of just admitting it's only around the number.

I mean what are they afraid of, it's still the second most popular subscription based MMO worldwide.

FFXIV still doesn't even allow you to swim, and every zone is a highly dressed up cell. WoW had a giant seamless world a decade ago.

There's also zero build diversity within classes, no choices with skills, no talents, and there's only ever two end game dungeons that are barely relevant (finish the dungeon to get your raid gear tokens) and four raid bosses.

Heavensward was a pretty disappointing expansion outside of the story. Launched in June, finally getting the first content patch next week and it doesn't add anything further to the endgame, just some more weekly grinds to help summit the latter two purposefully overtuned raid bosses.

Not saying FF14 is a better game than WoW because WoW simply offers more, but as a player who is levelcapped in WoW and FF14 I honestly can't say either game can write home anything about build diversity as WoW has the issue of having only one definite talent for each level for most of the classes, it has spec diversity yes but FF14 has switching jobs which kinda just ends up scratching the same itch and cross-class skills, which, for the latter, just like talents, there are definite ones to pick, so it isn't any better than WoW on that regard just as much as WoW isn't better than FF14 on that regard and neither game is a shining example of build diversities.

Also, not sure if you did it on intention, but you're massively underselling 3.1 there starting with the fact that it continues the freaking story and introduces way more to the game that you're trying to put it. For a free patch, we're getting quite a lot, just like we got in Vanilla FFXIV up to 2.55

 

[Novocaine]

5.5 million * $15/month is still a lot.

That's not how it works. Places like China don't pay a monthly subscription. Also don't forget to subtract the server and staff costs etc. But then you can add in all the paid features like vanity items and server transfers.

 

[Gunmonkey36]

We need a World of Warcraft II.

What does that even entail? Like I legitimately don't understand what that would do? Better graphics/Engine adjustments/better textured world?

 

[Apt101]

WoD lost its charm real fast for me, but I blame that almost 100% on their idiotic changes to flying, which has always been one of the major reasons I liked WoW over other MMOs.

Legion will inevitably get me back for a month, but I'll never be a regular subscriber again until/unless flying goes back to the old, much simpler method of simply being able to do it at max level with the investment of some cash.

I still don't get their aversion to flying, it made their world(s) a more fantastic place to be in. Why run from it? And I really disliked the Facebook-gameish way they implemented garrisons. That was doomed for failure to even uninterested third parties. One can't just drop that on an established playerbase and expect good results.

 

[Tillbo]

Last I checked the game was already filled with plenty of micro transactions in the form of buyable mounts and pets and character boosts (and I'm not counting server/race/faction changes), it's hardly going to get any worse.

I dunno...with Activision behind it it could get much worse! I had forgotten about the character boost though. Was thinking that micro transactions were just for services and pets/mounts still.

 

[Fehyd]

Which is kind of a horrible metric, because a lot of things can throw that number off--banned account rebuying the game, bots, multiboxers, gold farmers, etc. It's it's a Pay-2-Play game active accounts is really all the matters. I bought FFXIV for something like $10 on a Steam Sale and never played more than the 30 days that came with it.

Only accounts that have paid for game time beyond the first 30 days count in that metric. So fresh box copies, trials, etc aren't counted.

 

[Sölf]

What does that even entail? Like I legitimately don't understand what that would do? Better graphics/Engine adjustments/better textured world?

Which they have all added slowly over the years. They remade the whole world with Cata. They added completely new models with WoD. By now we basically already are in WoW 2.0.

 

[TatteredHat]

I dunno...with Activision behind it it could get much worse! I had forgotten about the character boost though. Was thinking that micro transactions were just for services and pets/mounts still.

I forgot about those cosmetic headpieces as well, I mean just look at this:

https://us.battle.net/shop/en-gb/product/game/wow

WoW already a catalogue of micro-transactions on the level of games that don't feature subscription fees / €50 retail expansions. The future you are describing is already here.

 

[Arkeband]

Not saying FF14 is a better game than WoW because WoW simply offers more, but as a player who is levelcapped in WoW and FF14 I honestly can't say either game can write home anything about build diversity as WoW has the issue of having only one definite talent for each level for most of the classes, it has spec diversity yes but FF14 has switching jobs which kinda just ends up scratching the same itch and cross-class skills, which, for the latter, just like talents, there are definite ones to pick, so it isn't any better than WoW on that regard just as much as WoW isn't better than FF14 on that regard and neither game is a shining example of build diversities.

Also, not sure if you did it on intention, but you're massively underselling 3.1 there starting with the fact that it continues the freaking story and introduces way more to the game that you're trying to put it. For a free patch, we're getting quite a lot, just like we got in Vanilla FFXIV up to 2.55

Cross-class skills being compared to talent trees of WoW's heyday is practically an insult, but if that really still does it for you, more power to you.

I said 3.1 is only marginally supplementing the endgame. Everyone's still brickwalled or past A3S and A4S, two whole boss fights, that will stay that way until February or March. That's rough.

