[Kitalrez]

Yeah, the nice thing about FFXI is that the story keeps adding and developing on itself. There's not really a "true" ending but there are parts that allow you to look back and feel like you've really accomplished something. It's a refreshing change from the first generation of MMORPGs like EQ where the story was pushed so far into the background that any message of: "Congratulations, you've just advanced the plot line!" was greeted with a good 30-40 players standing around, scratching our heads and asking: "Whoa, there was a plot?"

eticket109 identified what I would consider natural "ending" points, places you can hop off the mission train and go do something else or quit altogether. What he didn't mention is that if you naturally are a perfectionist type, (which a lot of Final Fantasy players are), there's a lot of other missions and quests that flesh out the previous storylines, the Crystal War, the Zilart Apocalypse, etc. If you were the type of player who did FF6's every quest and level just on the off chance that rumor about raising General Leo panned out, or spent entirely too much time at the Golden Saucer in FF7, you're gonna be here awhile.

For instance, just taking Bastok:

1. Ranks 1-6 complete the opening CS premise of a return to war.
2. Ranks 6-10 give a backstory on the racial history of the Galka, as well as providing a background on what triggered the Crystal War in the first place.
3. Then when you get into CoP, you get more background into the place you see in the opening CS. Followed by background into why the triggering events for the Crystal War occurred. As well as tie-ins to every other storyline.
4. If you finish RoZ's normal plotline, you end on the event that triggers CoP's opening CS, giving you an explanation of that event. It also explains even more about why the Crystal War occurred, plus gives you an idea of why the Teleport Crags exist and all the ruins everywhere.

Then, on top of all this, you also have the option to switch nations, do all of their missions, (rank 1-6 largely being repeats), getting even more backstory on the main plot line. Plus, you have the Artifact quests, which give backstory on major and minor plotlines. Then, you have individual quests in town which often give backstory on single events in the mission, AF, or minor plotlines. Basically, if you want to know what's really going on with everything, you could be here all decade.

This is probably why a lot of us were excited about TAU missions, so far the only major tie in to other parts of the storyline are the NPC "Adventuring Fellow" quests. Which means that TAU probably represents an entirely new plotline to be developed in the story, with it's own inevitable expansions. It's like getting a stand-alone sequel while you're still reading the original story.