Final Fantasy XI was out for one to two years before World of Warcraft. It was never as popular or accessible, but it still remains my favorite MMO of all time.
In my opinion, XI was better than WOW for two main reasons, accomplishments and locking into your classes role.
When you first start playing Final Fantasy XI, you realize very quickly that you're going to die often. And when you die, you're going to lose a lot of your experience. (10% of your max experience to the next level). Leveling takes a long time in XI and is only made longer by the death penalties. So, when you finally gain a level in XI, it's an achievement. It's not something to be glossed over like in other MMO's.
In other MMO's, you often play as hybrids. You can get away with meleeing with a ranged class or take a few hits as a mage. It's not your classes role, but other MMO's still allow you to do them (often with great success).
Final Fantasy XI doesn't let you stray out of your classes role and I love that. A tank's job is to tank, if any other class gets aggro, it's gonna cause problems for the party. A thief's role is backstabs, if any other player gets in the way of those backstabs, it'll lower the party's effectiveness.
I played as a white mage most of the time in Final Fantasy XI. My most efficient party ever was a thing of beauty. We had our puller doing nothing but pulls. The damage dealers were killing enemies fast enough that the puller didn't have time to step out of their role. The tank was generally the only class that got any hate. I, the white mage, only healed and debuffed the enemy and the rest of the party damage-dealed the living daylights out of anything unfortunate enough to step into our zone.
We called it the blender.
At the end of it, for people that played Final Fantasy XI, I went from levels 28-32 in 4.5 hours of play with that party. For you non FFXI'ers, please understand that this level of growth in that short amount of time is remarkable. Square rewarded its players for staying within the confines of their class, and I loved that.
XI did have its problems. The game was nearly impossible to efficiently solo. There was no point to it, it went too slow. Also, the economy stayed balanced for around 3 years until it went all fun-house mirror on us. Low levels have virtually no way of making money anymore while high levels just sell off insane items to each other constantly.
Even with those points, it's my favorite MMO of all time.
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