A lot of post to read so forgive jumping to the end here, not so much forum time for me.

It seems like they are planning on giving people what they want.

An upgraded classic ffxi version for the hard cores with some nice additions from other systems released since xi and a more casual game play system for casuals and soloers who might come from games like WoW.

I am looking forward to this myself. I have times when I can play all day and times when I'm lucky to get on a few hours a week. So being able to jump in full blast with real party play and being to to accomplish something in just a few hours will be awesome.

Guys, I have been rather morbid at times about the community. It's been a rocky start not just for the game but for the community. But I am starting to have a lot more faith in people again. I can see people being more reasonable now by and large, or what I perceive as such. I have full faith that both the end product will be what we wanted from the beginning and that SE will get us there, with our vital input along the way. SE may not have a great history with it's players, but what they are showing now has indeed restored at least my faith in the game. And what I'm seeing from the community lately has restored my faith in it's playerbase as well.

And at the end of the day, if I do ever get tired of the rage trolling, all I need to do is log into the game, because in game, things are very friendly and people seem to get along better than almost any other mmo community I've ever seen. Such a stark contrast with the forums sometimes, but c'est la vie. It stands a testimony for us, that no matter how we express our frustrations on the forums, this game will succeed from both a development and community standpoint.

Cheers to you!