The people you get with definitely make the MMO! FFXIV has a great community, a far more supportive and less elitist community than FFXI IMO. Both were great games, though. Like you said, there is a magnetic draw to them that keeps you coming back even after unsubbing for a while.

Funny that you’re using FFXIV screenshots for an FFXI nostalgia piece. FFXI was a gorgeous game even with the low polygon count, though you had to do some Windows registry hacks to get the proper resolutions.