Like others have said, most people wouldn’t care what game is “king”. Players just need to spend less time comparing and more time just enjoying whatever game they like; I’ve never seen this level of constant comparison and defense with any other genre.
Even if someone wishes to defend what they enjoy, be wary of exercising confirmation bias - when you only look for evidence to support your claim while ignoring the opposing or only listening to the vocal minority - like how the smallest group we mostly hear from are people with negative concerns.
While I won’t deny ERP exists in FFXIV, I only know that it does from looking at lewd pics online, as I’ve never run into them personally and I’ve been playing the game since 2015. I’ve seen ERP in almost every MMO I’ve played in the last 20 years - we just only hear of the popular titles. However, there exists far more clean RP in these games that we don’t hear of - these are the ones I see on a regular basis.
Like how WoW players always mention the ERP on MG but rarely speak on the annual event, Tournament of Ages: http://tournamentofages.com/
Of all the reasons that “FFXIV will never be king,” the “better” RP in WoW is the least of them. The “toxicity” of the FFXIV community in comparison to WoW’s is the second least. I seriously have to wonder whether this was intended as a troll post. RP doesn’t make or break an MMO, and FFXIV seems to have a far more active RP community than WoW does. Then again, I don’t hang out in Goldshire often, so maybe my view is just biased because FFXIV’s RPers are far more prominent.
Having played both (on Moon Guard for 8 years and Balmung/ Mateus on XIV for the past few months) I’ll offer 2 cents.
I left WoW with the rest of the mass exodus after the lawsuit and the domino effect that saw RP numbers reduce greatly on Moon Guard (Alliance). Three friends and former WoW Rpers lured me to XIV where they insisted the RP was of better quality and everywhere. In actuality, it nearly only exist in Ul’dah (as with Stormwind) and specifically the Quicksand (Goldshire). None of those three could prove their selling points. I do see RP-FC’s advertising in /shout or whatever, but the one I’m in, everyone including the GM and officers only ever goes IC at the Quicksand - they ignore FC RP completely in favor of random hookups. To be clear - they do not advertise themselves as an ERP guild, but a story driven/ plot driven FC. I can’t speak for all of them being like this, but the ability to start organic walk-up RP is very slim. Gods help you if your character isn’t based out of Ul’dah ICly. The lack of TRP also creates difficulties, as you can’t just mouse over a character and get a quick synopsis from ‘at a glance’. I know Carrds exist, I made one, but they aren’t practical for grabbing a few needed details to start an IC interaction. Most ‘good’ writers will need a ‘why’ for the reason their character is approaching - this doesn’t mean you need their whole backstory but it does create depth and purpose.
What I will say XIV does better is transmog (glam) system and the housing - especially for a base of operations within an FC. The community OOC seems nicer and more mature. It’s unfortunate that these advantages don’t translate into RP.
WoW’s (especially Moon Guard’s) problem is that the RP community at large seems younger/ less experienced and it shows in the sub-par quality of writing and character concept/ execution. That being said, it exists, period. If you look hard enough you can find a quality writer and organic walk-ups in Stormwind all the time. (I hate Stormwind RP for the record, but you have to start somewhere). Goldshire is also, for the most part ,contained in it’s own bubble so you know what you’re getting - it’s not false advertisement. In XIV, it seems like the aura of Goldshire is over the entire server, and no one wants to RP anything story related unless it is quickly leading to smut. But they all say they want long term/ story driven, so it comes across as insincere.
Guess I’ll add to it. RP is not going to be the thing that keeps one game more populated than the other. In fact, that’s probably at the bottom of the list. Between the two games, WoW is a game geared towards endgame hardcore progression types, and less so towards casuals who like to just play and exist in the world, while FF14 is the opposite, emphasizing character and world building, artistry and creativity in zones, music and glamour, and greater accessibility in being able to just plain exist and live in the world. (oh, and cough housing cough).
RP in general would favor FF14, or so I would imagine, but since I haven’t been active in any RP community for well over a decade, I can’t say for sure. I do see much more casual RP in FF14 than in WoW, even the innocuous stuff like how people greet their party members in duty finder groups. I see absolutely none of that in WoW.
But gamers in general will decide which game is the more popular, and it will be decided by whether or not gamers as a cultural/social demographic prefer competition and progression, or immersion and storytelling. Because both games specialize in different areas, which is why I still actively play both. You can get all of those things in both games, but they aren’t weighted the same.
Yeah it does. One of the issues with the inventory systems in general, arguably the biggest contributor to inventory problems, is the glamor storage (or lack thereof) space. You do have to store every piece of gear you want to mog.
It’s a problem for those of us glamour hounds who have been playing awhile and have huge inventories of armor and weapons.
But I have so few issues with FF14 in general that I’m more than willing to work around it.
You clearly haven’t delved very deeply into FFXIV’s RP community or systems, have you? FFXIV’s emote and housing systems alone offer far more RP possibilities than WoW ever has.
The Crystal data center is the NA hub for RP. You can find lots of RP opportunities and events across all servers there. RP happens across other data centers too, of course, but Crystal is where the majority of the RP community resides.
Honestly, with FFXIV I didn’t feel like the characters I always identify myself with, I always identify my character as a warrior and such. But when it came to the race selection, I felt weird every race was the same: Skinny, humanoid, etc. The only major difference was the ears or whether or not you wanted a tail. I don’t want to be a human, I want to be something else.
Now let me get into the class choices, I couldn’t be a warrior all because it was a tank. I wanted to be a warrior really badly but did I necessarily want to tank, no. I wanted to be a warrior DPS, I didn’t want to be some slow lancer. The dungeons and raids felt lacking, overall it just felt more like a roleplaying game and story telling. Which is fine, I don’t mind lore in MMORPGS because well it’s a RPG but I don’t like the fact that I am forced to go through the story and unable to move on to newer content with my friends.
I see FFXIV as the Moonguard of WOW, except its roleplay. The whole time I played FFXIV I felt alone almost as if something was missing. I wasn’t sure what though, FFXIV had felt like I was in leveling hell for all of eternity, and if I were to skip I had to buy a lvl boost and a story boost. Instead of having them being their own separate thing.
