Being blunt:
XIV is barely supporting the content structure it does have. Yeah it makes people happy that barely play the game, but people who do keep on the up and up all agree that end-game in XIV in general is sorely lacking in general. So "old school" is certainly out of the question. I mean, GW2 and PSO2 (even though not a traditional MMO in the sense) does it beautifully, so it certainly can work.
However XIV suffers from far too many problems to see it viable. In 2 years time the game has not evolved, at all, systematically. 3.0 feels exactly like 2.0 era, so it doesn't seem likely they'll ever move on from this format, which is fine but is indeed a bit boring.
Let's be honest though - bringing up HNMs/Ground kings from 2003-2004 era of FFXI is kind of silly because XI evolved loooooooong since then, even by 2006 in terms of open world content. So while 2006 is still technically old school by today's standards, I could definitely see systems like ZNM/Voidwatch/Walk of Echos (this is technically open world) working for sure in terms of content, but in implementation? The fact the servers would die if they so much as gave everyone a few more inventory spaces means the game itself can't actually handle any shift in content format at all.
Karlina wrote:
Personally I prefer the prestige that comes from non-gear accomplishments. Things that anyone can do but not everyone chooses to. In FFXI I was much prouder of the fact that I was Last Verse, Eternal Mercenary, and rank 10 in all nations, than I was of any items I had. Even in FFXIV I'm prouder of my "The Negotiator" title than of my DRG gear. I'd rather be able to say "I did that" than "I have that" (though titles and vanity items are always a nice bonus :)) Not everything has to be about gear in the first place.
This is why I like XI - It has a variety, there's lots of various things you can do progression wise and while gear is the overall goal, like any RPG and progression is the end goal (like any video game) XI had content you did because it was fun or because it would eventually pay off for you. In XIV, all you do is a gear treadmill. Your only progression is grinding either:
Tomes
Alexander/Alexander Savage.
This is 2 years later in XIV ARR, this is ignoring the 3 years of XIV 1.x. - XIV is nothing but gear grinding and what proves this is:
How populated is Golden Saucer and its activities now compared to when it was implemented, versus people spamming Ravana or Alexander (either)? The only thing to really do in XIV is either leveling, doing your weekly stuff or crafting/gathering. Essentially either grind, grind or grind for gear in some fashion. So I don't know, maybe it's because I've kept current on XIV content but it feels way more restrictive than XI ever had.
Though vertical progression MMOs tend to be like that.
Edited, Aug 9th 2015 6:06am by Theonehio