The title of the thread is literally
WAKE UP BLIZZARD! YOURE THE SECOND MOST POPULAR MMO NOW
3 Likes
I agree, plus from what quick research/googling I did it looks like FF is falling down the list and ESO is probably the second most popular MMORPG at the moment.
Most recent searches probably are swayed due to ESO’s recent announcement of an Oblivion-themed expansion tbh.
go away.
seriously. sick of these dumb posts. loots fine. the years and years of loot pinatas have been boring. we still get stupid amounts of loot. get over it.
2 Likes
That’s just, like, your opinion man.
3 Likes
First:
If you’re talking about 3rd party website ratings, you should be aware that they have always leaned heavily anti-WoW. WoW is the big name. It’s what everyone and their mom (literally) has played if they’re interested in the MMORPG genre. So who exactly is going to such websites seeking alternatives?
Yeah. Almost entirely people who have left WoW after however long and are therefore never going to rate it highly. Bias is a thing and you have to account for that when taking info from anywhere.
Second:
If you’re talking about sub counts, you should be aware that we have ZERO solid data for the last 4-5 years from EITHER game. If we go by the last recorded numbers, then WoW has 5.1 million subs and FFXIV + FFXI + some other Square Enix MMO I forget the name of had a combined one million subs. That’s from like 2013 or 2015, I forget which. WoW’s is from 2015.
If you want to dive into speculative numbers, you should be aware that leading up to the Shadowlands expansion release, FFXIV users scraped their armory equivalent (or something like that, I’m not 100% on the details) and STILL came up with less than 1 million subs as a standalone game. And there’s a good chance that method counted many players multiple times due to having multiple characters even though it’s not encouraged by the game’s design.
Meanwhile, speculative numbers for WoW sometime mid BfA IIRC were based on a “leak” that only accounted for NA players. In a similar timeframe, people did a similar thing to what the FFXIV people did and looked at characters created (via tools like Realmpop). And yet again, the data wasn’t looked at properly, excluded China entirely and had to make huge assumptions about the average number of characters players have in WoW.
In both cases, the estimate was over 1 million, which is the highest estimated number anyone has seen for FFXIV.
Worth noting that FFXIV frequently reports total accounts created with confusing terminology. If you ever see something like “FFXIV surpasses WoW’s peak with 14 million subs”, it’s someone being confused by that terminology. The equivalent stat for WoW is over 100 million, and is largely irrelevant.
On a personal level:
FFXIV is a good game.
Things I believe it does much better than WoW:
- Character Models (Caveat: at the cost of diversity)
- Armor Models (It’s actually 3D. You can put on layers. It’s great)
- Storytelling (It’s heavyhanded and mandatory, but if you’re into it, it’s 1000% better than WoW’s garbage-tier campfest storytelling)
- Crafting (I still hate it, Crafting in MMOs is superfluous IMO, but I can admit its done much better than in WoW)
- Class Design (Combat is slower and it’s a huge con, but Class Design itself is FANTASTIC in comparison to WoW. WoW’s faster pace is the only reason I can enjoy combat here)
- Emotes (Many more options, idle poses, all animated, even standalone facial expressions)
That’ll about do it.
Every MMO has aspects that it excels in.
I personally enjoy what WoW has to offer more than FFXIV, which is why I’m here.
But FFXIV can be a fun temporary distraction from time to time.
4 Likes
Why did you feel the need to point out the obvious?
WoW is the second most popular MMO in the whole world! Yippee! Congratulations, Blizzard. Keep up the good work.
Only a fool would change a highly successful product. They teach that in business school. The people who run Blizzard are not fools.
In fairness, there’s only like… 5-6 or so MMOs that anyone cares about to begin with.
WoW
FFXIV
ESO
Runescape
EVE
Maybe a distant SWTOR
Why is the first argument against FFXIV that it’s the “UwU furry” game? There have been werewolves in the game since 2010, and shapeshifting druids from the start. Pandaren? Vulpera?
Is it the different art style? What are you on about?
This is a great post. I’ve played FFXIV since the beta, but this is the longest I’ve played continuously (FFXIV patch 4.5 - patch 5.4). With Shadowlands coming out, I’m spending the large majority of time in WoW.
Honestly the anime-ish graphics and boring timelined raid is whats putting me off in ff14. But all in all, gameplay wise FF14 nailed it. Generous drops / class balancing / no boring repetitive grind and lastly, but at the same time keeps player engaged by having tons of mounts and achievements to run, and lastly, devs listen to player feedbacks and actually communicates with them. Whats bad about ff14 is that the things that people dont like about it is what makes it unique and has its own personality.
WoW has the potential to be a better game. They just need to fire the current balance team and hire actual people who plays the game and plays each classes. Dont be greedy on loots. Wow has tons to offer when it comes to keeping player engaged. Listen to the majority of the players and by doing that, it can be number 1 again.
It’s not going to overtake it and it never will.
Thats the whole point.
They have to change the stats and ilvl on gear, and how they tune the difficulty, based around the drops.
People keep thinking that Shadowlands loot isn’t better loot. It literally is. It’s not just less gear, it’s less drops for better drops. While in BFA it was more drops for RNG crap gear.
It’s because the game is too easy and they have a balanced game. A balanced game is boring.
WoW has too much RNG in combat compared to FF14 for there to be enough balance. For WoW to be balanced like FF14, combat would have to be watered down to the point of FF14 lol.
Please. Just go play FF14.
We know FF14 players are bored and starving of content.
When you’re done playing FF14 “MMO cheat/effortless mode” then come back to WoW “challenge mode, actually have to play the game”. There’s plenty more content and just things in this game than FF14. WoW is number one for a reason. It’s the best. 
Because the Internet can’t lie!
It’s funny how people have been saying X game is going to “kill” or, in this case, “overtake” WoW for literally 15 years!! That actually blows my mind. Nobody should really be surprised when it finally happens. Like it or love it, you have to admit that’s an amazing feat. And Shadowlands just set some record itself. I know there are much more popular games (battle royales, shooters) but I’m still stunned.
LMFAO HAHAHAH The funny thing is I WANTED SO BADLY to like it but the combat alone just destroyed it for me. I will be the very first to admit that I didn’t play much at all maybe like 60-80 hrs. I figure if I’m not vaguely hooked after even 40 hrs then it won’t happen. First time playing wow by 20 hrs in I was screwed lol complete addict. Same thing with ESO the first 20 hrs was a blast I couldn’t stop playing lol those low level dungeons are pretty amazing!
I think most all the people that call FFXIV a weeb anime furry fest, haven’t actually played the game. Because really what it is is a full fledged Final Fantasy game put into an MMO framework (several, actually, each xpac is practically it’s own FF game from a plot perspective). I’m glad I took the time away from running Horrific Visions and Ny’alotha, to spend several months playing through the story of the FFXIV expansions. I might head back there.
Also, I suspect the ones that accuse it of being a weeb-fest aren’t the type to really play a Final Fantasy in the first place.
1 Like
I Actually like the loot being more difficult to get. “Epic” loot never felt epic besides vanilla …
Now if torghast was not so goddam boring though …
1 Like
Another loot thread disguised as a ‘WoW is subpar’ thread.
Cleaver, but try a bit harder. If you want to rant about loot. Rant about loot.
WoW is an annoying misogynist gamer discord server.
FFXIV is an insane LGBT purity spiral discord server.
…Yeah, as a woman, I’ll take WoW any day.
Sorry I give SL maybe 6 months and they will lose bulk subs over this debacle of a Xpac.