I think the most apparent difference for me, between WoW-style MMOs (WoW, TERA, Rift, Aion, SWTOR, AoC, EQ2, LOTRO, GW) and FF14, is the questing system. All of the WoW-style MMOs have quest hubs. You go into this quest hub, pick up 8-10 quests, and you do a loop through the zone, and finally, the final quest leads you to the next hub. And then to the next zone. Your hand is being held the entire time through. When you logon, you continue questing. Usually these quests have their own mini-arch-plot. At the end of the zone, the quest usually concludes with defeating a mini-NM, or some group quests.

In FFXI and the current FFXIV, there is no such thing really. That's what they have to understand. They cannot expect to go to one quest hub, and pick up 8-10 quests. But this may change for 2.0? I don't know because Yoshida says he has been looking at WoW for their systems, etc. For me this is the major cultural shock.