First of all, I'm a new XIV player. I'm really enjoying the game, and greatly appreciate the amount of work and detail that has been put into it.
The first thing that really stood out to me about XIV was the dialogue. Hands down the most well written dialogue in any MMORPG I have ever played. Of all of the countless negative reviews and comments I'd read about XIV, none of them mentioned how well written this game was. Be it the story quests, or just the conversations you have with random townsfolk, the dialogue is superb.
If you've read A Game of Thrones, you will be familiar with the writing style.
Thus far, I've come across many references and similarities to A Game of Thrones, including:
Names: Sansa, an NPC found in Gridania
Terms: Hedge Knights, sellswords, the Twelve (the Seven in GoT), wildlings, rangings, sweetling
Phrases: "Twelve be good!" (Gods be good) / "You have the right of it" / "We have meat and mead" / "It is known"
And this is all just within the first few story quests found in Gridania.
What are some other references to George R R Martin's work, if you've noted any?
And if not, what do you think of the dialogue in general? I think its an area where XIV really excels, yet is rarely praised.