The lore in this game is just bad.

[Vydos]

It would have been nice if the city-states were racial like in Final Fantasy XI. I really loved San d'Oria and would have liked to make my Elezen a citizen of a very European, Elezen society.

They actually made the city-states more racial in ARR. And from the looks of it, Ishgard seems to be the new San d'Oria in this game. The outskirts and many towns are filled with high and mighty Elezens. It has a very San d'Oria feel to it with the names, families and nobles.
Even to the point of there being some big religious stuff going on like a church (just like in ffxi)

[Malrend]

Apart from the Hyur and the Miqo'te, the City-States are indeed rather racial, heck even tribal to some extent.
In Gridania you have a predominantly Wildwood and Midlander population, Ul'dah is mostly made up of both Lalafell tribes, and a good amount of (Ala Mihgan) Highlanders, and finally Limsa Lominsa is more or less the only place you'll find Sea Wolves.

Vydos is indeed correct, that if you want something significantly Elezen and medieval European, you should go for Ishgard. As things are right now, it would seem that the most racially diverse City-state would be Sharlayan, based on the members of the Scions (bar Minfilia), and the members of the Sons of Saint Coinach, both being institutions of Sharlayan origins.

[Petrified]

Ummm. Warcraft's story as a whole is almost 2 decades old. Within those long years comes 4 main games + expansions and books. That's why its lore is rich.

FFXIV game is only 3 years old and has its own story with lots of allusions from the past FF games. It's great that they contain lots of lore and historic events which you will know while reading and understanding the texts, NPC dialogues, environment, races, even some of the texts within those fetch/kill quota quests.

Just be patient and read. Don't button mash that skip button. While you're at it, read the Lore section in the forums

a little off-topic fun trivia: The world of Ivalice in FFXII have rich lore almost the same as WoC. All story within the Ivalice Alliance FF games are connected on a single timeline. Almost I can feel the next MMO Final Fantasy game will be set on the world of Ivalice

[Conradus]

It would have been nice if the city-states were racial like in Final Fantasy XI. I really loved San d'Oria and would have liked to make my Elezen a citizen of a very European, Elezen society.

They are, although not as much as FFXI. Elezen and Miqo'te gravitate to Gridania, Lalafell to Ul'dah, and the Roegadyn to Limsa Lominsa, with the Hyur just being everywhere. Unlike FFXI, however, these are just the predominant tendencies, with all races being found in some numbers everywhere.

[Riposte]

Can't say I agree with WoW's lore being good at all. It reads like a bad campaign setting by a young DM. WoW beats you over the head with what Darklord McDark did 4 million years ago with his Dark Horde of Darkness, while FFXIV (and FFXI before it) leaves things more mysterious. FFXIV has less "ass-pull" fantasy going on and shows surprisingly care even in the minor details.

[seekerofpower]

WoWs lore is crap. The lore was incredible in the actual Warcraft games, but during the WoW era, they retconned so much the lore began to go downhill quickly. They built an incredible lore base and then just pissed all over it.

FFXIVs lore is incredible. As others have said, read text on items, quests, leves, talk to NPCs, listen to NPC flavor dialog, etc. There is so much here.

[Toranja]

It would have been nice if the city-states were racial like in Final Fantasy XI. I really loved San d'Oria and would have liked to make my Elezen a citizen of a very European, Elezen society.

You know what reminds me of San d'Oria? Ishgard. We can only see it from afar, but from Coerthas alone I get that feeling.

[jomoru]

WoWs lore is crap. The lore was incredible in the actual Warcraft games, but during the WoW era, they retconned so much the lore began to go downhill quickly. They built an incredible lore base and then just pissed all over it.

FFXIVs lore is incredible. As others have said, read text on items, quests, leves, talk to NPCs, listen to NPC flavor dialog, etc. There is so much here.

the idea that they started retconning and messing up lore in Warcraft with Wow is Laughable, Look at WC1 all sorts of stuff from that is Retconned by wc2 and lets not even get into the change between orcs in wc2 and 3, where elves come from etc.

[Neuflune]

The Lore is great. A lot of people's reading ability, not so much. =P

Aye.

Also, some of the lore can only be found by playing specific classes, such as the new addition "Arcanist". It eventually leads to looking up the history of ancient Allag (evoker) and Nym (scholar). I made a blog post about the scholar one because I really like the story (google "The Tragedy of Nym").

[Shinn91]

u r wrong

the story was amazing for.
the start was a little bit "slow" but since the Titan kill i wanted to play further and futher to see how the story goes on.