While it is true, FFXI is a lot easier than it used to be, and I don’t feel that it is completely a bad thing, no one thinks about the other way around.

When the news of the 18 hour Pandemonium Warden hit, the FFXI world was mad at SE for making another impossible to kill monster.

The reaction in WoW was a bit different — they viewed it as an epic battle, something that does not exist in WoW, at least not to the same scale.  Most bosses in WoW (that I have seen), you kill in 5-10 minutes or less, or you wipe.  It simply comes down to the way WoW is designed.  While you will always be regening your health and mana (mp) in WoW while you are not fighting, when you are in ‘battle mode’ you do not regen health.  And while you are casting a spell, you do not regen your full magic.  There is also no way to exit battle mode without running far away (unlike FF where you just disengage and run and hide while you kneel for a bit).

So anyways, in an effort to add more storyline to WoW, they have added Cut Scenes.  There is one I heard about for one of the 5-man instances.  Then there is this one (which is not really a Cut Scene, because everyone sees it, and it changes the music for the entire zone too).  Movie!  It is really creepy too, I love it, and it reflects a large amount of lore (story) in one quick event (the models for the characters have been updated since this movie was made).  It also made Sylvanas my favorite NPC in the game (or as I said to some people, she is my ‘Shantotto’ of WoW).

Now they have created this Cut Scene when you hit a certain stage in the next expansion.

[This is a huge spoiler if you play WoW.  If you don't, its just a cool Cut Scene]

Movie!

So it looks like they are trying to add more story and make the feel of WoW more epic.  In FF, you have to save the world in every expansion.  In WoW, you don’t have this.  With the expansion, you actually invade one of the Horde cities for a quest — on both sides.  They handle it through what is being called phasing, where two people can be in the same place (and are on the same server), but they can’t see each other (and may see different NPCs and/or monsters).  It sounds really neat.  It is like instancing in place, and I’m excited for it.

In the end, the mixing of ideas from FFXI and WoW get us an easier FFXI and a more epic WoW.  Doesn’t sound too bad to me, more for me to enjoy.

-pyra