Play WoW or GW b4 you play this game, to realise just how good it is. This game is not for MMORPG First Timers!
The games interface is not exactly user friendly and people who have never played a MMORPG will find it very difficult to adapt to quickly. It is also difficult in the sense that there is no real tutorial to the game for new players and there is no in-depth description of game-play and mechanics which you get in the previous Final Fantasy games.
The map is also very unfriendly, players a forced to run around the world looking for a item or monster that are not indicated on the map. And once you have the item you need to remember where you got the quest from as there is also no indicator for the person who gave you the quest.
However the lack of starting information a-side the their is an amazing amount of depth the game. Players will find themselves investing hours and hours just to improve their crafting rank.
Other areas are job combos, where you develop a characters main job and sub job to perform damaging combo's to an enemy.
I could also right pages and pages of whats good about FFXI but to simply, FFXI is a under appreciated due to the fact other games have come along and condensed the game into shorter and easier versions for anyone to play which is where FFXI fails.