Asmongold praises FFXIV for “innovating” on WoW’s iconic model

Bill Cooney
Asmongold FFXIV WoW Warcraft

There aren’t many games bigger than World of Warcraft when it comes to MMOs, but Asmongold thinks Final Fantasy XIV picks up where the classic Blizzard MMO left off when it comes to innovation.

WoW and other Blizzard games haven’t exactly had the greatest year in 2021. While the MMO is still one of the biggest in the genre, games like FFXIV have only gotten more popular as streamers like Asmongold and others leave Azeroth for Hydaelyn.

While Warcraft has its issues right now, Asmon pointed out it was innovative in the past compared to other MMOs before it. However, now it seems like Final Fantasy is doing the same thing to WoW.

Asmongold ears
Asmongold has been enjoying FFXIV far more than WoW in recent streams.

Final Fantasy basically did what WoW did to EverQuest. What WoW did to EverQuest was take all the annoying time wasting mechanisms and got rid of them,” he said during a Sept 21 stream. “And then Final Fantasy took all the annoying, time wasting mechanisms in wow and got rid of those.”

EverQuest, which is still around and operating, first launched in 1999 – and, as Asmon said, was a precursor for many to World of Warcraft. Blizzard’s MMO definitely dethroned it back in the day, but could it be WoW’s turn to be usurped?

“They’re fixing the problems with Shadowlands, but there’s no innovation,” he continued. “Taking the most popular post on a forum thread and just applying it to the video game, that’s just simply not innovation. There’s no growth in the game.”

But just because there’s “no growth” going on in WoW, doesn’t mean Asmon necessarily thinks FFXIV will be the end all, be all MMO anytime soon. Not that it doesn’t have potential, but that it could be making the same “mistakes” as Warcraft did before.

Final Fantasy XIV only seems to be getting more and more popular with burned-out fans of the Blizzard franchise, and if the streamer’s right, WoW devs will need to start thinking proactively instead of reactively to really change things.