So we're getting a new operation....but you're unlocking each boss during the year?

[mmmbuddah]

I seriously doubt that it will.

 

People have done the math It will take 7 months if you are average player that plays a couple or 3 hours a day. 7. Months. That is too long. The gearing system should not be based around people that spend 16 hours a day grinding one single boss in ops.

[mmmbuddah]

Here, even though this article is now over a year old.... 800,000 - 1.2 million estimated regular subscribers and 5 million total subscribers to date. And they clarify that the figure is only PAYING accounts and does not include free trials.

 

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/final-fantasy-xiv-has-had-5-million-subscribers-is-second-most-popular-subscriptionbased-mmo-33713

 

Since that time, they have passed they have added another 1 million since then.

 

So yes, I mis-spoke earlier with the 800k-1.2m concurrents when it was subs. But it is a far cry from the fiction you have been posting.

 

Secondly, as for overtaking WoW, ask yourself why after ten years of reporting subs did Activision decide to stop reporting once they got down to the 5.5 million mark.

 

Finally, as to excluding Japan, you do remember when this game has Asia Pacific servers, no?

 

I am doing the trial right now, and the starting towns are absolutely full. And not just with trial players, with veterans and mentors ( still learning )

[Andryah]

I am doing the trial right now, and the starting towns are absolutely full. And not just with trial players, with veterans and mentors ( still learning )

 

Of course they are full. Last Month the same was true of the starter planets for this MMO too. Even now, the starter planets are pretty busy in SWTOR.. even though some players have declared it dead.

 

My point? That data point does not mean much really... other then the game is alive and active at the starter levels. Comparing their account creation rate with their active subscription numbers is a much more relevant measure if one want to try to compare one MMO to another.

 

And again.. I am NOT in any way claiming FFXIV is not doing well... only objecting to completely conflated presentation of data. It is one of the top MMOs at the moment, and many players like it... but many players also have, for whatever reason, not continued to subscribe. If I had to guess.. it's that people do not feel compelled to subscribe in a subscriber only MMO once they have consumed the content they are interested in. They likely do like the do here... cycle in and out of subscription periodically to consume the newest content.. and then unsub again... like they do in WoW, and Rift, and SWTOR, and other MMOs as well.

 

If FFXIV interests you.. by all means give it a try. I have.. twice now. Just do so with open eyes and without any fixation on if it is the biggest gorilla in the cage or not. Personally, I find LoTRO to be more appealing to me then FFXIV, even though it is long in the tooth and showing it's age. But this is why there are many choices in the MMO market.... different players want to explore different things and play different things.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Andryah

[Vember]

People have done the math It will take 7 months if you are average player that plays a couple or 3 hours a day. 7. Months. That is too long. The gearing system should not be based around people that spend 16 hours a day grinding one single boss in ops.

 

That doesn't take GC into consideration. Remember, these components you get are to supplement GC, they're not meant to be your sole means of gearing. And let's be honest, how fast should a completely casual person that only plays a couple hours a day gear up?

 

I'm leveling a new Scoundrel right now, 58 atm. I'll keep you up to date on my gearing endeavors once I hit 70!

Edited January 27, 2017 by Vember

[Wayshuba]

LMAO. Just like in the other thread.. you appear to be bad at analysis (or at the least biased) and you are only open to your own personal facts and so there is no point in discussing this with you. FFXIV has less then 500K active subscribers World Wide, per multiple sources on the internet. The data presented in the linked article that you misrepresent is simply one of them (and gives more analysis then you, or most other sources on the question). Being as the article is a from a site that follows the genre and is looking at the top MMOs, and rank ordering them based on data ... at least it is trying to be objective in putting them into a ranked ordering, and presenting data for why the ranking is as it is.

 

The only reason I have commented in the other thread and this one is so that other players do not just take what you say at face value and then repeat it so it becomes an alternate-fact meme in the forum. We have enough false facts and ideas in the forum as it is. I'll leave it to other readers to read both my posts and yours and decide for themselves which one is being objective and which one has an agenda. I'm not going to debate your propaganda just to give you more posting cycles in the forum.

 

Personally, I do not understand you obsession with talking up FFXIV when you apparently have not yet played it yourself, and you are here in this forum talking down SWTOR at every possible opportunity. Much less making up false facts to support your crusade. What exactly are you gaining from this tactic? Is it that you need a crowd following you before you feel brave enough to move from SWTOR to FFXIV? Or do you think you can somehow shame Austin into copying FFXIVs approach and roadmap?

