mightyg

Just for the record, there are multiple bosses for each dungeon, and I had quite a bit of fun doing the 25 man as well, very exciting fighting the boss for the first time with no information. Would not have won if it weren't for our marauder being around level 38 (and my 1337 healing skillz).

@SnarkRitter

Yeah I'd way rather spend all day in a dungeon. Really the best content FFXI had was on a 30 min time limit (nyzul/assault).

@Cavall

Yeah the game is really enjoyable, even with the steep initial difficulty. The game is very much about discovery, of the environment, of your own memories, of your combat skills, and phat lewt. There are very few things to be fully critical of, it's such a solid complete package. I believe there's a good chance it will make it onto consoles, there's 360 controller mapping in the pc version, and their scaling system is quite good. Don't expect as amazing visuals as pc, but the overall environment design is still something to behold. If you have any love for good story, compelling worlds, solid blend of combat and narrative, you need to pick up this game.

I'm under the impression that points will be allotted when you level your rank up with each particular class. Each class has their own separate point setting. I like this since you still get to control how you allocate your points, but you can craft each particular class to your liking. What I'm really curious is how the job system will be implemented. It seems like using a job will be activated over your current class and limit some abilities you have while granting you others.

The new Director Naoki Yoshida releases update/future plan letters fairly often. He's gotten the game into playable shape as of now, and you can tell from what he says that he has a good sense of what makes an mmo fun. The game is far from perfect, and with the new battle system revamp upcoming, only time will tell if he can fully turn the game around, but if you're curious, the game can be bought for about 20-30 dollars and is still has no monthly fee. Take the dive, it's worth the price of admission at least.

Definitely looking forward to the upcoming patches. If you're on the fence as of now, the game is still free to play and is in playable condition. Been logging in to earn money and do the quick guildleves to level up. If you can find the game cheap, which seems to be pretty easy at the moment, go for it, I've seen it on amazon.com for around 20 bucks.

I really enjoyed the beastmen in FFXI as well. They continued to be a great recurring theme in further expansions as well. Defending the capital city of Aht Urghan from beastmen attack for the first time was great fun and really had the entire server joining in. They really stepped up their game for the nation storylines in the Wings of the Goddess expansion where all 3 nations were at war with the beastmen and the sides had various interactions between battles.

Some additions/corrections to your article:

While blue subjob isn't bad for other reasons like Cocoon etc. The physical and magical spells themselves won't work well with subbed blue magic skill.

The developers stated they were thinking of lowering the level of Sekkanoki to make it subbable. Makes sam sub more appealing slightly.
They also mentioned Afflatus and Yonin/Innin would be getting adjusted or raised in level. So they will likely not be subable.

Just general opinions, quick draw could quite possibly be very good for ranger, sch sub has the potential to be even better than rdm sub for whm with things like hastega, stoneskinga etc. you also recieve about half of the weather modifying storm spells.

There is also one thing you didn't consider. and that is the new abilities, traits and spells all jobs will be recieving due to the increase in level.

The alpha testing has not started yet. A message on the beta site forums from the developers states that they are having issues getting the client software running properly, and that it is the cause for the delay. They did release the minimum specs for the alpha testing, and they are fairly reasonable. file size starts at ~10 gigs. It's been a few weeks since the developers released that message, so hopefully they'll have things on track soon.

Generally speaking, finding parties at lower levels is more difficult. However with the announcement that the level cap is increasing, there should be a boon to the always tedious 37-50 range. They have also made improvements to soloing in the form of an hourly quest called "Fields of Valor" which rewards you with experience, gil and "tabs" for completing a list of monster families killed in the particular area. Tabs grant additional status buffs and other benefits like instant transportation to your home nation. At level 60, you can now participate in "Campaign Battle" in the newer (Past) wings of the goddess areas. This rewards you with good chunks of exp and other rewards, and can be used to effectively solo to 75, albeit a little slower than a party would. It can also net you some decent, free gear sets for various jobs, not the best gear, but quite good. Server populations are still holding fairly well, and after the version update mergers, they should be quite healthy. Some of the higher populated servers are reopening to transfers as well.