I was a pretty dedicated FFXI player back in the day. Looking back, that game had some insane limitations and grueling game play, but at the time I thought it was pretty great. I checked out WoW a couple years ago (after thinking I was over MMOs) and was surprised by what a difference there was and how much better MMOs had gotten. Simple things like the dungeon finder vs spending five hours looking for a group still blow my mind. I was initially interested in FFXIV but didn't have a PC that could run it, which was probably for the best as it turned out to be a terrible game.
We're coming up to the release of v2, a complete re-write of the entire game where they claim to have fixed all the problems. I checked out one of the beta waves a month or so ago and it seems like they've made WoW with more emphasis on story (it has cut scenes and everything). One of the things I dislike about WoW is I don't even bother to read the quests. They just aren't interesting, and my party is normally going too fast to even have a chance of reading it anyway. The game is absolutely beautiful, plays well on a TV with a controller and so far can be solo'ed pretty easily.
It's just a shame it has that subscription fee.
Anyone else checked it out or planning to?