FF14 was never this sadly, and probably won't be since its becoming further WoWfied. You probably won't see any grind besides levequests.
My point isn't related to the game, but towards you. Every single post you made lately have a similar sentence, it's starting to be a meme and it's quite annoying.
The game got a direction, a direction you don't like. Ok ? Why you're still here then ? i can't understand why a product you really don't like still require your presence. IF you really hate it so much it's time to move on something more similar to your tastes don't ?
Compared to XI. no, it wasn't. but when they had fatigue it was a bit more of a grind. I think "Fatigue" failed because of psychological reasons. If it just took more exp to rank up in level I don't think (too many) people would of cared as much. But when they see the exp dropping from fatigue it became discouraging even though it would be equivalent to having a larger "to next level."
Same. I'll input anything I can during the beta, but if it gets to release and has that extremely "standard" feel. I'm going to go play Seekers of Aldouin. FFXI may not be the same as it was years ago, but it will still be a better experience for me then thousands of quests, and being dissatisfied at almost every turn.
If you guys are looking for an MMO that's fun, fully F2P (up until a certain level), a non WoW-clone and doesn't spoon feed you anything, try Mortal Online. It's come a LONG way since it's launch, and is pretty much a 3D UO game. I'm having a lot of fun with it.
I have already beging my "preparations" on XI just in case ARR sucks. As you mentioned, even XI is not what it was, it still offers a unique and DIFFERENT experience that the Wow clones.
By WoWized i dont mean a type of lets say "standard" but the lack of lore, story-telling, amazing CS etc etc.