Really, the problem isn't that FFXIV needs "more" content. It needs "new" content. And by new, I don't mean another cookie-cutter dungeon or raid.

What is 3.1 going to bring? A new set of Expert dungeons and re-shuffle the old dungeons into new categories? Perhaps a new raid that is going to be exactly like Labyrinth? I mean.. maybe the 24-man content will be new and interesting, but it won't last long.

I'm going to second everyone that brings FFXI to the table in this discussion. You know, another poster remembers the time they sneaked through Ifrit's Cauldron for their DRG AF. I remember being in an XP group in Cape Terrigan and hitting 60 RDM and finally being able to put on the "pimp hat". And that pimp hat was never rendered irrelevant for as long as I played FFXI. It was always incorporated into various gear swaps depending on whatever was being cast at the time.

I remember having a weekly schedule that wasn't always so.. redundant. In FFXIV, it's pretty much log on, do a Roulette, check some ventures, and then log off and wait for tomorrow. In FFXI, it was Dynamis on one day, then Limbus on another, then Einherjar and off to Sea or Sky farming, back to Dynamis and Limbus, then perhaps a free day to do whatever you wanted (like Nyzul Isle, Salvage, Assault missions, ZNMs, VWNMs, etc). And the array of things made it more dynamic. Dynamis wasn't just Dynamis, with one zone that you ran two times a week. One day you were in Windy, then another in Sandy, then maybe Xarcabard or Beaucedine.. or you went into the CoP zones like Valkurm or Tavnazia. Same thing for Limbus. You had Temenos and Apollyon, with multiple variants thereof, all leading to a fight with Proto-Ultima or Omega. And all of this isn't even considering if you were chasing HNMs like Fafhogg, Tiamat, Aspidochelone, KB, Khimaira, Cerberus, etc.

Remember skilling up weapons and then having to break latent on Trial weapons in order to earn the WSNM weapon skills? That was a grind that you did to earn something that was forever.

What made XI last as long as it did? Variety. The ability to do activities that earned rewards that actually remained relevant. How long did it take FFXI to make Relics "irrelevant"? A damn long time. And they were hard to get, requiring lots of time, dedication, funding, and assistance from friends. But the moment you finally got one... you were PROUD of it. Look at relics in FFXIV. Know anyone that still uses them? Probably not. Perhaps as a glamour. Yep.. that's about it.

How about FFXI's ability to have jobs developed to fulfill a certain role in a party, and to have "outside the box" players take those jobs and find a way to make them work in an entirely different role that developers never even considered? Remember DNC or RDM tanks? How about solo BLMs? Can't do that here. Remember SMNs having to go and fight the Avatars in order to earn the right to summon them, and then being able to actually CHOOSE from an array of support during a battle by summoning and dismissing and re-summoning? What do SMNs have here? Ifrit, or Garuda. That's pretty much it. No Leviathan, no Ramuh. No Fenrir. Hell, Fenrir isn't even an Avatar/Primal in this game. He's been demoted. Developers don't even see a need to add more Primal-Egi's.

I even remember when I first started playing FFXI having a "MapQuest" day where I just spent time hunting for maps to zones. Anyone else here do the pilgrimage to get the Crawler's Nest map? FFXI players even had to earn the damn maps for the zones!

FFXIV's problems lie in cookie-cutter builds due to vertical progression and short-lived rewards, and redundancy in the daily choice of activities. It's not that there "isn't enough to do". It's that what there is to do is starting to get stale and uninteresting, because it's always just more of the same old tired thing.

That's what needs to change.