Quote Originally Posted by Malakhim View Post
And that's what they're going to be doing with FFXIV. While the argument is shaky at best, that doesn't make it any less true that Final Fantasy XI had a full 9 years of growth at this point. FFXIV has had 6 months. While it can be argued that in this day and age, it's hardly a good idea to release a game that's as barebones as FFXI was when it released(speaking about before it was released stateside a full year and an expansion after the Japanese release, which didn't even have chocobos or arrow stacking above 12), I'm willing to bet that once FFXIV is actually "finished", and there are plenty of rough edges in the game to indicate that this is the case, it'll probably surpass what a lot of people think of it now.

Naturally there are things in FFXI and other MMOs that work, but this is Final Fantasy we're talking about here. There are always going to be cosmetic and system changes with each iteration.
I want to believe that, yet the whole artistic direction is different. FFXIV tries to follow a more western style, unlike the peculiar classic FF atmosphere of FFXI. Perhaps, as you say, it just lacks in development time, but i'm pretty sure that was it not for overwhelming fan demand for a "more FFXI-like" style, they would have went with an even stronger "European Middle Ages" atmosphere.

I'm not sure *this* iteration is doing it in the right way. Final Fantasy should stay true to itself.