I know what you mean. I don't get why MMO's all have to be the same now. Isn't there room for games that rely on players getting together to progress instead of making everything single-player except for endgame?
I know there is money in the genre for the WoW type mechanic (not as much as there used to be) but it has zero lasting appeal and the majority of MMOers tend to agree. I've spoken to so many people who are the same as me, they're tired of this formula. Games like GW2 come along promising a different approach, but in the end they're the same and I think I know what the problem is.
In my opinion the problem stems from developers trying to turn the genre into something it simply isn't. It's not a single-player, casual experience. An MMO is fundamentally group focussed at its core, its time consuming and not suited to brief 1-2 hour playing stints. And its this that upsets me so much about FFXIV because of the company behind it. These guys created and still run a highly successful MMO that relies on (well, I should say
relied on) the social aspect of its game world and knew, from the ground up, that it was to be played at all times with other people.
FFXI was the best MMO I've ever played, it had problems absolutely; mostly problems that could have been fixed by having the directors of the game be a bit more proactive in decision making, but it ultimately got the main important thing right about MMO's, it knew what an MMO was and what it wanted to be. To progress in most parts of the game you had to get together with other people, or you needed other people to do something or other in order to progress. This mentality also had the benefit of making the individual player's job vital to the overall success of the party. Tactics, knowledge and balance where vital in making good progress together.
FFXIV could have been the updated version of FFXI. It could have fitted that niche in the market that so many western developers just can't even begin to see exists. Sadly it's not going to happen now, and I was probably being foolish thinking SquareEnix had the foresight to see this as their ancestors Square originally did.
I'm just fed up with the direction the whole genre has been pushed down by lack of development foresight. I know its expensive making MMO's, I know the producers and the money behind these games want to see evidence of sustained profits, but come on, surely it's time to see how utterly stagnant the genre has become
