Wow. You hit the nail right on the head there. Not to mention the fact that, while I played FFXI, I also played Lineage 2, WoW, Warhammer online, and Rift all for well over a year, (exept for WoW that I only played for about 6 months because it was so easy that it was mind numbing) and I was a beta tester for Star Wars. You are correct on on thing though FFXI is not unique. It does have one unique factor to it though which is why I kept coming back. With those artificial walls and time sinks that are part of this game, it made you work with other people. That is why I play MMO's. WoW, Lineage 2, and Star Wars were all basicly the same game. The fact that there were no time sinks or walls that you needed other people to help finish was what made them all the same. You could play for hours and never have any contact with other people unless you wanted to do PvP and grind for gear.

On a side note, I usually enjoy reading your posts because you tend to be level headed and leave the childish name calling out, but you seem to have turned this into a flame war of name calling and berating. I never said the game shouldn't evolve and change, I simply said, like many other people believe that there are some aspects of the game that shouldn't be changed just because people don't want to put the time and effort into it. They added stuff (like the tactics pearl and letting them stay out longer) because people didn't want to spend time and effort and leveling them by calling them once a day and for a low amount of kills. Now people want it dumbed down some more. Excuse me for thinking that enough is enough.

Now this is the last response I will make because I think we are probably going to agree to disagree. I wasn't berating or name calling anyone. I was simply stating my opinion. If you don't like it, don't read it.