Thanks for posting all of these screenshots and info, and thank you to the kind person who shared a playlist, I'm gonna watch that later!

Looking at the descriptions of the experience, I can't help but be reminded of FFXI, with Dynamis having mobs invading cities (although it was instanced and not in the actual cities proper) and Besieged actually had a section of a city be invaded by attacking monsters. Some of these attacks decimated players that showed up to fight, especially when the novelty had worn off and fewer numbers came to defend.

I would have played 1.0 up to the end had my bf been able to run it on his computer, so we decided to wait for the then promised PS3 version of 1.0 that never came. We played alpha, beta, I even picked up the collector's edition and played some time after release but my main character's screenshots are currently lost (on a missing hard drive) but she only got to 15 conjurer or so. We stopped playing when the fees were implemented, as we couldn't justify paying for FFXI and FFXIV, as we wouldn't be able to play both enough to make the fees worth it and especially when back in Vana'diel I could actually play alongside my bf.

I regret what I missed, especially given I now play FFXIV over FFXI, but I don't have a time machine, so I rely on posts like this to show me what it was like.