Why was FFXI so great?

[Biggs]

I am one of the very few players on this game, that have never properly played Final Fantasy XI. But I see so many people proclaiming how wonderful and great the game was.
So I want to know, so's I can try and compare it to FFXI, what were the best things about FFXI, and what made it so amazing? And also, why did Abyssea (if that's how you spell it) "ruin the game" as some people have said?
Please, i'm very interested to read about how great the game was.
Try not to write essays, if you can :P

These pages are not long enough to go into detail about all the reasons I loved it but heres one of my favorite things about it that this game is still lacking: 3 starting cites, each city had its own theme as XIV does, but unlike XIV, the ability to teleport from your city to an outpost was determined by which country was in control of the area you want to teleport to for the week. If your country wasn't in control of the place you wanted to go to, you couldnt do the quest that allowed for instant teleportation until it was. At the end of each week, a tally was taken in each zone in the game to determine which country's players had killed the most mobs (and gotten xp for the kills) in that particular zone that week. Diligent parties could find friends from their country, and if they worked hard enough, kill enough mobs in the outposts outside a rival city and gain control of the ones outside a rivals city gates for the week, hence unlocking the ability to use that OP to teleport to for the rest of the game. This system was the backbone for quick travel for the first few years of the game, and really created a sense of national pride and a rivalry between cities that just doesnt exist in this game yet.

Oh, and you could accumulate points for you city that could be used to buy gear specific only to members of you nation, sort of like the GC gear is now.