Quote Originally Posted by Augury View Post
The causation of XIV's lack of interaction has nothing to do with it's production based play. Having gear play a major role has become a design crutch and flaw of most modern RPGs. Take Ragnarok especially, with gear importance very similar to XI. In RO, only the largest guilds with the most resources are able to farm out the higher level dungeons, and only the highest level gear sells for high prices, perpetuating the concept that large guilds have to rule the game without exception because raid gear is what is important. This is also true of WoW, and consequently most other MMORPGs, and it doesn't permit real interactivity with smaller groups and the player market.

Ontop of that, let's be honest, we want to distinguish our characters, so why should most be gear be much more than aesthetics anyways? I'm not saying all gear shouldn't produce bonuses, but the simplest way to balance gear is to give different weight classes different absorption rates, trading element absorption for defense (or vise versa).
Honestly, I don't know how long you played other MMOs, but every MMO revolves around gear and every MMO has had a very large social environment. 14 does not. 14 is also the only MMO that relies this heavily on crafting and doesn't put any emphasis on ANYTHING regarding other players other than "I have this item that I found. Make it into this item for 200k." At least in 11, you could get gear off of higher level mobs that COULDN'T be bought from some price gauging low life. 14's downfall is that it has too many differences when it comes to every other MMO. The lack of limitations is one of these downfalls. A game without rules is a boring game.