 

In closing... Cliff Notes version for those inclined to even care:

 

1) FFXIV has publicly disclosed that 6 million accounts have been opened since launch. (which does not in any way answer the question of "active subscriptions"

 

2) The article I linked specifically delves into available data for a number of MMOs in order to put them into a ranked order in terms of active player size. It's a pretty objective review and ranking.

 

3) The results of the article in the context of FFXIV is that world wide active subscription numbers at the time that number 1 above was stated -------> 320K subs, with 123K of those being in North America, and 50K+ in EU.

 

4) by any measure FFXIV is a healthy and active MMO in the market at this time. And no signs of it collapsing. That said.. it very much appears to suffer similar attrition and retention issues that other MMOs do...... 6M accounts, 320K active.......... nothing spectacular... but noting daunting either in todays market.

 

5) I'm sure we will see a refresh of the article or a similar one soon that updates the last 10 months with new data, and I expect we will see that FFXIV is still doing well, but that there is absolutely no way it has 800K+ concurrent players, much less overtaking WoWs world wide numbers. It won't even overtake WoWs US numbers. Nor does it have to.. except for those who only play and MMO because it is the biggest in the market.

 

You know what, now you are just presenting fiction as fact. Numerous report less than 500k huh?

 

A direct quote from that article pointing to what industry estimates are in July 2015:

 

"Estimates place FFXIV at around 800,000 to 1.2 million subscribers after a one million subscriber bump from February's announced total of four million, averaging at around 9,000 new players per day over four months."

 

That statement directly contradicts what you are saying. In addition, they have added another 1 million unique subscribers since that time.

 

So, since you want everyone to believe it is not as high as those industry estimates in that article. Nor that they have 64 servers today to support the population, have just closed 20 of them to new character creation due to full server capavities, are talking about adding more servers, and the CEO of SE claims that FFXIV accounts for just under 50% of their $1.7 billion in revenue. It is time for you to post those mythical links to numerous industry sources that says subs are 500k or less.

 

Of course, you are going to go back to that one article you have posted, taken what they wrote out of context, and say that is your proof.

Edited January 27, 2017 by Wayshuba

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Solo players have been addressed - enough - in the last 2 years. This still does not clarify if this is going to be just 5 bosses ALA Ziost, or if we are going to get something like SnV. This also does not clarify if they will all be connected in the end, or if we will have to queue seperately for every single boss. I tried askng the question, but got ignored considering the massive amount of "OPPPPPPSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS" and "BEHEMOTHTTHHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTH" spam going on.

 

This content seems to try cater to multiple play styles which is something lacking from this game for a long time now.

 

If they purely focused one group content and ignored solo play for 2 years the population would end up worse off than it is now.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

No he's not serious, its called sarcasm.

 

This game is massively lacking regular multiplayer content updates...people are getting bored of it, people are leaving. One daily area and one boss in an operation isn't going to bring new people in or keep them playing.

 

In two years and no end game multiplayer content yet those people are still here paying and, I assume, still playing. Now they finally announce a trend back towards doing end game multiplayer content and all those same people can do is complain about it and go on about how that isn't good enough lol.

 

Here is the kicker ... no one cares what those sort of people think. They are the ones who kept blathering on and complaining yet would do nothing to support their views like ... oh I don't know, stop paying. If anything they are part of the problem why we had to wait so long for group content - if more people backed their morals and actually unsubbed then we could have reached this point much quicker and have more group content by now.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Wow...damage control much?

 

Not sure about a magic coding machine, but hiring new developers and listening to community feedback (feedback asking for new ops over a 2 year period) will be a good start to get out an operation in a month or two

 

Yes because that's EXACTLY how development works - 2 months, operations ... no worries. Just throw money at it and who cares if the game actually makes a loss as a result. I'm sure EA won't care, they love throwing money away.

 

Lol.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

We call them competent employees with a smarter business model in play. Doesn't have to be magic, just talented hires.

 

If something like FF14 can crank out 8 raids, bw should be able to do more than one a year or better yet, more than one entire raid in 3 years.

