[Alastor]

The thing about most people is that they see games as progression through character growth (stat growth). As we all know, most Final Fantasy games are strict throughout most of the game, and only gives you plenty of freedom once you reach endgame. Sadly, this applies to Final Fantasy XI as well.

I'm in a Linkshell, and without it I would never play the game. Talking with other people is a must. Although some people do like to grind stuff and just get better equipment and things like that (I for one, love it), but if that's the only thing you can do in a game, then the game fails (see Monster Hunter(s)).

Most people play MMO's and forget that it's an MMORPG. Ideally, people should spend as much time farming/grinding/questing as roleplaying, but they don't, which is an awful shame.

Final Fantasy XII works the same way to me. All I did was grind for LP and gil and exp and tried to take on one Mark after another. I didn't care about the story, and all story progression was purely to obtain more items and equipments, and to gain access to other Marks.

The game doesn't really pick up until your reach Level 18, and doesn't start becoming really fun until you're past rank 3-5 and/or have reached Level 30. I don't feel that the game's sucking up all my time. Sure, I have to dedicate a few hours a day for it, but I do that with every game I play, and I always play only one game at a time ^_^ I mean, I was waay more addicted to FFXII than FFXI. So addicted I actually had to stop playing it.