Ahmen! In reality what people don't understand is, much like FFXI, XIV will not be a huge hit on several standing points, and worse then most cases in XI. SE decided that they would pretty much say FU XI loyal fan base and try to win the WoW crowd. The WoW crowd wants nothing to do with XIV as WoW/Rifts/<Theme Park MMO here> already does it so much better. I have no idea why people would not want XIV more like XI (within reason) as it would at least draw in the XI crowd.

The game will not survive in the long run otherwise. As the way it stands now most of the XI crowd wants nothing to do with either. I'm a huge FF and XI fan myself, invested 7 years into the latter and remember playing FF1 when it was part of the nintendo set. XIV does have some of the best character designs, models in any MMO to date, but.. Pretty looks will not keep players. SE needs to figure out who they want, there loyal fans or there dime a dozen, play for a month and quit crowd. Just my 2 cents.