1) I hate the lack of an auction house. Without it, makes it hard to determine an individual player is ripping you off with their offerings.

2) Gathering - I get that the Aim/Strike style mini-game discourages botting, but at the same time it also makes the gathering process really tedious. No matter how cool/neat some of us find it now, do you really want to have to do it a few months down the road? At the very least, they could get rid of the 1st-click/Aim portion of the mini-game. With all the UI-driven delay/lag, that would help speed things up a little...

3) Would be nice if you had a crafting journal that stores recipes for things you successfully crafted or learned through a leve.

4) XP cap - I would like to know how much time I have remaining on a class before XP gain is reduced/eliminated. Also, not sure how this is calculated. If you log on and just stand or walk around for 8 hours doing nothing, does that count? Given all the walking you do in this game, that would be kind of lame ;)

5) Would be nice if there was an NPC in town (like all standard members of the city watch equivalent) that could tell you where vendors are located or how to get to another town.

6) They need to make multiple instances of the regions (i.e. Bearded Rock-1, Bearded Rock-2, etc) with an option to change your instance number so you can find your buddies. That would really help with reducing lag/crowding.

7) Dying - it's annoying to have to go into your menu to Return when you die. Can't they just make it an automatic pop-up that you can select Yes/No/Wait to?

8) Keyboard shortcuts - it would be nice to be able to assign shortcuts so I can press I to get into my Inventory instead of having to go into the Menu and then select Inventory. After all, this is a PC game...

9) Gladiators should start out with some kind of starter shield.

10) Would be nice if you could toggle auto-attack for your rank 1 base attack.

11) Elevation needs work. If I want to fall down somewhere, I should be able to (and take damage if it is a long drop). I don't mind not being able to jump.

Unfortunately, this is not the best of the best. But at the same time, when you have mastered FFXIV, you can at least take yourself out of the novice group for MMO's. It's not WoW, because it is not easy to play. That may be a good or bad factor, depending on the your focus. Why it takes 4 clicks at least to create anything is beyond me. Lag is an issue with staring at an empty space waiting for an NPC for at least 30 seconds is boring. Quest are good, but finding where to get them is bad. Overall, I would like to see SE fix the flow so it can be either macroed, or easier to flow through the game.

It is not perfect. I agree with most of what has been said previously.

I would mention that the learning curve for this game is probably about 3 months... lol

Between all of the different disciplines, abilities, macros, bazaar options, chat options, etc... it takes awhile to get it all under your belt.

I'm not so heart broken about the lack of an AH system. I tend to agree with SE. Not having an AH opens the door for creativity of craftsmen trying to find sales for their wares. I also opens the doors for skilled craftsmen or synthesis linkshells to become a sought after commodity. Anyway, I haven't experienced too much trouble finding what I need... yet. People in the early release stand to make a significant amount of money if they prepare diligently for the incoming hordes to follow on Wednesday.

Combat is fun! It isn't FFXI combat. It is more challenging then combat in some other MMOs. The Battle Regimen system is a little difficult to manage and at low levels not very worthwhile because their aren't enough abilities but I think at the higher levels it will be interesting to explore the options. It has the elements of teamwork that I liked in FFXI and just like skillchains requires some learning time to figure out. I like the fact that you can toggle AOE abilities on your spells. Between Thaumaturge and a Conjurer you could take down large groups of monsters easily or adapt to tank style party system.

Some guildleves are incredibly challenging. There are mostly combat tutorial leves at the beginning with some escort quests as part of the storyline. It is nice that you don't have to provide materials for crafting leves. Advancement is much easier and enjoyable. Crystals are definitely going to be a hot commodity.

I agree that the visuals are stunning. I also admit that I purchased a new $300 graphics card just to be able to run the game. The world not only beautiful it is also huge! There is no lack of dungeons to explore or places to see. You could easily spend a week traveling to every corner of the map.

