If you really want to try it, you would be better off the trial a shot. Final Fantasy XI is significantly more hardcore than WoW. The UI is also very weird coming from WoW because it takes a lot from classic Final Fantasy games, FFXI is playable on consoles (PS2, PS3 (via bc), and Xbox 360) as well as Windows, and it wsa released before WoW established certain conventions about how e.g. quest givers are treated. Square did at least get one thing right: your inventory is a list and not a grid of nondescript icons. One of these days, I’m going to have to learn Lua so I can make a proper, nethack-style inventory mod for WoW.
Anyway, I played for two to three hours last night, and the only thing I accomplished was to explore three of the four districts in Windurst. Unlike WoW, FFXI’s cities are actually cities. I think all of Ogrimmar could fit within just one of the districts of Windurst. I now have ten quests and a mission in my quest log. Missions are essentially quests that increase your rank with your home city upon completion. Higher ranks gives you access to more things (such as access to the upper floors of the star tree in Windurst).
