Regarding that Finaland Interview...

[Vaer]

What was the situation like in regards to player housing in FFXI? Did it exist...and if so, did every player have access to it?

Think of the inn room in XIV but you can place things in it. That was it for most of the game's life. It's similar to what you can do with apartments and single rooms in other MMOs with no lawn, but didn't require you to purchase it. Later they added another floor but it was basically the same thing, you used the door to zone into it so it wasn't like you went up some steps or anything it was just another instance. Later they added an "outdoor area" that was basically the same for everyone. Basically everyone got a "copy" of the same instance and it would look different depending on what nation you were at just like the inn rooms in XIV.

[Cylla]

*edit - nevermind the extra floor was talked about lol
But yes the mog houses in XI were pretty like the apartments in XIV (size wise) only could put a vast amount of cool items in the mog house. And nice thing I liked about it, when you logout in your mog house, you log in, you were still in your mog house. I know, odd thing but I like to be able to logout in my house and then log back in while still in my house rather then standing outside. The outside garden was pretty neat also imo.