Quote Originally Posted by Skivvy View Post
This is where the fact that this is an MMO comes into play. MMOs are supposed to have a wide variety of content in order to attract a wide variety of players. Story might be FF's thing, and plenty of people love them for it, but in an MMO that is simply one part of the whole product. I've not run across another MMO that forces 100% of the MSQ on you if you want to do relevant content. Even SE's only other MMO, XI, didn't do that.

However, your comment does touch on another point. The 'end-game' of XIV is really quite bare. The bulk of the 'active' content revolves around your weekly raid clearing and then getting your weekly tomes. Yes, there are some other activities you can do, but most of it's not going to take up much of your time at all.

I think XIV is rather content in the tiny little box it has placed itself, and regardless of what we want, it's probably going to continue down the same path. So ultimately it's up to each of us to decide if it's something we can still enjoy or if it's time to branch out.
I haven't play XI since part way through Abyssea, but at that time you did have to do MSQ to unlock parts of the game. Granted it wasn't a continuous MSQ like XIV - but you weren't getting to Sea if you didn't complete CoP expansion's MSQ, for example. Maybe it's different now, but when I played, you were stuck behind a particular expansion's MSQ to unlock different areas and raids.