Count me amoung the skeptics ...

[Demacia]

Man, you captured my thoughts exactly. Every now and then in FFXI I'd stop and think "Wow, look how far I've come". The world was massive and you were stacked with goals to reach. Every new zone I discovered was exciting. Hell, I remember when I first walked into Ro'maeve and I was like "Whoah, better turn back this place looks dangerous", only to finally come back and get to Sky (which was amazing). In XIV I made it a point to check out the other cities since I assumed it would be like XI where walking from one city to another took you through a collection of different zones and completely new sights, but here it's simply [Ul'dah > walk through one zone > boat > Limsa]. I explored every zone in the game and all I could say was "That's it?".

[Preypacer]

Man, you captured my thoughts exactly. Every now and then in FFXI I'd stop and think "Wow, look how far I've come". The world was massive and you were stacked with goals to reach. Every new zone I discovered was exciting. Hell, I remember when I first walked into Ro'maeve and I was like "Whoah, better turn back this place looks dangerous", only to finally come back and get to Sky (which was amazing). In XIV I made it a point to check out the other cities since I assumed it would be like XI where walking from one city to another took you through a collection of different zones and completely new sights, but here it's simply [Ul'dah > walk through one zone > boat > Limsa]. I explored every zone in the game and all I could say was "That's it?".

Again! Another spot on post that captures my feelings exactly.

Here's a more visual way of expressing what XI had that XIV, so far, lacks...

In XI, this view - (Click Here) - had huge significance, in terms of progress, in terms of its relevance to the original storyline... and in terms of just being one of many beautiful examples of the care and detail that went into XI's environment design.

And there are many, many others I could share that represent that same idea.