I think the major rule they haven't learned even from their 9 years of XI is that immense time wasting does not equal fun and it's in no way interesting or productive.

Side quests for example, no depth or reasoning behind them. Games like WoW were blasted a while back for having the same system "Go kill X mobs and come back" except in this case they ask you to run 3/4 of the way across the world. For the most part wow has moved away from that by adding more interactive stuff, such as controlling NPCs and vehicles to take on massive amounts of mobs or doing puzzles. I understand this game will probably never have such a thing due to the engine limitations, apparent lack of knowledge and/or resources at SE for creating anything other than pretty character models.

For some reason I still have a soft spot for FF games so I'm here and I'm playing (quit wow for it), but all I can say is, if WoWs new MMO has graphical quality on par with this game, look out because it will be an unstoppable force to put even warcraft to shame.