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I have read through the majority of the threads here and I haven't seen any blatant WOW fanboyism, but I just facepalm seeing how many of the worst aspects of WOW people want to see incorporated into FFXIV.
If we're able to solo from beginning to endgame without interacting with other classes and characters, I get the feeling the game won't last long in a Western market. I for one wouldn't stick around for it anyway, there's a reason I only played WOW for a short time after WOTLK came out and there's a reason Blizzard is losing subscribers at an alarming rate. When the challenge is gone, and you encourage the Counter-Strike and Halo communities to take part in the game and reward everyone for very little effort, it's not fun anymore. I hope they take very, very few aspects from major MMO's like WOW. I hope that group play is still required to progress and that the game doesn't become a retardedly inflated statfest like WoW is currently.
A lot of posts in here are depressing when talking about PVP.
Seriously, this isn't Counter-Strike. This isn't Diablo. This isn't WOW. This is Final Fantasy. There are plenty of alternatives for people that want to play games where they can lolololol roflstomp other people. FFXI had a redeeming quality in that it didn't encourage that style of gameplay but instead encouraged group play. Having been a part of both communities, I can sincerely say I don't want the WOW community migrating to FFXIV. You will find elitism in every MMO and every internet group, but I guarantee you will find the highest concentration of trolls and ROFLSTOMPers that have a /spit emote macro'd in WOW. The kind of people that make fun of players that play on roleplaying servers for being carebears and nerds, as if exploring Azeroth was somehow cool in the first place. They are the same people that couldn't beat Oblivion without cheat codes because they were in too much of a hurry to blow stuff up.
Speaking of statfests, do you really think that improves a game? "I need X of this stat in order to be optimal. I need Y amount of this stat for this particular encounter". If you think gearswapping is restricted to FFXI, you're wrong. The numbercrunching, theorycrafting statfest doesn't at all add to a games challenge and charm, it just further encourages stat-bloating and elitism. Don't forget the 3 letters after MMO when it comes to Final Fantasy, it's RPG. Of any RPG I've ever played, I've never "needed" any particular stat or piece of gear in order to be competitive and do well. Instead we're normally able to equip what we want and what makes logical sense and still excel. If you go check out the ElitistJerks forums and actually think that the endless number-mashing and theorycrafting seems intriguing, you are beyond help. The TP system is far from perfect, but I guarantee you there is nothing fun about making sure you have exactly X and Y amount of stats, and then making sure you use the same mind numbing rotation over and over and over again... The WOW system is no more complicated or strategical than the FFXI system and in fact, encourages people to mindlessly gear, spec and play exactly like everybody else in order to stay even in DPS and inflate their own egos as if it's a difficult task. SE not giving people the specifics of the games mathematical equations down to .01% is one of its saving graces. Could they give a little more? Perhaps. Do I want them to? No.
Class balance? Blizzard has hit every class with the nerf-bat repeatedly in order to 'balance' classes around the PVP bitching that goes on in their forums when people get their faces smashed in WSG. As an unintended consequence, PVE play suffers quite often. I actually admire SE for not repeatedly gutting and rebuilding their classes for no reason other than bitching and moaning from people that want to mindlessly 1-shot other players all day long. Blizzard has "tweaked" (lol, your wording isn't strong enough) their classes so many times that they wouldn't even be recognizable for somebody that was away from the game for a couple of months. Not to mention that everyone is speaking as if Blizzard has ALWAYS kept every class/spec balanced. It wasn't even until last year that Retribution Paladins became viable, but everyone forgets that because it's currently trendy to hate Paladins because they 1 shot people in inferior gear in WSG. Get this, the reason Retribution Paladin is being nerfed next patch is (directly from the mouth of a Blizzard employee) "It increasingly feels like players only have 60% of their health when going against a Paladin due to vindication and hammer of wrath". There were no numbers behind it, and in fact the numbers you so encourage were contrary to what the devs FELT, but they're going to go ahead and change it anyway to see if their mouth-breathing subscriber base will stop bitching so much on the forums. And that is just 1 example of Blizzard ignoring 1 spec for close to 4 years, buffing it to make it viable and then gutting it again because people are needlessly bitching and moaning about it. Anyway, I don't want to delve too far into WOW specifics, but SE should learn absolutely nothing from Blizzard's class nerf buff nerf buff nerf buff rollercoaster. FFXI's system is not perfect, but I admire SE for not changing it every other day on a whim simply because they feel like it.
SE is like a rock and it adds to the mystique and immersion that IMO, is supposed to be a staple of RPG's. Number crunchers can go play number munchers. That type of system doesn't make the game anymore complicated or fun, it just makes it easier for people that don't truly understand what they're doing to go into zombiemode and do exactly what their wowwiki told them to so they can be fully purple. It feels less like you're playing a character and more like you're a robot surrounded by robots. That is not an RPG, that is an MMOe-peen stroker at its worst.
Blizzard's crafting system is a joke. You can max out 2 professions in half a day of work at level 80, but don't expect to make any money out of it because there are thousands of other people that have it maxed as well. Blizzard pumps so much new gold into the economy without taking enough out that inflation in WOW is at ridiculous levels. The good news? Gold is super cheap to buy and Blizzard completely turns their heads the other way when it comes to RMT farmers, botters and traders.
Blizzard customer service is almost exactly the same if not worse. In fact, there was a time I was leveling my alt and they got stuck in nowhereland. I opened a ticket and a GM was not able to assist me for 3+ hours. At that time, I had to log out to take care of something. I came back, my ticket was gone and my character was still stuck. I opened another ticket. Another 3 hours. A GM finally messaged me, but oh, what's this? They couldn't assist me because it wasn't a problem they'd seen before and were unable to send me to my homepoint. They had to send it up to their superior. No big deal, log out for the night. Get on the next afternoon, still stuck in nowhereland. Opened another ticket and magically this GM was able to assist me., again after a monumental wait.
Unjustified bans? Got one of those from Blizzard too. Tried logging in and got the message "This account has been suspended, please go to http://blahblahblah.blah. Website I went to said the account was permanently banned and that a reason would be sent to my registered email address. Waited a few hours, no email. I called Blizzard and they then sent me the email with the reason for the ban. The email said nothing about a permanent ban, and in fact said the accounts security was in question so it's been closed for my protection. Anyway, this was a Friday. I had to send them proof that I was really the original owner of the account with ID, a PDF (luckily I have full Adobe for work). I sent that Friday around 5PM PST, you know when I finally got the account back? Monday night. SE is far from the worst offender when it comes to poor customer service, this is more a problem with customer service and call centers in general no matter the business. SE should give their GM's a little more power though, I will say that much.
The bottom line is that no company is perfect. Especially as it pertains to technology. Expecting nothing less than perfection and desiring the dev team to cater to every whim of the gaming community at the drop of the hat for your measly $15 a month is just unrealistic. You can pay $120 for your internet, digital cable and phone package and still have the service fail for an entire day. Welcome to the real world.
The list goes on and on, but here's to hoping FFXIV is new, original and fresh without feeling like a reskin of WOW simply because that's what the casual gaming community wants. Here's to hoping FFXIV is actually an RPG and not just another solo MMO. Here's to hoping SE learned from their own mistakes and takes ZERO pages out of Blizzards playbook. If you want to level all the way to end game solo, go play FF13. Or better yet, go play WOW and leave fans of the Final Fantasy franchise alone.
TL;DR me and flame on.
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