Ok so I took a hint from another thread (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...t-Game-Crashes) and decided to try running the game in windowed mode... Strangely enough, that remedied the issue. No idea what it is about full screen mode that makes the game screw up so badly. It's a shame too because I really prefer full screen.

Before switching though, the game did screw up in a pretty funny way that I can see as becoming exploitable. If you are running up an incline when the textures and stuff disappear, you stop running up the incline and run along a flat plane through the ground. You can then clip through walls like they weren't there and even craft things and interact with NPCs and pretty much get free shortcuts everywhere. This happened to me in Limsa while going up one of the stairwells and I spent some time running around above people's heads. I eventually got stuck inside an elevator shaft though and had to teleport to get out.

If this happens in a dungeon, I could see being able to cut through it to get to key locations without having to fight or anything.

1. When the game starts to lag and nothing around is loading, start moving up stairs or an incline. This also works in Ul Dah at the front gate. Soon you will just walk through the floor.

2. Now You're free to roam above/below a floor. Sometimes the game will freeze for 10-20 secs, but if I just wait, when it unfreezes, the NPCs and other players will have loaded up. If I'm close enough I can do normal interactions with them.

3. be careful where you decide to hang out though

4. walking from "inside" a wall into an area that's technically "outside" of a wall will make the wall collision detection kick back in. Blundering into an elevator shaft or the like will trap you there until you use teleport/return to get yourself out.