Blizzard had MANY choices.
Among them, these two…
1 - Create new and original content
2 - “Rule of Cool” story and “Epic Do-Over” lore
They went with number 2.
And yet they wonder how we got here…
And of those about 3 have floundered so badly they’re to this day majorly disliked (I say 3 if you count BFA): Cata, WoD, and BFA. SL is headed to tie WoD in that list, not a good sign honestly.
They fixed a good deal in 9.1.5 buuut: most things are still ridiculously RNG slog, the story itself is flushed down the metaphorical toilet and by this point will only get worse or change not at all, and the gameplay itself suffers the effects of timegates and RNG due to them not having enough time to properly flesh stuff out.
SL faces many of the problems of WoD with it’s own RNG twist to them. Sadly the only thing that saved WoD was the only semi-dumpster-fire-on-arrival expansion of Legion, the cycle doesn’t look promising; and I see it stopping no time soon.
It’s just very unlike what you’d expect from the Prime Evil.
But that’s another issue entirely…because let’s be honest. It may or may not be the same writers, but it’s definitely the same creative philosophy. Bombastic villainy, without true subtlety or interesting themes.
That’s basically gaming in general, though. I’m not really looking to reinvent the wheel, I just want good content and good writing. WoW’s problem isn’t that it’s repetitive–I’m fine with that, I played vanilla, TBC, WotLK, Cataclysm, MoP, and more…but it didn’t start to truly suck until later.
It wasn’t the repetition. I played Classic to death when it re-released.
It’s strictly the quality of the content and game design that’s lacking, now.
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I agreed with you up to the point of leveling to 56 and then when you said you prefer FF. Seriously the quests are the same vibe and there’s nothing new there. You can absolutely complain about WoW needing a breath of fresh air but you lost all the reason when you compared to FF . I actually enjoy FF too but I’m not lying to myself because it’s essentially the same quests mechanics and combat feels worse/slower. Couldn’t disagree more with your conclusion but good rant before that.
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At level 82, I’ve not even fought a dozen mobs yet. It’s been ALL dialogue and following or leading an NPC to a place, then MORE dialogue. Said in another thread, at this point I am morbidly curious when it’s going to become a game and not a Kindle, lmao.
It isn’t worth the queue time it took to get in atm, imo. At all.
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Yup that’s why I am waiting until the servers get sorted.
No point blowing out my esc key to skip everything as fast as possible. Don’t need the headache of servers issues as well. Endwalker seems pretty mediocre, hope max level is better. Don’t remember that many useless dialog quests.
Also OT- if there wasn’t more grinding in most of the wow xpacs than shadowlands you’d have a point op.
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Gets a lot better once you get to Garlemald. I was complaining about the questing the first couple levels. Was putting me to sleep tbh. Where I’m at at lvl 85 it’s actually getting pretty intense.
MSQ in FF14 is mostly reading though. But you only do it once. I like the open world zones (Eureka, Bozja, Zadnor) better than WoW zones like Korthia. And they have good stories too.
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That is so so funny ! Thanks for sharing 
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no lol
please no
I liked it. WoW zones are legit just aoe down mobs to collect currency. It’s pretty mind numbing. Eureka at least felt dangerous. Although I didn’t like the last one.
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The game population has been declining for years, too. Odd that.
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sorry
i dreamed up the idea of BFA and SL and apparently I did poorly
chrisp the diarrheac
The only thing I don’t enjoy about FF14 is that the movement isn’t as good as WoW’s. Everything else from presentation to gameplay is solid.
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Sooooooo what are you adding to the situation?
1000 of these posts have been made already. One more won’t hurt
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Actually, it’s been the same pattern for the past 10 years. Up on expansion launch then a steady decline.
Shadowlands launch was huge
There has never been a drop off that is comparable to Shadowlands . They couldn’t even maintain momentum during the year where most of the world was locked up and staying home. And this was before the recent controversies damaged Blizzard’s reputation even more.
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Also hasn’t been a global pandemic, global economic crisis/ beefs with China aswell as internal issues and lawsuits within blizzard where 3/4 of their staff have been sacked and replaced.
Don’t forget that devs were locked in homes aswell, and getting minimal pay during that time. Can’t expect huge super cool content when they were extremely held back by the high-ups (which are now sacked)
Not defending, they for sure could’ve done a better job
Crazy how Ragnaros server alone has more concurrent players than the entire of the ff14 US region.
Game isn’t as dead as everyone thinks
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I bet you felt super clever writing that.
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Also don’t forget has way less toxicity than WoW.
Rofl so funny you say this. All through Shadowbringers I kept asking myself “When do I get to play the damn game.” Sure there’s dungeons and trials, but I’m pretty sure I killed a total of 15 mobs.
Doesn’t help I decided to do it all on a healer spec. Big mistake.
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