EDIT: My original review was written before the release of endwalker, since then, I have put close to 2,000 hours in and I can say with absolute confidence that this IS the best MMO on the market today. Having said that, the MMO genre has been for a long time in a very stagnant state, but I believe FF14 strikes a good balance between some of the usual awful tropes of MMO's and interesting/engaging gameplay/story in of itself.

To start off, I never really got into the Final Fantasy series much, so I didn't come at this game as a FF fan, but as a big enjoyer of the MMO genre, I've played my fair share of mmo's, WOW, BDO, ESO, DCUO, neverwinter and I guess warframe if you count it.

Most games mentioned, I have put hundreds, if not thousands of hours into, and all of them suffer from the exact same issue eventually. Endgame. The endgame of all of these games eventually turns into a slog of rinse and repeat fomo built daily quests, where instead of actually enjoying the content, you are forced to 'engage' with the content in order to keep player metrics high.
High engagement does not equal high fun.

In FF14, in less than 100 hours or so, I had the endgame gear ready, I had my character kitted out to take on shadowbringers, all from being a lowly sprout, the same cannot be said for BDO, a game that, after 1,000 hours, with ♥♥♥♥ rng, you are nowhere near the endgame compared to other players.

I would much rather a 50 hour story filled experience over 1,000 hours of rng hell for gear. And thankfully, this is the area where ff14 shines bright. The story, especially around shadowbringers and onwards, is so interesting, and the developers have done an excellent job at making you feel like your character and story matter in the game world. If you want to be a fisher who just does that all day, you can!....but if you want to be an essential part of an interesting back and forth story, rivaling single player JRPGs I have played, you absolutely can do that too.

The last huge aspect I must note on, the community. Oh wow, this game has got the nicest mmo community out there. In my 800~ hours of Black Desert, I never met a single person who was nice to me, everyone just wants to pvp on spot, say racial slurs in chat, no cooperation whatsoever, its everyone for themselves. Whereas in ff14, I have an amazing guild of people I do treasure hunts and raids with regularly through discord, a lovely guild house where they hose events, quiz nights, and even being invited to other people's weddings! This is what I truly want out of an MMO, the feeling that the world is alive, full of real people, and actually willing to interact with one another. It truly hurts when I turn on say DCUO, and 10 people are standing AFK in the main hub, no one wants to talk to each other, player housing sits empty and alone, it makes the game not worth my time at all, whereas in ff14, it never really feels like i'm alone in it, either form constant chatter in fc/world or how populated raids/dungeon content is. I have a lot of time for this game, and I see ff14 being my go to mmo for years to come, if all goes well :)

EDIT: Most of what I said back then stands true, except now, the love of my life, my partner in real life and I got married in FF14, I am part of an amazing FC group to talk to and run content with, I am part of a static made of some real life, life long friends and some new people whom I love to get to know, where we take on all the new and current extreme and savage content. When I wrote this review, I had only finished the story of shadowbringers as it was current content (5.3) but, As I write this now, sitting on the months and months of fun, enjoyment, static fights, extremes, savages ect, I can say without a doubt that this MMO really is for me.

EDIT: My original review was written before the release of endwalker, since then, I have put close to 2,000 hours in and I can say with absolute confidence that this IS the best MMO on the market today. Having said that, the MMO genre has been for a long time in a very stagnant state, but I believe FF14 strikes a good balance between some of the usual awful tropes of MMO's and interesting/engaging gameplay/story in of itself. To start off, I never really got into the Final Fantasy series much, so I didn't come at this game as a FF fan, but as a big enjoyer of the MMO genre, I've played my fair share of mmo's, WOW, BDO, ESO, DCUO, neverwinter and I guess warframe if you count it. Most games mentioned, I have put hundreds, if not thousands of hours into, and all of them suffer from the exact same issue eventually. Endgame. The endgame of all of these games eventually turns into a slog of rinse and repeat fomo built daily quests, where instead of actually enjoying the content, you are forced to 'engage' with the content in order to keep player metrics high. High engagement does not equal high fun. In FF14, in less than 100 hours or so, I had the endgame gear ready, I had my character kitted out to take on shadowbringers, all from being a lowly sprout, the same cannot be said for BDO, a game that, after 1,000 hours, with shit rng, you are nowhere near the endgame compared to other players. I would much rather a 50 hour story filled experience over 1,000 hours of rng hell for gear. And thankfully, this is the area where ff14 shines bright. The story, especially around shadowbringers and onwards, is so interesting, and the developers have done an excellent job at making you feel like your character and story matter in the game world. If you want to be a fisher who just does that all day, you can!....but if you want to be an essential part of an interesting back and forth story, rivaling single player JRPGs I have played, you absolutely can do that too. The last huge aspect I must note on, the community. Oh wow, this game has got the nicest mmo community out there. In my 800~ hours of Black Desert, I never met a single person who was nice to me, everyone just wants to pvp on spot, say racial slurs in chat, no cooperation whatsoever, its everyone for themselves. Whereas in ff14, I have an amazing guild of people I do treasure hunts and raids with regularly through discord, a lovely guild house where they hose events, quiz nights, and even being invited to other people's weddings! This is what I truly want out of an MMO, the feeling that the world is alive, full of real people, and actually willing to interact with one another. It truly hurts when I turn on say DCUO, and 10 people are standing AFK in the main hub, no one wants to talk to each other, player housing sits empty and alone, it makes the game not worth my time at all, whereas in ff14, it never really feels like i'm alone in it, either form constant chatter in fc/world or how populated raids/dungeon content is. I have a lot of time for this game, and I see ff14 being my go to mmo for years to come, if all goes well :) EDIT: Most of what I said back then stands true, except now, the love of my life, my partner in real life and I got married in FF14, I am part of an amazing FC group to talk to and run content with, I am part of a static made of some real life, life long friends and some new people whom I love to get to know, where we take on all the new and current extreme and savage content. When I wrote this review, I had only finished the story of shadowbringers as it was current content (5.3) but, As I write this now, sitting on the months and months of fun, enjoyment, static fights, extremes, savages ect, I can say without a doubt that this MMO really is for me.