If FFXIV wants to be a single player story first with stylish (by MMO standards) cutscenes, and an MMO second, that's cool, but the PS3 excuse is all it has for many aspects of its design.

"For a free patch" is nonsense, by the way. The entire business model revolves around getting us to hand over money every month and patches are not only an expectation, but an obligation.

 

[Kosma]

What does that even entail? Like I legitimately don't understand what that would do? Better graphics/Engine adjustments/better textured world?

Its a complete reboot with a new engine, new story, new classes, new mechanics.

 

[Azzurri]

I'm so happy that we are seeing a less and less theme park MMO's and more sandpark and sandbox ones.

I can't do the get to endgame and basically sit it town a queue up for PvP or PvE via menus. That is not an MMO, it's basically a MOBA at that point.

 

[shanafan]

Even though I have stopped playing, this game always has my finger on the trigger to jump back in. Such a beautiful game with amazing music, lore, variety of creatures, classes to play as, etc etc.

One of the best games ever made, hands down

 

[Vincent Grayson]

I still don't get their aversion to flying, it made their world(s) a more fantastic place to be in. Why run from it? And I really disliked the Facebook-gameish way they implemented garrisons. That was doomed for failure to even uninterested third parties. One can't just drop that on an established playerbase and expect good results.

I think garrisons could have been neat if they'd gone all in on them and actually made some kind of mobile app to run the whole thing. Instead of making it a place you need to spend time in-game (and for many, the only place you spend time in game now), they could have let us do all the sending out on quests, picking up resources (or god forbid, have the miners do it), etc from our phones, such that when we're in the game, we spent our time actually *playing* WoW proper.

But yeah, the flying really gets me. From BC on, flying was one of the major distinguishing elements for WoW, and really made the world come together as a cohesive whole for me. Their weird stance on it, and basically killing the feature (unless you grind out a ton of shit first) after it had been part of the game for most of its life is just baffling as hell.

 

[shanafan]

I think garrisons could have been neat if they'd gone all in on them and actually made some kind of mobile app to run the whole thing. Instead of making it a place you need to spend time in-game (and for many, the only place you spend time in game now), they could have let us do all the sending out on quests, picking up resources (or god forbid, have the miners do it), etc from our phones, such that when we're in the game, we spent our time actually *playing* WoW proper.

But yeah, the flying really gets me. From BC on, flying was one of the major distinguishing elements for WoW, and really made the world come together as a cohesive whole for me. Their weird stance on it, and basically killing the feature (unless you grind out a ton of shit first) after it had been part of the game for most of its life is just baffling as hell.

How did Blizzard change the flying mechanic with the newer expansions? I remember spending gold to get a faster flying speed, as well as needing to get to a certain level to be able to fly in the newer zones.

 

[justsomeguy]

I'll just reiterate what others have said. Wow's current decline is not due to the subscription model. People are okay to pay for a quality content mmo, or at least theres a part of playerbase that thinks like that.

Its just Warlords of Draenor has been the absolute worst expansion released on pretty much all fronts. Not even a decent story to cling on, its offensively bad if anything.

Im sure Legion will reinvigorate subs massively, then we'll see if its another disappointment.

I went back to it for a bit then realised they'd basically killed socialising by giving everyone a garrison, capital cities appeared mostly dead, and I just abandoned my poor characters in the middle of a zone somewhere.

 

[Tenebrous]

Glad to see subs have somewhat stabalized. Throw in a content patch and we might not have seen a drop at all in the last quarter. I'm subbed until summer 2016 with WoW tokens, so it'll be a while before I fully disappear, even if I don't play, haha.

Even though I have stopped playing, this game always has my finger on the trigger to jump back in. Such a beautiful game with amazing music, lore, variety of creatures, classes to play as, etc etc.

One of the best games ever made, hands down :)

Without doubt.

 

[Kosma]

I went back to it for a bit then realised they'd basically killed socialising by giving everyone a garrison, capital cities appeared mostly dead, and I just abandoned my poor characters in the middle of a zone somewhere.

Cross server everything killed the WoW that I loved.

Not that I'd have the time for anything like that anymore, but I'm sure there are millions of people that do have it and would love it too (HS/College).

 

[Renekton]

But yeah, the flying really gets me. From BC on, flying was one of the major distinguishing elements for WoW, and really made the world come together as a cohesive whole for me. Their weird stance on it, and basically killing the feature (unless you grind out a ton of shit first) after it had been part of the game for most of its life is just baffling as hell.

Cohesive whole huh.

We just fly to point A with zero engagement with the terrain, monsters or enemy factions.

Edit: sorry for coming off a bit rude oops don't really care for flying myself

 

[Tenebrous]

Cross server everything killed the WoW that I loved.

Not that I'd have the time for anything like that anymore, but I'm sure there are millions of people that do have it and would love it too (HS/College).

Agreed 100%. 99% of the people I met and still talk to during my 9 years on WoW I met before 3.3 landed, even though I was just as "into" the game in late Wrath & early Cata as I was during TBC.

 

[Heigic]

Only losing 100k subs in a quarter where no content was released was a good quarter.