[quote=@PPQ Purple]
Conversely if a MMO is too good of a game in its own right than people will just focus on playing it and not socialize.
[/quote]

XIV is actually good as a game too, though

I socialize in the MMO to the best of my abilities (I hang out with my FC and friends) but I'm not very good at that part. I do like playing XIV as a game, however, and have been for a good year now.

In fact, an MMO needs to be good as a game to be sustainable, unless you want to make it a pay2win KMMO nightmare. Games like Guild Wars 2 are [i]good games[/i].

The problem is that the "good part" of the game in XIV's case is constantly shifting back. You had many more skills to work with back when ARR was new compared to now, because it's the same number of skills at 50 compared to at 80. They purposefully keep the amount of buttons introduced low because they want to keep the game controller-friendly. Sure, there's a lot of grinding and busywork involved with any MMO, but if Runescape's enduring success is anything to go by, some people [i]like[/i] that. Runescape isn't exactly the most social MMO, either. It's very focused on its repeating-task nature and seeing big number become bigger number.

I'm sorry to keep going off on you like this PPQ, but you have some hilariously misinformed or wrong opinions on genres and how they're structure. Games don't often survive by being actually bad, they're doing stuff right. XIV, especially, is lauded for its great storytelling and newbie-friendly Level Sync system. You can still do most old content as if it was new, and for the ones you can't, it's not impossible to find someone in party finder to help you out.

And for the record,

[quote=@PPQ Purple]
And once you've found the people you want to spend time with it has to be designed so that it continually gives you new and boring but challenging tasks to do so as to keep giving you an excuse to keep hanging out. Sort of like a drinking game. It's not the worlds most intelligent form of entertainment but it keeps the party going.
[/quote]

I'd still be playing even if I didn't have people to hang out with in-game. In fact, I kind of don't want to be in an FC, but if I'm not, I'm hounded 24/7 by invites from all over.