Did Yoshida went a bit too far by cloning WoW?

[zipzo]

Obviously we have different views on the subject, the world had detail a sense of purpose. It took time to get from one end to the other, the monsters were dangerous and smart. Technical limitations aside the open world had a purpose in the world unlike 2.0.

Right, because the same 32 sqfeet of land copy/pasted across every single grid of the in-game maps just with grass, dirt, or plants (depending on which major region you were in) was totally immersive.

Seriously? Gridania was simply a collection of narrow green hallways, basically no creativity whatsoever. Than and La Noscea could only be moderately considered open, and they still used the same copy/paste routine there, not only that, but there was a dearth of any interact-able NPCs, enemy or not, outside of the scarce amount of aetherite camps. You could walk through an entire zone and not see any enemies if you looked the wrong ways. If 1.0 is your version of a world with a sense of purpose, I highly question your taste in what constitutes having a purpose. The environment was pure shoddy design to say the least.

To be honest, I'm saddened that they kept the character models intact in almost every way except for adding in jumping, because it reminds of what this game used to be, an abhorrent frankenstein of some of the worst design decisions an MMO has ever seen. In my honest opinion the character models still slightly stink of a worse time for the FFXIV development team, and better looking "life-like with a slight anime touch" models exist in other square games.

To desire anything from that version of the game to return is to literally be the enemy of all gamers. It was an utter train wreck in every sense of the word.