Not enough stuff to get me emotionally invested

[Randis]

IMO Getting to R46 to get a taste of the story is a design flaw.
Introducing things slowly is one thing, expecting people to hit the level cap to get a hint of story is much to less.
This story i would expect to see R1 - R30.

You can't make MMO RPG with a decent story of a offline RPG game? You keep hearing that, but its BS.
There are no universal rules.
What you get in most mmo is not a story, its merely a setting.
What you have in FFXIV is just a setting, there is no story development that involves your character, you have no role in this story, you merely get told what happens in the world without being a part of it.
From the start you have no boundaries, you can travel all world and access all (non instanced) dungeons.
You are not restricted and that partially makes the story so unrevealing.
In a offline game you slowly get to discover the world following a storyline, you experience twists and get to see new things.
It may be somewhat linear, sometimes with multiple choices but hey, that is how stories work! You can’t have a completely open story, coz then it would not be a story…
FFXIV simply does not get you involved, it merely simulates the daily life within the given setting.
Days pass by, you kill, you craft, that’s it.
If you watch any awesome MMO CGI movie, the cool heroes you see, you know, it is not you.
Playing the MMO, the games makes sure to make you feel completely unimportant, random cannon fodder.

You are not the batman, hell you are not even robin, you are just a dude who knows a friend of robins ex GF.