 

All this talk os FF14 is a little bias - most of us have no idea or clue about that game to even form a competent response against it. I mean how much did they spend? How much profit did they make? Was anything sacrificed in the process? The list goes on...

 

I'm not saying getting all that content wouldn't be great, of course it would. Point is comparing this game to that game is apples to oranges as far as anyone knows because we really have no clue as to all those extra factors.

 

The way I see it people seem to have more issue with the amount of capital put into this game by EA right? Not enough resources thus sparse content.

 

So my question then is why go on and on about it here? This team is FINALLY after a couple of years making a change in their content direction and doing what they can with the resources they have. Has anyone who goes on about the lack of resources and FF14 this actually bothered to go to EA ( do they have forums for this sort of thing? ) directly with these concerns?

 

I seriously doubt anyone with any sway at EA read these forums and I doubt BWA pushing "Hi EA - our forum users would like you to give us more money, can we please have more money?" is going to cut it.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

I'm not a complainer, I'm a realist. I simply tell it like it is without the emotional attachment to the game or the company that others seem to have - that doesn't mean I don't get emotional at times, but my opinions are not formed out of anything other than realism. If you can't handle that, it's on you, not me.

 

And yes I'll continue to pay...I enjoy the game. Do you have an issue with that or are you just trying to make it personal in any way you can?

 

Lol read your post then read your post history. Realist ... good one.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Dude, you and I went through this last week. You keep spreading your false agenda on the concurrents because you REFUSE to acknowledge the context of the phrasing in that article.

 

So answer this, that article lists SWTOR as number 10 with 9k-18k CONCURRENT subs. How is FFXIV No 2 on that list with 13k concurrent palyers as you claim? How is FFXIV ahead of ESO listed with 250k simultaneous players?

.

 

That article also tried to imply:

 

which is around the 500-1000 online players per server during peak hours which includes the subscription and free-to-play users.

 

Which is a complete fallacy for March 2016. I guess they could be skewing their figures by averaging in the dead servers ( you really should close those BWA ) but to imply that's the amount of people playing server wide is not only impossible for them to demonstrate or prove but outright wrong. Even at it's lowest point during peak the populated servers wouldn't get that low.

 

That whole article is just mostly nonsense speculation presented as "fact" - not sure why anyone here is taking it seriously Also love the click bait on many games linking to amazon referrals .... pfft.

 

Edit: OH and it gets even better - you click a amazon link you end up on some cdkey/item selling site - worst example of evidence used to support an argument ever ( by both sides ).

Edited January 27, 2017 by MeNaCe-NZ

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Here, even though this article is now over a year old.... 800,000 - 1.2 million estimated regular subscribers and 5 million total subscribers to date. And they clarify that the figure is only PAYING accounts and does not include free trials.

 

http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/final-fantasy-xiv-has-had-5-million-subscribers-is-second-most-popular-subscriptionbased-mmo-33713

 

Since that time, they have passed they have added another 1 million since then.

 

So yes, I mis-spoke earlier with the 800k-1.2m concurrents when it was subs. But it is a far cry from the fiction you have been posting.

 

Secondly, as for overtaking WoW, ask yourself why after ten years of reporting subs did Activision decide to stop reporting once they got down to the 5.5 million mark.

 

Finally, as to excluding Japan, you do remember when this game has Asia Pacific servers, no?

 

Other than a lovely coming up on 2 year old article to support your view ...

 

To be clear, the current subscriber count hasn't been announced, nor has Square Enix ever shared this figure. The five million subscriber total doesn't include trial accounts, and only those who have at one time or another paid the $12.99/$14.99 monthly fee making it a substantial feat.

Read more at http://www.gamerevolution.com/news/final-fantasy-xiv-has-had-5-million-subscribers-is-second-most-popular-subscriptionbased-mmo-33713#ut1rAf69OCdyATrY.99

 

Wonder how many subs this game had in it's first 21 months? I mean that's what this is all about right? Measuring MMO epeens for some strange reason? I don't even know what people are debating anymore but this "evidence" people keep putting forward is worth a laugh.

[Quraswren]

All this talk os FF14 is a little bias - most of us have no idea or clue about that game to even form a competent response against it. I mean how much did they spend? How much profit did they make? Was anything sacrificed in the process? The list goes on...

