Lore, FFXI or FFXIV

[LineageRazor]

and having every single add-on and expansion start up when I enter the relevant area is disorienting and distracting.

If this bothers you, you might be disappointed to know that this is the likely future of FFXIV, as well. YoshiP has stated that future expansions will likely NOT require completion of previous expansions in order to access their story or content. This is a good thing: As the game ages and piles on more and more content, new players are going to get more and more discouraged if they have to slog through the main scenario of all the previous content just to get access to the stuff that the bulk of the player base is already working on. New players are the lifeblood of any MMO; better that the old Main Scenario stuff be treated as optional content that players can explore at their leisure if they choose to, not something they are forced to do.

While FFXI might have been a bit overwhelming in the way that it would open all of its expansions to you at once, imagine how horrible it would be for a new player if it didn't - but the only way to get to Seekers of Adoulin where the vast majority of players were hanging around, was to work through the Shadowlord, then complete Zilart, then complete Promathia, then complete Aht Urhgan, and then complete Wings. That's not even getting into the mini expansions and Abyssea.

As it stands, instead a player has the leisure to start pretty much wherever they want. If they do the Main Scenario and are curious about where it goes from there, they're free to continue on to Zilart. If they love Blue Mage and want to know more about the intrigues of the Aht Urhgan Empire, they can go there instead. If they want to jump straight to the endgame, they can drive straight into Seekers of Adoulin.

As for the story in FFXIV being better than in FFXI, I do agree to a point. Certainly, the initial Main Scenario story is leagues better; the original Main Scenario for FFXI was pretty uninspired. The tragedy of Raogrimm tugged at the heartstrings a bit, but the story was pretty predictable. The continuation on to Zilart was REALLY rough, what with the whole, "Oh, did you forget, this is how Main Scenario REALLY ended last time!" flashback retcon. Chains of Promathia was a bit better, but got bogged down by its own worldbuilding, drowning the player in half-revealed bits of lore that were difficult to keep track of - particularly since the slow pace and difficulty of the game often meant it'd be weeks or months before you'd be able to pick the story up again (sometimes that time was spent leveling to the point where you could handle the content, other times it was spent trying to put together a party capable of completing the content).

Aht Urhgan was where the storytelling really started to come into its own, in my opinion. It was definitely interesting working FOR the evil empire for a change, even if it was in such a way that you're trying to make things better from the inside. Wings of the Goddess was a bit weaker, but made up for it with fantastic cutscenes and some excellent characters - and they did a great job of portraying just WHY the Shadowlord was a figure to be feared in his heyday, considering that he was such a pushover when you fought him in the Main Scenario.

Seekers of Adoulin was at about the same level as Wings of the Goddess in terms of quality. Rhapsodies of Vana'diel was an interesting experiment in tying all the previous expansions together, and explored some very interesting ideas regarding Altana and Promathia, but I was annoyed by the generic characterizations they gave some of the Prime Avatars (Odin and Alexander, in particular, did not at all resemble how they were presented in Aht Urghan). Abyssea, interestingly enough, while very sparse in terms of storytelling DID provide an enjoyable perspective on how the world would turn out without you (answer: not very well at all).

I feel that the storytelling from Aht Urhgan onwards surpassed FFXIV ARR's Main Scenario in quality. ARR's storytelling was clumsy, largely due to the fact that they needed to salvage remnants of plots and characters from FFXIV 1.0; plots and characters that some of the playerbase would know, and others wouldn't - and the ones who didn't would not have the ability to play through themselves to get introduced to them properly. It felt a lot like starting in the middle of a book. For example, when Thancred was revealed to be host to Lahabrea, I was like, eh, whatever, I barely knew the guy. It did improve a bit from 2.1 through 2.5, but it was really a rough start.

The storyline in Heavensward so far, on the other hand, pretty much blows away anything from FFXI. Its only weak spot was one inherited from the ARR storyline: the giant cop-out where all the horrible stuff that happened at the end of 2.5 was undone, bit by bit. I'm not the sort of person that wants to see FFXIV devolve into a Game of Throne-esque bloodbath - but if you're gonna have a dramatic plot twist like that, stick to your guns and see it through!