FFXI had all kinds of interesting little tidbits to it...
- Things that could be done only at certain times of day, or during certain kinds of weather.
- Days of the week that were elementally attuned, and would buff or debuffs spells depending on whether the element matched or was weak to that element.
- Gates that required specific party composition to bypass.
- Weather that was random in duration, rather than changing like clockwork every eight hours.
- Airships and boats with scheduled arrival and departure times, that traveled to their destinations in real time.
- Shops that had business hours, after which they were closed and inaccessible - as well as weekly holidays in which they were inaccessible all day long.

Details like these made Vana'diel feel like a living, breathing world - but on the downside, each of these mechanics forced the player to WAIT. Players needed to wait for a full moon and clear weather to obtain the Key Item needed to access Divine Might. Players needed to wait for three adventurers to take pity on them and help them access Garlaige Citadel's depths (via the four-man gates). Players needed to wait for wind weather to progress their Trial of the Magians daggers. SE wisely created bypasses for many of these obstacles (and obtaining those bypasses was one of my primary goals in that game - by the end, I could go pretty much anywhere I wanted to unaided), but there's no denying that from a pure gameplay perspective, they were annoying at best and infuriating at worst. You really had to love the game to put up with all that crap - but the result was that pretty nearly all the game's players truly loved the game.

FFXIV does away with almost all of that - but at the expense of feeling less immersive; less real. It feels... hollow, in the way, like a façade. It is certainly far more accessible a game, though, with many more players.

FFXIV is by far a better game, but FFXI is by far a better world.

For a taste of what FFXI was like, take up fishing. The mechanics behind fishing in this game (ESPECIALLY Big Fishing) are very reminiscent of the kind of stuff that was commonplace in FFXI.