[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

FFXI was the last in the line of what I'd consider the "old school" approach to MMOs.

EXP Loss, lots of griding and missions over a focus on questing. There are actually people who prefer this approach and find the solo hype of the WoW generation to be nothing but a bait-and-switch.

Let's look at the WoW-style. So you can solo from 1 and quest for EXP. While this is nice, you go from zero-dependancy to complete dependancy on an alliance at endgame to get anything done. From zero competition for gear to loads of competition. Not even all of FFXI endgame content is like that, its gotten far more progressive.

And best of all, in WoW after all that work to get "l337 g3arz" is swiftly outdated by the next expansion - Meh. That something FFXI never does. FFXI never directly obseletes a piece of endgame gear, instead, they make alternatives that are often quite respectable. Rise of the Zilart gear is still great gear, CoP Sea/Limbus gears are excellent, ToA Assault and WotG Campaign rewards are respectable and ToA Salvage and Nyzul Isle rewards are immensely good in thier own right.

Not only that, FFXI's endgame is far more varied and robust than most MMO endgames. You have the old-style big-window mob spawns, Dynamis and now lots of instanced content that can sometimes be low-manned rather than requiring tons of people to do it. Meanwhile, Assault and Campaign offer high level rewards players can persue at thier own pace.

Simply put, FFXI doesn't dance around the grouping issue. Rather than make it an inevitablitly, FFXI makes it the norm. However, there are PLENTY of jobs that solo and have soloed to 75 without resorting to just killing EP mobs.

Ignore the facts about the soloability of FFXI if you want, but the fact remains that solo in FFXI is earned, its not given away and the game will not be stupified to the point where its possible from level 1.

If it is not your flavor of MMO, move on, FFXI ain't changing for the WoW generation.