Here we go perfect parallel,

"Any actual numbers in SE's case would be completely out of my ass, because being a foreign company, I don't have as many friends or networked industry connections that I'd have with other companies. I used to have a lot of dev friends there, but they've all since quit after the Enix merger. So I would be speculating. They would be educated guesses, but still guesses.

That being said, let's look at Everquest and Everquest II. EQ was hovering down around 200k users (having fallen from 500k or so over time) when EQ2 was launched. It was a debacle: similar to XIV, it was a mess at launch and got awful reviews. At the time, EQ was on its 4th or so expansion. The parallels between XI and XIV are striking.

Everquest II's launch development budget was $31,280,000. (Yes, that is the exact internal number. Shhhh.) Budgets have ballooned drastically since then -- mostly in art -- so it's reasonable to assume that XIV could have cost 2-3 times that or more.

EQ2 flopped. Sony Online (SOE) had lots of money (just like SE) so they kept improving on the game over years, instead of pulling the plug. Eventually, they managed to get the game decent enough they could break even on a stable 200k users or so, but the awful reviews at release meant it would never be a smashing success. The project itself was a financial mess, and SOE never regained their place at the top of the MMO industry.

What EQ2's horrible launch did do, however, was keep EQ1 alive. It did not result in people going back -- in general, people do not go back to old games they have since moved on from. Once they've said goodbye, they are more likely to "bounce" and go to another, new game like WoW. But it kept the core EQ fanbase in that game, and for many years, EQ's subscriber numbers remained higher than EQ2's.

Both games were barely getting by. There was no massive resurgence or even small increase in EQ1's subscriber numbers. But it stopped losing users, and it made it worthwhile for SOE to continue pumping out expansions -- 17 of them! -- even if they didn't have big enough budgets to do anything major beyond more places to grind and more items to grind for." - Jaerik

http://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/14999/if-ffxiv-fails-what-does-that-mean-for-ffxi/4/#909118

/speculate

Did you play EQ2 at launch?

I played for about a week about a month after launch ay my brother-in-laws and while it wasn't great by any means, it was nowhere near as bad as FFXIV.  I'm not a huge fan of EQ (played the first for about 6 months) but I don't recall any huge problems other than pretty significant server problems.

As far as I remember the game actually worked, it just had kinks it needed to sort out.  It was nowhere near as bad as FFXIV, EQ2 felt at least somewhat finished.

I never played any EQ, this was a post from the co-founder of ffxiah.

Edit: I was just trying to give an example under similar circumstances, meaning it is not out of the question for XIV to continue being supported and maintaining a decently sized and active community along with XI

It's a good game, they fixed some things from FFXI - however they broke some things...

I think it will eventually get to a point that it will be very enjoyable.  The only gripes I really have with the game are things that can probably be fixed quickly like putting in a sort for inventory, giving us the ability to carry more items (the 1, 2, etc) materials are a good idea but they fill your space way too easy.

The bazaar system is neat, but there needs to be a way to search through the bazaar's - however that would make it like an AH, and I don't know if SE wants to move away from that system or what?  However make it so you can at least search the bazaar's in specific wards or towns.

The UI lag is the killer thing, at first I thought it was just server lag (and to a point it was) because of everyone starting the same day, however there is a noticable "delay" when doing stuff.  There is also the annoying "pause" when doing stuff that I wish they would nerf.  Those who do a gathering craft know what I am talking about, as botanist you pull your axe out and stare at the tree for a few seconds before you are given the option where you want to notch, or after you cast your line as a fisherman you need to wait a few seconds as well before you choose your depth, etc.

The crafting while a cool idea needs to be worked out, we "learn" recipes but you have to manually write them down, I hope that maybe in the future when we "learn" recipes from NPC's they will go into a "recipe book" kind of like when you do crafting leves you just pick that recipe and it will fill out all the slots for you so you do not need to manually select each item (or give us a sort damnit)

The only other real gripe I have about the game is it is way too much clicking to do simple stuff.  Not at home ATM but from memory to craft:

1)Hit -
2)Select synthesize
3)Select items for craft (This may constitute steps 3 - 10 depending on how many items are needed)
4)Choose Main Hand or Off-Hand
5)Choose which recipe you want to make
6)Confirm Recipe
7)Confirm you know how many shards/crystals you will be using
8)Choose Standard, Rapid, Bold a few times till you make or break

If SE gave us a recipe journal where we could just select what we wanted to make and confirm and skip steps 3 - 7 that would be a very nice help.

The game looks absolutely beautiful.  I even went out and bought a 5870 because I wanted to run the game in 1080 (I know it has higher resolutions but I use a 46" Samsung TV as my monitor) and not get horrible framerates.  It helped a bit, though I think the game is not very optimized or it doesn't use all the system resources it can, as my GPU has never gone above 50% usage and CPU overall has never gone above 60% over the 4 cores.

People are saying the leveling after 20 gets to be a grind - I cannot comment on that part as I am only level 13, however this is a new game, we do not know where the great leveling spots are.  We do not know the "Dunes", "Qufim" etc areas yet.  I am sure after a few months we will start to figure this out and leveling will become easier.

Overall the game is enjoyable - it is a new MMO - I will admit SE should have not released it quite yet, but they probably wanted to get the game out before their financial year was over.  

If you do not like the game now, I'd say check back by the time the PS3 version is out.

I don't disagree that FFXIV could end up with a decent sized community, but because one unlikely thing happened doesn't mean it will happen again.

That's like saying if your friend won the lottery you should give it a go too.  You could win the lotto like your friend but you shouldn't really count on it.

I wonder - can you call a macro from a macro? like make alt-1 change your class and your action bar and then have it call alt-11 or whatever that swaps out all your main gear then calls alt-21 that swaps out all your accessories, etc?

You cannot call a macro from a macro.

let SE know your comments and suggestions. i'm pretty sure it'll do more good.

Sad tihng is unlike WoW and every other MMO I can think of off the top of my head, SE has no official forum for players to give feedback.