Seen a fair few posts about people leaving from FFXIV, and lots of people in newcomer chat asking about “MSQ / Main Story Quests” (
).
Are people losing interesting in that game? Anything going on?
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The latest expansion, for lack of a better term, doesn’t live up to standards set by the previous two; specifically in terms of narrative, gameplay is stronger than ever. It’s not that bad, but disappointment drives players away faster than outright anger… though the recent patch’s reception has actually been fairly positive.
But the phrase “MSQ” has pretty much been floating around since the exodus of WoW players to FFXIV (who’ve been using the acronym since at least ARR). Those who went over there to visit have brought it back, because it’s a good & fast acronym that refers to the central narrative.
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MSQ has gotten kind of synonymous with these kind of games now. Could mean something, could mean nothing.
There are a ton of sprouts running around in FF14 too so 
.
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Doesn’t FF have their own forums? Good chance their complaining about something over there.
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I rarely see any refugee posts going from FFXIV to WoW. It is almost always the other way around. If there are, it is probably just someone looking at additional games, but once they experience the WoW community… they will leave and never come back.
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If I have to give the WoW forums one thing?
It’s more fun to complain around here.
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Why is that? 
Amen. I’ve heard that FFXIV can have “toxic positivity” - if you complain, people dogpile you.
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“Campaign” > “MSQ”
“MSQ” is what cat girls call a game’s campaign.
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Dawntrail just isn’t as great as other expansions that came before it, basically.
It’s not nearly as bad as Shadowlands for WoW was, but based on the complaints, I’d compare Dawntrail to BfA for WoW.
The story just fell short, and FF14 is ‘the story MMORPG’, so yeah.
In terms of gameplay, WoW edges it out a bit. Just smoother gameplay overall.
So, if not playing for story, why not come here instead?
I was part of the exodus over to FF14 to wait out Shadowlands, enjoyed my time there.
I’ll never call WoW’s main story questline an MSQ, but I’ll always understand folks calling it that.
Same as WoW players calling it ‘transmogging’ but over there, they call it ‘glamour’.
…And WoW’s getting housing soon, so I can understand the appeal of coming over here versus staying over there.
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Fair enough, I’ve never heard a longtime WoW player use the term relating to WoW.
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I’m a longtime WoW player and use it all the time. It’s easier then saying campaign constantly lol.
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Much better than the “toxic negativity” and “toxic entitlement” and “toxic elitism” that WoW has in excess.
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It’s literally just that a lot of WoW players have tried FFXIV (especially during the lawsuit) and WoW having campaign quests that are actually classified differently from other quests is a somewhat recent addition, so the term started getting used.
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I disagree. I like my MMORPGs like I like my internet - degenerate, toxic and free 
Thanks everyone for all the responses by the way, appreciate it.
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Same, freedom of speech has its thorns, but I’d rather be able to have conversations than have everything shut down.
I’ve played an MMO called Toontown Online when I was a kid, and you basically couldn’t talk without specific phrases that were basically pre-made emotes lol. It was awful.
Was hard to communicate other than “Hi!” and stuff like that.
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Main story quest is different than ff14 – ff14.is main scenario quest
Lol 
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FFXIV is structured in a very different way to WoW, as it’s almost entirely narrative-driven. It’s also infinitely more casual-friendly, thanks to the narrative (and particularly the MSQ) providing a good through-line for doing the vast majority of the game’s content.
It also largely avoids the endless endgame grind that WoW’s built upon, if at the expense of players quickly running out of endgame progress. MSQ notwithstanding (200+ hours of story), a player can max out their gear in a few weeks through the Tomestone currency system… and you get tomestones from EVERYTHING. You can easily cap the weekly capped one from roulettes alone (daily random dungeons, trials, raids, etc.; also what’s effectively permanent timewalking for everything at the default difficulty), and there’s no real expectation for you to cap it either.
It’s a “play at your own pace” sort of game. There’s no rush, and the story & questing content is infinitely more satisfying that WoW’s take on it.
An exaggeration, to tell the truth.
But the FFXIV community is fairly intolerant of the name-calling and finger-pointing behaviour that’s so prevalent in the WoW community.
Also, if you criticize the story, you MUST be fair about it. People are fine if you can present valid reasons for why you dislike something… but just calling it “bad” tells them you haven’t even attempted to understand it.
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Echo got 4th in the Ultimate world first race. Just wanted to mention that lol:
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i wonder whats going on int hat little wrld of their.s
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I went to FFXIV during most of Dragonflight, and lemme tell you…
The jerks are still there, much like here, but those jerks take longer to act as such. But when they do, my word are they nasty.
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