 

Why bias? Because it produces more content? Very likly has more subscribers? You don't have to play the game to know about it. Doesn't really matter how much they spend but knowing what they do spend is put to better use than SWTOR when it comes to producing content. Knowing specifics on profit doesn't matter because we know FF14 is in general doing better than SWTOR. How do we know this? Because there are more people playing it than this and SW is damn near the most powerful IP on the planet and due to bad business from BW and EA combined with their terrible design and game development for the past number of years, SWTOR isn't doing all that well vs other MMORPGs.

 

Create as many questions as you want. The end result is SWTOR isn't the amazing game it should be as an MMORPG and when you compare it to another MMORPG, SWTOR just gets worse.

 

I'm not saying getting all that content wouldn't be great, of course it would. Point is comparing this game to that game is apples to oranges as far as anyone knows because we really have no clue as to all those extra factors.

 

Wrong. Comparing this MMORPG to another is they way it should be done. Just like they are all compared to wow. SWTOR doesn't get some kind of pass just because EA and BW have become inept when dealing with this game. We don't need to know the extra factors because we as gamers play the game. We see whats going on and if your smart, you know whats going on enough in other games to compare them.

 

The way I see it people seem to have more issue with the amount of capital put into this game by EA right? Not enough resources thus sparse content.

Thats just one issue. One out of many at this time.

 

So my question then is why go on and on about it here?

Why would you not? This is the outlet bw created for you to do that very thing. The very outlet that they want you to post in for concerns, complaints, grips along with enjoyments, good times and entertaining moments. It's also their free think tank and companies love it if they have any brains about them at all.

 

If EA had an open forum you can bet it would look similar when it comes to how mediocre swtor has because.

 

This team is FINALLY after a couple of years making a change in their content direction and doing what they can with the resources they have. Has anyone who goes on about the lack of resources and FF14 this actually bothered to go to EA ( do they have forums for this sort of thing? ) directly with these concerns?

Im sure someone has if it's even possible but that matters little because this is a direct feed for BW and there is always a chain of command to things in business. So you start at the game level. This is the gamers open way to get what they want said. EA and BW not listening doesn't matter but gamers can hope they are.

 

I seriously doubt anyone with any sway at EA read these forums and I doubt BWA pushing "Hi EA - our forum users would like you to give us more money, can we please have more money?" is going to cut it.

Again, you can only hope it goes up the chain but clearly it doesn't cut it because otherwise we could have seen changes to swtor sooner but that doesn't mean gamers shouldn't keep trying and posting when they have a complaint and there is a whole lot of reasons to complain about 5.0 and 5.1 as well as just how mediocre 5.2 looks.

 

There is no reason to currently praise BW or EA for their current attempts at salvaging 5.0 and the debacle it brought. Not yet anyway.

Edited January 28, 2017 by Quraswren

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Why bias? Because it produces more content? Very likly has more subscribers? You don't have to play the game to know about it. Doesn't really matter how much they spend but knowing what they do spend is put to better use than SWTOR when it comes to producing content. Knowing specifics on profit doesn't matter because we know FF14 is in general doing better than SWTOR. How do we know this? Because there are more people playing it than this and SW is damn near the most powerful IP on the planet and due to bad business from BW and EA combined with their terrible design and game development for the past number of years, SWTOR isn't doing all that well vs other MMORPGs.

 

How do we know more people are playing it though? How do you know this game isn't doing well vs other MMOs? Where are these figures coming from? Certainly not that dubious article mentioned earlier I hope.

 

My point is it seems people are cherry picking parts of FF14 to compare directly to parts of this game whilst many can't debate the opposing point in context.

 

For example how much voiced solo story content did FF14 put out in the past 12 months? Was it more? Less? That was this games focus last year for better or worse ( *cough* worse *cough* ). How much content overall does FF14 have compared to this game? Should we be comparing the games as to where they are in their development life cycles since ideally this game is 2 years older than Realm Reborn ( not counting that original FF14, that was a failure that nearly meant this debate wouldn't be occurring for all accounts ).

 

Create as many questions as you want. The end result is SWTOR isn't the amazing game it should be as an MMORPG and when you compare it to another MMORPG, SWTOR just gets worse.

 

See you are comparing the entire games together with a statement like that and that's entirely subjective. I wonder though if this other game is so great overall then why are you here?

