FOCUS ON THE FUN!

FUN. FFXI is not FUN.

FFXI is literally filled with side activities that do not function with the intended purpose of FUN, FAILSOHARD though.

FISHING:
Why not hold Fishing competitions on Rabao?
Something like campaign battle signet links everyone into an event. Also, these events allow us to carry rare/ex temps that expire.
Certainly one could say that under the same kind of event effect, SE can develop a fishing tournament in which participants are in a timed fishing battle for temp fish items to turn in. This could lead to better fishing guild point system.

CHOCOBO:
Lets beat the dead horse some more.
Honestly, who's idea was it to make Chocobo racing a random luck cutscene?
Why is chocobo raising so hands on, and the end result so lackluster?
We already have a manual chocobo control system in place; Please just do what you normally do and Recolor an existing zone like Qufim, lock off the inner path with logs and use the outer path as a ring race track?
As it stands, either invest a tiny but more into it or just delete the whole thing as it FAILS.

Moblin/Meeble Maze:
What the hell is it with the dungeon crawling introductions, this is not World of Warcraft; If we wanted more random generated dungeons, we'd go play those types of games. Please stop as no one thinks random luck is FUN.

Clamming:
What the hell.. Why?
Again, competition event? Since this has no skill involved, make a starter town NPC! Call it the Vacation NPC or something..
Maybe make the rewards of a clamming competition = seasonal event gear so ppl dont have to camp the event for 2-3 hrs every year in case they needed something. Add new seasonal event gear after the actual game event so people can still try for it.

Throwing:
One of the worst/dumbest skills in the game.
Revive it!
Make people level it, its sitting at almost 0 for almost 90% of the population.
Since we have something like complete gear restriction and the coding that allows unlocking of certain gear slots, add something like a mini game of sorts.
Worms are a great monster for this idea; they disappear and reappear afterall..
Event lock players and all gear. Players have infinite r/ex/temp Pebbles in which they have to 1 shot worms. Since this is event locked, you can rehash existing worms into the game, the higher the skill the more variety the players have in targets. Maybe go so far as to also allow pebble PVP.
Rewards HAVE TO BE USEFUL stuff like 1st prize "Free Abby Prime-Evil Brew", 2nd "4x Abbysea Stones" 3rd "???".

PVP
PVP got old.
Do something new with the current available content.
Chocobo knight PVP? Since you dont want to add any new animations, just code in the ability to cast Magic while on Chocobos. So what if everyone has to be a mage? Forces the magic scroll economy to become active again, forces ppl to farm spells again, etc.

The old Castle siege/defend system that never got placed.
Code in an event for player's NPCs! Why not include them? Maybe add an event in Sauromugue Champaign_S in which players PVP with their NPC vs other players. Again, everything is already in place in terms of coding. Just rehash event signet, combine with brenner pvp, code for NPC event summoning.

Aht Ugan.
Allow players to freely PK in one of the 3 barren zones. Since we already have auto-re-raise battlefields, just remove weakness in said field.
This would cause for some serious fighting to occurr outside of TIMED BALLISTA and the non-used Reserved battlegrounds.
Also ~
Allow the PK to continue during Beseiged, allow players to kill NPC's as well. Sabotage is always fun.


Notes:
Add some Drama! Make it so people who PVP get personal and hold grudges.
No more random % drops please. Cut that shit out. Guarantee a drop for christ sake so people can actually have some inclination to participate.