cashew | Thursday, June 23rd, 2022

So, I was trolling around to see some people in the GW2 community (and content creators) bemoaning that GW2 isn't getting a fair shake and that it's an under rated MMO and it deserves to be more popular. But...does it?

I think the GW2 community is truly confused why FFXIV, something they deem to be a far inferior MMO (subscription fee, simple mechanics, tab-target combat system, slow pacing), has become the WoW killer. Many MMO had tried to carve out their niche in the market, but only FFXIV managed to topple the giant. And all these WoW evacuees, for some reason seem to refuse to come to their beloved GW2 and fled to FFXIV instead. Why? How is this a thing? And how does FFXIV go from being a complete mess of an MMO with a launch so bad that they had to shut down the servers and start from scratch to becoming the only WoW killer in the MMO genre?

No, it's not because of the filthy casuals, are you kidding me. We're talking about how a subscription MMO killed another subscription MMO. It has nothing to do with casuals.

( Let's get down to business and defeat the ... orcs? )

Finally, I think GW2 needs to reconsider its "free" account. Part of the reason FFXIV is able to grow so big is because it's so generous with free account limitations. Compare the two side by side:

Characters: GW2 - 2; FFXIV - 8
Map content: GW2 - base game; FFXIV - base game + first expansion
Bags: GW2 - 3 + bank NPC (1 tab); FFXIV - 4 + Chocobo saddlebag (2 tabs)
Classes: GW2 - 8; FFXIV - 13

I get that GW2 free trial has less stuff because the paid GW2 account also starts off with less free stuff. But that just exasperates the problem. Paid accounts should have always started with 8 character slots instead of 5. Every expansion purchase should have given veteran players an extra character slot (compared to new comers). Or at least add a new bank tab for vets who have stuck with the game for longer to help retain older players.

Instead, GW2 has taken the clear and obvious route of "If you don't pay, we don't want you." For a "buy once play forever" game, that's pretty depressing. At least FFXIV never pretends like they were going to let you play indefinitely without paying, and yet plenty of people have logged thousands of hours into the free trial. Every time, FFXIV met and went beyond the player base's expectations. Meanwhile, GW2 has let the player base down again and again.

And the toxic protectiveness of GW2 players isn't helping. Anyone who dares to say a bad thing about their game will get told that they should be thankful they can play at all and that the community doesn't need this negativity. Well...guess what? It might be that your game isn't retaining players because it's not fun and the devs aren't responding. If you keep telling people to be satisfied with what they have or GTFO...then you're going to keep losing players.