Wanna add something.
If someone haven't seen recent trailer of the elder scrolls online yet, please take a look. With all that blah-blah about next great MMO and so on, when you see animations you CAN NOT take the game seriously anymore! I was like: What...? and then hahahahaha till the end of the trailer.
My point is XIV 1.0 had its distinct (and I repeat still unrivaled) style that I'm sure helped the game get through all negativity in the first place.
Though I still have high expectations about ARR and looking forward to, hate to say, some kind of guildwarsiness is killing me.
I guess it's about new auditory SE aiming for...