My "ah-ha!" moment of FFXIV

[Geesus]

Here's the thing OP, Hiromichi Tanaka actually TRIED to do what you are speaking of with Guild Leves. The problem is, it was slow and laborious for those who wanted to blow from R1-50 (R when it was called Rank at release that is). So when the game began to fail, things were changed and leves were no longer the avenue for leveling; it went back to the typical MMO of grind grind instance dungeon grind grind oh wait there's a story in the game too?! O.o grind grind...shall I go on? So you can place blame on the typical MMO players that all they WANT to do is QQ grind stroke their e-peens and move on to the next shiny boxed MMORPG that comes out.

Someone tried to change it and it was changed back. That's not the ONLY reason, and I'm not saying it was as there WERE others but, if you look back at the early blog posts in Lodestone and anywhere else that still has an archive of them, THAT complaint of what your "Ah-ha" moment is is what changed this game from being "outside the box".

[Bahn]

Here's the thing OP, Hiromichi Tanaka actually TRIED to do what you are speaking of with Guild Leves. The problem is, it was slow and laborious for those who wanted to blow from R1-50 (R when it was called Rank at release that is). So when the game began to fail, things were changed and leves were no longer the avenue for leveling; it went back to the typical MMO of grind grind instance dungeon grind grind oh wait there's a story in the game too?! O.o grind grind...shall I go on? So you can place blame on the typical MMO players that all they WANT to do is QQ grind stroke their e-peens and move on to the next shiny boxed MMORPG that comes out.

Someone tried to change it and it was changed back. That's not the ONLY reason, and I'm not saying it was as there WERE others but, if you look back at the early blog posts in Lodestone and anywhere else that still has an archive of them, THAT complaint of what your "Ah-ha" moment is is what changed this game from being "outside the box".

You know the funny thing is, I actually like leves because they give me a break from grinding beastmen, raptors, molting mitelings, etc. They're rather shallow quests (kill this mob at this location, defend this area, etc) but they actually give me a break from banging my head repeatedly against the proverbial grinding wall because at least they're different. Mind you - I play solo - a low man group. I'm not interested in being in a linkshell nor doing 8-man content - that's simply not my thing. Of course, I know I'm placing a physical restriction on myself because of it, but that's simply my choice. Levequests are more or less my "content that doesn't feel like the same crap over and over again". I've had funny moments in leves where a teammate of mine was being chased by a pack of angry mobs and I had to literally chase the mobs down from one end of the map to the other while my teammate was fleeing for his life. The relief and accomplishment we felt at the end of that was awesome - the exp and gil we gained didn't matter.

It's stuff like that I want to be able to experience in this game - not the grindgrindgrindgrind DURR IT'S AN MMO SO GRIND WHILE U GRIND aspect.

[Geesus]

You know the funny thing is, I actually like leves because they give me a break from grinding beastmen, raptors, molting mitelings, etc. They're rather shallow quests (kill this mob at this location, defend this area, etc) but they actually give me a break from banging my head repeatedly against the proverbial grinding wall because at least they're different. Mind you - I play solo - a low man group. I'm not interested in being in a linkshell nor doing 8-man content - that's simply not my thing. Of course, I know I'm placing a physical restriction on myself because of it, but that's simply my choice. Levequests are more or less my "content that doesn't feel like the same crap over and over again". I've had funny moments in leves where a teammate of mine was being chased by a pack of angry mobs and I had to literally chase the mobs down from one end of the map to the other while my teammate was fleeing for his life. The relief and accomplishment we felt at the end of that was awesome - the exp and gil we gained didn't matter.

It's stuff like that I want to be able to experience in this game - not the grindgrindgrindgrind DURR IT'S AN MMO SO GRIND WHILE U GRIND aspect.

LOL I know what you mean in all of this ^ lmfao.

But that's why I brought it up. The OP sates or actually claifies by saying that XIV is just like every other MMORPG; yes, in some senses it is but when it was created to be different, people bitched! Their bitching now just from the class reforms post and we HAVEN'T EVEN FUCKING PLAYED THE NEW STUFF YET!!! WTF?!

/endrage

All I'm saying is, you can't shouldn't complain about something because all you end up doing is putting yourself in the same group of people who DID complain and changed what YOU wanted. No one or I should say VERY FEW people on these forums actually compromises or can debate with out flaming either each other or SE/Yoshi/the Dev team. It's honestly at times embarrassing. The JP side always has a thread or 2 on one subject not 800 of the same GD THING and occasionally there are the trolls but it's handled with decorum and grace.

Anyway, unfortunately OP, your "Ah-hah" moment went and ahhh'd itself out the door when enough people complained so you should find them and voice your concerns with them; maybe you'll understand where the "out of the box" went.