 

I get that FF14 just released a big patch by all accounts but what has it's previous development cycle been like? Overall amount of content? Enjoyment based on how long you've been here or there? etc. etc. - this entire FF14 vs SWToR argument many of you are making is completely subjective and bias without presenting the full picture.

 

Also how is creating 5.2 getting worse? It's actually an improvement and taking steps towards give people what they want. I would love to see you justify how 5.2 is actually "worse" than what we say in 2016 though?

 

What can be said factually based on what I've noted in this thread ( and others ) is FF14 released a lot more content in their recent update that is superior in content to what this game has released in recent times.

 

Wrong. Comparing this MMORPG to another is they way it should be done. Just like they are all compared to wow.

 

Again you are being subjective. If you feel the need to compare this MMO to another MMO to decide if it's worth your money then that's your choice. I personally will ask the first question - "Am I having fun and is it worth my money" and then follow that up with "is the direction the game is heading on going to be worth me paying for" - currently it's No for the first question and Yes for the second.

As it stands you are paying for a game you seem to like less than another game and aren't even happy with the direction they've announced yet ... you are still here.

 

I would think if 5.2 isn't for you then it's certainly time to move on? I know that was my goal but I'm happy with the direction 5.2 is taking - it's not perfect and tons of content but it's enough to earn my sub when it comes out. How long I keep paying remains the subject of Question 1.

 

Long story short - what another MMO does shouldn't dictate whether or not you pay and play this game. You either like playing this game or you don't - it's that simple.

 

SWTOR doesn't get some kind of pass just because EA and BW have become inept when dealing with this game. We don't need to know the extra factors because we as gamers play the game. We see whats going on and if your smart, you know whats going on enough in other games to compare them.

 

Again, moot point. You either enjoy it or you don't. It's either worth your money or it's not.

The best thing you can do if you feel so strongly is to stop paying and actually go elsewhere. I imagine the results of KotET were so abysmal it's why we're seeing a change in direction. That's due to people actually voting with their wallet and moving on which actually sends a message to BWEA.

 

If everyone sat around whinging on the forums but the money kept flowing in they would keep making the same content because metrics dictate what they are doing works.

 

 

Why would you not? This is the outlet bw created for you to do that very thing. The very outlet that they want you to post in for concerns, complaints, grips along with enjoyments, good times and entertaining moments. It's also their free think tank and companies love it if they have any brains about them at all.

 

Yes but surely after doing it month and in and month out and they announce changes that some of you are still not happy with you would actually do something more about it that complain?

 

Just think - for every minute you spending posting on the forums to more than likely repeat something you've been saying for months on end if not longer ( and don't get me wrong, I've been the same but I see positives in this renewed direction and don't see the point in being overly negative about it not being "FF14 quality" ) you could have been putting time into FF14.

 

Also as I eluded to earlier, if you want more content which requires more money - go complain to EA about it.

 

 

Im sure someone has if it's even possible but that matters little because this is a direct feed for BW and there is always a chain of command to things in business. So you start at the game level. This is the gamers open way to get what they want said. EA and BW not listening doesn't matter but gamers can hope they are.

 

Complaining to a develop "give us more content" isn't going to get you very far. They know what they can afford to do and the resources they have to do it. They can only but prioritize how to spend said money and resources based on feedback which in 5.2 is the direction they are heading - listening to people.

 

Put the "not enough content" argument aside for a moment and think if this is all the resources BWA have to work with ( baed on the volume of content over the past 12 months ) - what would make you more happy than 5.2?

 

If it's only "more content" well that's not happening and whinging about it constantly isn't going to magically make BWA conjure up money, time or resources out of thin air which is again where you need to look and ask yourself if this is still the game for you. Come back in a year and there may very well be an abundance of content for you to consume for a month or two and in the time in between you got to enjoy something like FF14 that you seem to feel quite strongly about.

 

Again, you can only hope it goes up the chain but clearly it doesn't cut it because otherwise we could have seen changes to swtor sooner but that doesn't mean gamers shouldn't keep trying and posting when they have a complaint and there is a whole lot of reasons to complain about 5.0 and 5.1 as well as just how mediocre 5.2 looks.

 

There is no reason to currently praise BW or EA for their current attempts at salvaging 5.0 and the debacle it brought. Not yet anyway.

 

Not for you obviously but others, including myself, feel differently.