The chat interface is a little troubling. It isn't easy to reply. In FFXI I just hit <alt>+R and it would auto reply. In FFXIV you have to type their name at least once before you can press <space><ctrl>+R and reply. I agree with the earlier comment that the chat box doesn't hold enough characters. You run out of space too fast.

I would recommend if you do not have one getting a USB controller. It makes the game menus and landscape much easier to explore. It is possible to do so using a keyboard but I would think twice.

In the hours I've played since release I have not regreted a penny of all the money I spent to explore Eorzea. 8.7/10

Being that it's only two days after the early release I don't know that I can really comment on the game as a whole. Currently I have my physical level up to 10 and I have a couple of classes leveled up.

The Leve system is nice. There's definitely something to be said about being able to log on for forty-five minutes to an hour and actually get something done. I personally tend to play hours at a time, but friends of mine that couldn't play FFXI because of the amount of time required to actually achieve anything can now log on and play for an hour.

The graphics on FFXIV are much better than those of FFXI.

The game play is kind of slow. There is a more than noticable time lapse between command imput and command execution. Hopefully this is something that can be addressed in an update sometime soon. Also, it's not uncommon (for me anyway) to initiate an attack on a mob and then receive a message saying that the mob is already engaged. As it stands, to overcome this problem, I try to have an exit strategy before I initiate an attack. Otherwise, the only option is to stand there and let the mob attack you while you continue to receive that message that it's already engaged.

One thing that I would really like to make clear is that this game is NOT Final Fantasy 11! In the last three days I have seen so many people complaining about how different this game is from FFXI. So be warned, if you are expecting FFXI you WILL be disappointed!

The game has several bugs that need to be tended to and hopefully will be tended to in upcoming updates. However, none of these things are bad enough to make me want to stop playing so far.

As of right now there is no AH. However, being that I'm barely into the game, I can't really comment about how I feel about this so far. Honestly, I've yet to have a reason to really need an AH in any way. Also, (as far as my exploring has taken me) there is no MH either. Again, I can't really comment on how I feel about this.

Some of the in game commands are a bit demanding. Basically, you have to open up the main menu to access pretty much everything. This wouldn't be too bad except, as I stated above, there is a delay between unput and execution. So, the more steps it takes to input a command, the more noticable this delay is.

Over all I would say that I'm pleased witht the game so far. If you are someone who is thinking about buying the game but aren't sure, I would say that as long as you are willing to give SE a little bit of time to work out some minor bugs in the game then it's worth giving a try.

I really liked the FFXI world, but the gameplay was lacking at release, more specifically the combat system.

Things I like
Graphics - gorgeous, feels like I'm playing Oblivion but other people can be in the game with me
Combat - has improved 10 fold over original ffxi which was just autoattack and try to get in a skillchain
Single Player - it's nice to not have to get a 5 man group to hit 11
Crafting - while I've just started...it's kind of cool, though a bit expensive.

Things I don't really like (subject to change)
Quests - There's the main quests...and then levequests, but levequests are just kill x or craft x, should be more variety to zone stuff, most of the areas are just some geography with monsters filled in, wish there was more to interact with.
Music - So far it's been a little bland imo, I remember ffxi early music at least being more catchy, peppy, atmospheric etc.

Gear - Besides being able to buy the starting weapon of each class there's almost nothing you can get for quite some time as far as gear..wish gear would drop, even if it wasn't very good.. I might be level 20 before I stop using my level 1 weapon, I'd like a bit more easily-accesible gear for new players.

Convenience stuff - I don't want this to be WoW, but stuff like an auction house would be nice, also where did player housing go? :( Final Fantasy XI had both, and I really liked the housing, I've heard the a.h. at least will be out at a later date, which begs the question, why wasn't this stuff ready at release? It feels like this game was released too soon, for me it hasn't really been buggy or anything, but it just feels like it lacks content.

Classes - Really there are the 5 war classes and 2 mage classes, not sure why they even call the professions classes but it's a bit misleading. It doesn't seem like there are enough classes right now.