Quote Originally Posted by Jennestia View Post
XIV as said, is an unoptimized rush job, design wise they decided to go against XI instead of build off of XI which was the main problem. It didn't have to be a clone, but every MMO out today builds off of some kind of base.
I can agree with rush job, but FFXIV built off of classic MMOs like Ultima Online and Lineage as a base, and kept some similarities to FFXI like quest structure, world structure (3 starting cities and a fourth friendly city), similar battle dynamics ("holy trinity"), and races.

One day I hope to read one of your posts that doesnt end with "FFXIV strayed too far away from FFXI and that was their problem."

If anything, their problem was not straying away more.