Originally posted by nbtscan
Originally posted by Magiknight
Each quest will require you to follow one point after the next on your mini map so that you can be ridiculously rewarded. So each quest is basically the same. Not one will require you to spend days doing. Each quest will be done within an hour. Short and sweet sums up FFXIV.
Obviously you never did the relic weapon quest. Required a ton of Hamlet grinding, millions of gil spent on buying the starter weapon or blowing up synths on double materia melds, not to mention the levequest, 17 minute dungeon runs, Ifrit Xtreme and Garuda kills. It took nearly a month to complete this "quest". Granted, it wasn't as lengthy as relics in FFXI, but you didn't have to rely on 40+ other people to get currency or NM kills either.
To address the topic, a game like pre-Abyssea FFXI won't financially succeed in today's world. The people playing FFXI 10 years have (mostly) grown up and have responsibilities that keep them from sitting in front of their computer for 10 hours at a time. The newer generation coming into gaming have the instant gratification mindset. A small vocal minority are the only people that still want a game like FFXI to be around, probably mostly due to some nostalgic feelings towards it.
I played FFXI for five years and I rarely played more than 20 hours a week. There were a few months where I hardly logged on. It didn't matter that I wasn't reaching max level or hadn't completed the ROZ missions. Just because it was a slow game didn't mean you had to play it for 10 hours a day. This is the mindset that drives me crazy when people talk about themepark games. They actually believe that an MMO can only start once you have reached the endgame. An MMO can have a slower pace and you still don't have to spend 10 hours a day playing it.