Some additional thoughts/feelings after me playinbg some other mmos on this break...

[-S-a-g-e]

Most MMOs push you out of zones through quest chaining so you don't really get a real "attachment" to areas since once you wear out quests you'll want to go to the next zone and rinse and repeat. FF games generally give you an attachment to many areas usually through backtracking but mostly through sidequests outside of the main path.

As for this statement alone it is totally a matter of opinion. Majority of my favorites zones from MMOs comes from WoW where the quests take you all over the zone and you get to explore it while questing instead of never seeing said corner of any given map like in XI. Though I will have to say my favorite bit of exploring and attachment would belong to Everquest where areas were rich and worth branching out off the beaten path.

[strallaalaa]

As for this statement alone it is totally a matter of opinion. Majority of my favorites zones from MMOs comes from WoW where the quests take you all over the zone and you get to explore it while questing instead of never seeing said corner of any given map like in XI. Though I will have to say my favorite bit of exploring and attachment would belong to Everquest where areas were rich and worth branching out off the beaten path.

there isn't a inch of the game that ffxi doesn't take you too. between quests, missions, nm's, and everything else. fact just nm's themselves would of been good enough reason to see many zones. least for people who played the game and didn't just buy gil and played the same few endgames over and over again. there were tons of awesome looking places in ffxi to see that you would be exploring or trying to find a spot for something you need. even if you looked up the position on the web for the quest it probably still took you threw most of that zone. i'll agree quests weren't rewarding in ffxi, but they were quality in my opinion. i enjoyed all of them. majority of them had mini bosses. and they didn't have to be fast kill quests like other mmo's. and i've said it a million times but you can actually take your time and read them and watch the cs's this way. hopefully everquest3 will be like ffxi and eq1, never played any eq mmo but if everyone is saying they are what ffxi took some of itself from so ...here is to hoping it's great. probably be my last mmo i try to play.