What killed the timesink MMO of 2004 to 2008?

What killed the timesink MMO of 2004 to 2008?

MMO players

Storyline and PS2 support ended.
Also the companies newest MMO('s, I think Dragonquest got an MMO to).

Abyssea.

ToAU onwards was the slow decline. Skillchains, magic bursts, and any remote sense of coordination was dropped by the entire playerbase as soon as those fucking pink birds started shitting up the joint. Most people outright refusing to EXP/Merit off anything post-54 if it wasn't a bird.

WotG was the definition of 'rehash'. If the zones weren't shamelessly copy-pasted, they were changed to make them even worse (fucking Jugner [S]). The three-ish new zones were barely used to warrant caring about, except maybe Grauberg.

WotG was stretched out for far too long (a year or two more than most other expansions) and then what do we get? Three shitty 'Add-On' packs that weren't relevant even 2-3 weeks after their release, and then Abyssea. Abyssea went "You know all that content you've been doing for the past 6-7 years, and the decent horizontal progression that made most things still relevant? Yeah, 99% of it is fucking useless now."

They tried to fix it, but by then the damage was done, and most people left FFXI.

i really loved vanilla WoW and FFXI. i miss wasting days grinding shit in cool worlds.. nowadays i just feel like i'm surrounded by autists in WoW so i don't play it anymore, but i miss the old days. they were just elaborate chat rooms but that's what made them so fun

This, I miss meeting people fighting elites in the world and doing GROUP QUESTS.

Is FF14 worth trying or is the MMO of our past gone forever?

it's.. passable.. but it's not nearly as good as vanilla/bc/wotlk or ffxi/ it's too fucking boring and shallow.

I keep waiting for a new FFXI but I feel like it may never come again.

Theme park cash shops make more money

Lots of things, really. The biggest being that more casual MMOs bring in more money. WoW's success along with FFXIV's recent popularity signals that there's little reason to appeal to a more hardcore audience. EVE is the only exception that I can think of (when it comes to western/euro audiences). And even then it only got there through continued support; it grew in the traditional sense rather than exploded.

My biggest gripe is there's no in-between. You're either a Massively Multiplayer RPG wherein the content is primarily experienced by yourself, or your spending days upon days waiting for a rare drop or spawn. Can I just get a MMO that requires grouping and a sprinkle of autism? I don't want the absurd camping. Some grinding? Sure. Just not to the extremes of Lineage 2 for example.

FF14 is one of the worst games I have ever played, I haven't played a lot of modern MMOs but considering how 14 is considered good in comparison to them they must be pretty fucking bad.

80% of the game is composed of fetch quests and un-lose-able fights that would be considered unacceptable in a single player RPG

There is no class specialization or any way to define your personal playstyle beyond choosing Tank/DPS/Healer

The multiplayer dungeons all boil down to "do your job correctly and you don't even have to watch what the other players are doing"

WoW.

Final Fantasy XIV killed it.

Not because 14 was so good, but because when it came out they actively tried killing 11. They raised the level cap, making all the good old content trivial, the new content was uninspired and easy. Leveling that took most people months became a total breeze. Sit afk for a full day to go 30 to 99.

>Not because 14 was so good
In fact it was so shit they had to reboot it.

After they took Yoshi-P off of XI to fix 14 they cleaned up his mess a bit.

Yes you still reach level 99 quickly but now you have to grind Job Mastery in EXP parties which is pretty much identical to the old 75 grind.

They pretty much just took all the stuff you used to love and moved it up to 99. It's not bad.

the community really.
everyone gave up playing eventually because they were burned out of the game and real life priorities had to take over.

remember those 100s of hours you spent hunting NMs and walking zone to zone? try doing that with a full time job. you either have to use a bot to stay competent or quit your job.

Yoshi-P was doing Dragonquest before 14 retard. Tanaka was the one who made Abyssea

I am the reason.

>Buy XI when it launches in the states
>Play DRK
>Continue to play when CoP launches
>Get to lv 62
>No one needs me in a party
>Have LFG up for 5 days consistent and finally get an invite
>Go to location for leveling and we all die trying to get there
>Dying causes me to drop to lv 61
>Party disbands

It's at this point I realize I am paying to play a game thats design has forced me to be stuck at progressing further. Not only that, but regresses me for attempting. I laughed realizing how twisted this was and never went back.

They now realize they can't do this to get peoples money. I play XIV now and it's what I needed XI to be.

The birth of competitive gaming.

Yeah but I bet you're still grinding in Abyssea. I left early 2015. (I've "left" about 7 times now, I bet I'll be back eventually, maybe next time I see my friend's name pop back up in ffxiah)

How disappointed were you when you played XIV for the first time?

>FFXI player during the Treasures of Aht Urhgan Era

Just as well, you probably couldn't have even beaten Maat if you can't manage to get sneak/invis on yourself.

Nope Abyssea is actually pretty much dead now. You do 1-99 by yourself in the old areas with NPC party members, and then grind Job Points in the new zones with real people

this was koji fox before he lost weight

I don't need all MMOs to be hardcore time wasters but they should at least have mechanics that require communication between players. So many modern MMOs can be played without even acknowledging other people. What's the point?

Mobas and other f2p stuff.

That's a bit surprising. Is Abyssea dead because it's too hard to find people to build lights for you anymore? I can't imagine leveling with trusts is faster than an alliance with atmas in Abyssea-La Thiene, then 85+ on the birds.

Fields of Valor and the like simply became more efficient. It's a little slower but less work overall.

Is it still nearly impossible/extremely time consuming to 90-99 Empyreal weapons? People weren't interested in VWNM when I left, I can't imagine they are interested now.

>mfw I played back in like 04/05 and the highest I ever got was 47 RDM
>I had more fun just being in a new and exciting online world and chatting/screwing around with friends
I get that you can still do that in modern MMOs but the new and exciting online part is forever lost in the modern age. I remember getting mad at "Man" in runeacape classic, original, 2D, whatever it's called these days, because I was asking him for help and thought it was a player ignoring me

>Got back into Tree of Savior because of intense bordeom
>People in the forums bitching about content they can't solo even though 99% of the game can be soloed

>think about all the good times I had with trading/downtime chatting with people
>think about making a trading website or meet up to party website like the good old days for a more modern MMO
>realize that it would be a moot point since LFP/LFG/LFR and global markets exist now
I miss economy/merchant forums.