Final Fantasy XIV 1.23b - Would you Play it if Available?

[Vanfrano]

In what way? Combat was slow, the UI was awful. the world was bland, there were few dungeons and people would only take you if you had melded gear for speedruns for darklight gear, and the primals were few, and the lag was awful.

I'd take slow combat over stupid button mashing/aoe dancing anytime. I remember the world way more than the zones we have now, hell I don't even remember a dungeon I ran an hour ago.
Final job quests were done with 4 players and were hard, required teamplay. Dungeons had mechanics and not just move around avoiding everything. AoEs from bosses were avoidable too but the bosses didn't spam aoes left and right and their actions were random, everything is scripted here.

Open-world exp/spiritbond parties. Materias actually meant something. NMs and coffers in the open.
Characters and monsters had weight, the graphics were beautiful and the textures didn't look as awful as they do now. Cutscenes were nicely made.

Relics were... relics, not useless weapons given to you by spamming useless easy content.

We were expecting a 1.23b 2.0 not the awful thing we have now, we wouldn't have gone legacy if we knew it was going to be this way.

It just became a game for easy-to-please always-in-a-hurry people.

The only thing we're hoping now is for Yoshida to go away, far away and never come back. Or a FFXI remake.