Simplicity over complexity, time to change.

[Gilthas]

Except that stuff also serves another purpose? You're so full of crap its not even funny. Re-examine my example, FFXI invested a lot of effort into making elements of the world feel realistic and alive and worldly. Removing things just because they take time can have a detrimental effect on that purpose and doing so is the opposite of an evolution imo. IF you insist that the two are not separate then WoW is the regression as it stripped away things that made mmos great and added in cheesy throwaway addiction forming content instead.

Oh really? What exactly made FFXI's world more alive and worldly?

The lack of fast transportation? Well it is true that if I had to walk it would take me an hour to reach the nearest city.

Big areas that are sparsely populated with actual content? Well, it is true that in some areas of my country you can go tens of miles without seeing any other soul.

See, saying that something is more realistic isn't the same as saying that it's better.

Or you know... it was built around a virtual world that people would explore and exist in. If the point was to play content longer, then FFXI wouldn't have airships, ferries, and the crag teleports, which barring the crags, make sense in a virtual world which would have some sort of transportation. The crags even were given a deep lore behind the reasoning for their existence, and were spread out enough that it let you move across the world without too much trouble, but still made players actually move through it like a person living in Vana'diel would have to. The old games were based on the roots of RPGs which was based on DnD, a game where you take the role of an adventurer in another world.

You say that FFXI wasn't designed around making you waste your time and then use the existence of airships and ferries as proof of that? You do remember that these ran on strict timetables, forcing you to wait for them? The teleports were also few and required you to level WHM if you wanted to do them yourself. Don't say that crags had lore behind them when Aetherytes also have it.

But above all else: there is absolutely nothing stopping you from travelling through areas in FFXIV (I personally don't use teleports), so why are you so intent on taking away teleports from everyone?

Ironically enough XI has more depth to certain content systems and even WoW does...ARR kind of already regressed - People only see it "better than 1.0" more than anything because as an MMO in itself, it's nothing special, other MMOs have done similar systems better..especially in the itemization. Heck, the fact FFXI was an EQ Clone never crossed people minds as much as "x mmo is a WoW clone" because they had the creativity to at least do certain things differently, you know?

FFXI has how many years now? Because I started playing FFXI with CoP and I certainly don't see where these claims of more depth come from. Most examples of depth are nothing more than clutter. People didn't call FFXI an EQ Clone because calling games clones wasn't a thing back then. The gaming community has changed a lot in the past 10 years. Back then we didn't have all the whining that we have today.