How does this stack up with other mmo's?

Title says it all how does this MMO compare to EQ WOW  SWOTR or GW2? Those are the MMOs I have played the most and so I am wondering how FF compares to these MMO's? I know FF11 was a grind is this game similar? Thanks in advance!

If your main concern is the grind factor, it certainly doesn't feel as grindy as XI was in the Rise of the Zilart~Treasures of Aht Urhgan days.

It's perhaps a step back from the speed of Abyssea leveling atm, though that may change as players become comfortable with XIV:ARR.

It's a bit more difficult for me to objectively compare the rest of those titles though, without possibly upsetting players who really enjoyed any, or all of those titles.

Instead, my gut-reaction advice is to try to get some hands-on time with it in the upcoming, Open Beta Phase 4.

If that's not an option, there will inevitably be a ton of reviews that will surface in the coming weeks prior to launch,

which can grant you a multitude of perspectives to derive your own opinion from.

I will say that I haven't been this excited for an MMORPG (re)launch since GW2, and to a slightly lesser extent, Rift.

For many of us in Echoes (after testing for a few beta phases), we've already decided that this will be our new MMORPG home for years to come.

The level grind for your first class to level 50 is not grindy at all - it's all quest driven. After that, it gets pretty grindy. Once you've leveled your first class to 50, you don't have many quests to run but it's still not as grindy as most Asian mmogs (ie. Lineage) but it's a crazy grind compared to something like WoW.

I'd say it's very much a "WoW-clone" getting your first 50. It's quite an enjoyable experience. Post-50 it turns into a game much like the original EQ in the early days, just way more polished.

Agree with Aalwein.   I'd add that -- unlike EQ (at least way back when I was playing it), there are leveling goodies like rest XP and daily quests (called "leves").  Also a "hunting log" for each new class which gives nice XP for "kill N" play... without a run back and forth to an NPC.  And public quests (called "fates").  Dungeons give a nice boost in XP too.  I got to 32 in the beta, and stopped questing around 15.

It's not zippity fast leveling, but it's far from the worst grinds I've experienced.

I had a completely different experience leveling than the others posting here apparently.

I am not a big quest guy. Ill do a few and then go do something else. I was able to get very good xp from other activities such as zonewide FATE's (think gw2 dynamic events) and running group dungeons ( at least up to the 30's, one dungeon was about 1/3rd of a level) or Levequests, which i guess are kinda like daily quests, but you can ratchet up the difficulty on them to make them challenging enough that it didnt bother me.

All that being said, it is very clearly meant to be a quest driven game. If your not riding along your main story quests, portions of the game will literally be unavailable to you until your main quest reaches certain points. Also a few class skills are only gained via quests, and even the specialized classes (Jobs) are gained only via quests. So really i mainly just pursued the main and class quests and left the others there and got all of my other xp from other things. I suppose when I would eventually level another class, I could go back and complete all the unfinished quests. 

I didn't really find it all that grindy at all, mind you I didn't get to test as much as I wouuld have liked to, I still managed to pull out a lvl 10 lancer in about 3 - 3.5 days of playing. Most of my xp came from the misc quests found in my main starting area and FATES.

I'm not much of a quest person on the best of days but the ones I did do I found to be quite enjoyable. I think my main problem with the quest system is I usually start one and then I'm all "quest, quest, quest, quest, oooooh a shiny! *insert 8 hr distraction here*", though I will say by tying certain class skills to the main story quests it does give you a bit of focus.

I also found I tended to have about 10+ quests on the go at any given time. =p

I think it really boils down to that this game is a westernized-Asian MMOG. It's not your typical kill 500 enemies to level grind-fest like most Asian MMOGs. It's far closer to WoW, GW2, and RIFT than to Lineage or Aion.

If you enjoy a quest-driven, objective-based leveling curve (at least for the first class, maybe the 2nd), multiple-roles on one toon (a la RIFT souls), zone events (a la RIFT rifts and GW2 events), trinity-based gameplay, monster-filled dungeons, all wrapped up inside some of the most gorgeous settings and easily the best game background music, then FFXIV is your game.

having played for a weekend I got a good feel for it.

In comparison to WoW - FFXIV wins hands down. the stories in FF were always some of the best around and the graphics are about the same. The Game play is a lot better and definatly smoother. the quests flow almost effortlessly. and finally the mounts are cooler, after all who wouldn't want to ride a chocobo all day long while listening to the mounts own theme song. 

In Comparison to Rift - I would say it's about even. both in story and game play

In Comparison to EQ2 - FFXIV wins. Graphics and stories are better.

Naturally this is my own opinion on the matter but you have to just play the game and judge it on your own merits 

Dont forget, once you level 1 class to 50, you get an additional boost to XP when leveling all other classes, something akin to 30% increase on top of food buffs and the like that provide additional experience to provide a smoother leveling curve...honestly, I dont care, I played Aion post quest flood and Lineage I and II.

Grinding is not a four letter word for me, but that being said, with the increase on supplemental classes and the ability to do leve's, hests, logs, dungeons and fates...I dont feel like its going to be a slamfest when it comes to leveling a 2nd..3rd...4th.. class. I will have them all to 50 with all professions at max - Just my playstyle.

Is there any advantage to getting the collecters edition? On Amazon there doenst seem to be a difference between regular and Collectors as far as in gmae stuff etc. Also is there a pricing model per month? Finally have they announced when Open beta 4 is? Thanks 

Collectors edition gets in-game toys, standard gets nothing. No word on price or open beta yet. I think I read legacy players (former 1.0 subscribers) get it for $10 a month, which means everyone else will probably pay $15 a month.

I know there is pricing setup, but I forgot where the link is, but I think it is in one of the other posts on here somewhere.

Still waiting on a date for beta 4, but there is another post on here with speculation of the time frames seeing that the game goes live on the 27th.

On the topic of leveling, I only played the last 5 day stint of beta 3 thanks to a key from Connor.  I played around with two classes and a lot of crafting stuff to get a full feel of the game.  The 2nd class happened to be in the same city so no regional or story quests to help with leveling, but using the hunt log first with some leves and fates as I hit them, I leveled to 10 quite easily.  I did have L5 and L10 class quests in the mix along with a starter thing, but they only played a small part.  Might actually work it out that I do more of the hests at the lower level with the 2nd class to help it out rather than the first.  Also, I know the Conjurer gets pulled into the group stuff way faster than a dps.

Anyway, I'm ready to work on my path to bard first along with all the crafting stuff when I get to play again.  =)  Who knows what the third class is going to be.  I might actually try something on the tanky, in your face style!

I think the only way you will know is to play in open beta. I personally did not find it grindy at all, because there is so much to do.  We do not know how grindy it will be on the second plus jobs because nobody has been able to level a toon to 50 to check what the xp boost is, so that is purely conjecture at this point.

Personally, I love pve, and was excited about Rift, but fairly disappointed by GW2 (for pve). So for me the game has everything, and the pve experience looks to be fantastic.

We all look for different things from an MMO, so your question is a bit too subjective to accurately answer.  Give it a try, you never know!

The priceing is listed on the pre order page of the FFXIV site. 

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/product/ - under pricing and platforms. scroll down to service fees