Friendly community indeed...

[kyuven]

*snip*

The nostalgia filter is strong with this one.
FFXI had just as many if not more problems with elitism than FFXIV does, especially around the same point in the game's life.
Leveling any class that wasn't one of the "core" classes in that game was a horrendous chore unless you had friends.
I actually love this game MORE than I cared for FFXI, pretty much for precisely that reason. I've had very few problems with a "poisonous community," but that might have to do with me being on a much smaller server than Balmung.
Seriously roughly 80% of all the horror stories about community I hear in this game originates from Balmung or Gilgamesh.

[Souljacker]

The nostalgia filter is strong with this one.
FFXI had just as many if not more problems with elitism than FFXIV does, especially around the same point in the game's life.
Leveling any class that wasn't one of the "core" classes in that game was a horrendous chore unless you had friends.
I actually love this game MORE than I cared for FFXI, pretty much for precisely that reason. I've had very few problems with a "poisonous community," but that might have to do with me being on a much smaller server than Balmung.
Seriously roughly 80% of all the horror stories about community I hear in this game originates from Balmung or Gilgamesh.

Oh, I'm under no illusions of how some of the elitists were at end game, but we aren't talking about that. We're talking about shouting in Jeuno for help with one level cap item, and that friendly and bored soul helping you with all three. I'm talking about those linkshells that actually did things together and didn't get mad if someone wanted to see a cutscene. I'm talking about the amazing people on the Alla forums who used to crunch their numbers and actually share that knowledge. I'm talking about Jinte, Catwho, Seriha, and all the others who had amazing debates and discussions about the game and the jobs and everything else. I'm talking about Pikko Pots and her gardening. I'm even talking about Rog, though I was probably one of the most vocal to get him banned, which is what eventually happened. I'm talking about folks you actually knew by name - gosh I couldn't tell you the name of one person outside my FC much less not on my server that actually contributed in a meaningful way to the betterment of the playerbase... or the detriment. It's just a long string of random "stfu nub stop watching cs and wasting my time" utterances reminiscent of the diatribes I'd see when my little brother played CoD, throughout the revolving door ushering the sea of players in and out of my life. It's miserable. Hunts were the all time low, but it hasn't climbed very far out of that hole.

I'm not talking about BlueGartr at ground kings or other elite content. You went to that corner of the game, you knew what you were going to get. That isn't the same thing as some new guy just trying to finish his storyline quest in the queue because no one else will help him.

No, there was a lot to love about XI's community, and a lot of us wanted to recreate that here. The problem is, our generation is over. The time of the narcissist and instant gratification has come.

But I agree - maybe it's just my server. Balmung does seem to be one of the worse ones. Still, I was on a high pop server in XI and still felt more a part of a larger community than I do here. These official forums just don't feel like what we had before. Not by a long shot.

[HeroSamson]

FFXI had just as many if not more problems with elitism than FFXIV does

HAHA no, sorry If there was, I don't even remember always had help, nobody complained everyone was laughing having a good time.

One of two bad apples but usually you never saw much fighting, It wasn't up until they added SOA people started to lock people out of their shells and content, claiming you needed a high level weapon to join their run.
I left before all that mess happened, though there was no problems at all, I was from Bismarck not sure what server you were from maybe the wrong one since you think elitism was more crazy in FFXI.

Everyone pulled together in FFXI nobody said no, Ohat runs shout instantly helped, sky runs everyone had fun going after that, I remember Cop sea missions people pulled together to help get through it before they nerfed it to hell.

When it had something to do with winning content nobody ever had issues.

If you are talking about Linkshell leaders, yeah some were out of control but i never joined those shells because I knew they would take off after they collected everything and ditch the shell, I wouldn't help those type ever.

[kyuven]

HAHA no, sorry If there was, I don't even remember always had help, nobody complained everyone was laughing having a good time.

This is what's called the "nostalgia filter"
Just because you don't remember it, doesn't mean it didn't happen.
The racism in FFXI, especially during the early days, was abhorrent.
I remember the good points and the bad, and over time the good will definitely outweigh the bad unless they were SPECTACULARLY bad, but don't pretend the bad wasn't there.
JP players didn't care for grouping with NA players, and NA players spouted some of the most disgusting racist vitriol I've ever seen at JP players.
Meanwhile in FFXIV we rarely see that (mostly because JPs and NAs have their own data centers, which is what FFXI players were asking for for the whole year I was there) but instead the animosity turns inward and is much more...comprehensible.
And again, I personally have experienced very few problems with players compared to other games. My EQ1 experience was dotted with some of the most heated rivalries and vitriol I've ever seen, but most of those bad apples are long, long gone. Since I don't even recognize a lot of the terms you're using, you probably played FFXI long after I did, when the majority of the truly nasty individuals vacated the game for "greener pastures" (WoW).

"Everyone pulled together and no one said no." well...not only is that kinda false (but again, nostalgia filter so you probably DO remember it that way) but it's also a different environment. Since the majority of everything required groups in FFXI, if you weren't in a group you weren't about to say no to doing something that would actually be...doing something. I had this experience myself in FFXI, as well as EQ1. We got up to some wacky hijinks in those days. But the cost was pretty high. Long, long hours of doing nothing if your job wasn't needed or your friends weren't online. I'd trade those hours for dispassionate dungeon runs with strangers in a heartbeat.
Because my friends will still be there when they're there. But I don't log into a game to sit on my ass for hours on end.

They should have made those in combat cutscenes NOT SKIPPABLE by anybody if there is someone seeing them for the first time ever (aka a new player). That would have forced everybody to sit there to watch them.
To prevent potential people using an alt character faking for a 'new player' they would have added a time limit of like 10 sec per dialogue box, to avoid potential trolls never clicking on it and moving on lol

I actually had a thought on this: along with your idea, have the default option for cutscenes be to skip ones you've already seen. Some people don't even realize it's an option and it would be a nice little compromise.

But I agree - maybe it's just my server. Balmung does seem to be one of the worse ones. Still, I was on a high pop server in XI and still felt more a part of a larger community than I do here. These official forums just don't feel like what we had before. Not by a long shot.

Allow me to relate some of my experiences over many, many years that have lead me to this conclusion: The more people on a server, the more assholes on a server.
When I played EQ1 and FFXI, I was on fairly mid-pop (at the time. Brell Serilis in EQ1, Leviathan in FFXI. The latter was only "mid-pop" because of the way people were distributed into their servers at the time) server. We had fun, we got along, and there weren't very many "problem children," though the problem children in EQ1 were pretty spectacular in their antics.
Then I move on to CoH and WoW, where I played on high pop servers, the latter also being a PVP server. Night and day attitude shift. Some of the worst jerks I've ever seen occupied this server. People who would camp newbie zones just to get their rocks off. Not to mention teabagging. Oh the teabagging. And that was just the PVP. CoH was just as bad, though due to the lack of PVP you would just get harassment of the more...bizarre kind. Truly bizarre.
But special mention goes to my time in EQ2. Not that much happened to me in particular, as again I was on a mid-low pop server, but the stories coming out of Antonia Bayle (the high pop server) made me cringe.
Since I had personally not had these experiences, I deduced that it was based more on population of the game than anything else.
If your server's having a rough time, make a character on another one, tease out their community. See how they act.