FFXIV pros:

• It has a large playerbase. Even queuing as DPS, dungeon pops are quick and painless.

• It's beautiful.

• The playerbase is generally decent, at least compared to RIFT.

• Duty Finder is awesome. So is Party Finder. Both of them make finding what you want to do pretty easy.

• People are nice.

FFXIV neutral:

• Square Enix very much has an idea of how their game should be played. This is something I consider neutral because it can be either a good and a bad thing depending on how you feel a game should be like. They are very determined to make sure that you experience their game exactly how they feel it should be experienced. It is lovingly, but carefully crafted; in return you give up the freedom to decide what you want to do. For instance, your path through the game is extremely linear. You must complete the main quest to unlock crucial things, and the main quest is LONG, particularly some things they added in before the expansion that were intended to draw out the main story questline and keep people occupied until they added in the expansion. Once you hit level 50, which was the previous max level, you still have to slog through an endless series of quests that give next to no experience; you will have at least 10 hours worth of questing to do before you hit Heavensward content, and did I mention these quests give next to no experience? So you're questing but not really "progressing." Again, this is something some people like and something other people hate. Personally, I hated it. I want to complete the story in my own time and not be forced to do it in the manner SE demands.

FFXIV cons:

• Lack of end game content.

• Not easy to play or gear alt classes. It is convenient to have all your things on one character, but the currency/gear caps are for that one character, not for each individual class. So if you want to play a DPS, a tank and a healer? Too bad. You can only gear one of them at a time because of how the currency cap works. Claim DPS loot one week? You can't get loot for your healer or tank. The fact that you're bound to this system of only getting to thoroughly gear one class at a time is why there is so little end-game content.

• Customer service sucks. It's weird that their CS is so bad considering you pay a sub. RIFT customer service is excellent in comparison. I've accidentally screwed up my items in RIFT a dozen times and each times Trion CS has fixed it for me. I accidentally purchased an item I didn't need in FFXIV and they told me there was nothing they could do about it. Was it my mistake? Of course, but since I'm used to better CS, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

• Serious quality of life issues, many of which lead back to how SE demands you play the game. Byzantine menus, endless confirmation screens, traveling to and fro can be a nightmare (mount speed is EXTREMELY slow in the old zones), lack of a general chat, all of those can be really wearying.

So now onto RIFT...

RIFT pros:

• Every single quality of life tweak you could ever possibly want. This game will spoil the shit out of you when it comes to quality of life. The wardrobe system is fantastic. The travel is fantastic. Addons give so much customization. Menus are easy to navigate.

• Content can actually be fun and difficult, although some of this is because the playerbase can be really fucking bad at times and that means you're carrying idiots through content they are not really skilled enough to handle. Still, though, FFXIV dungeons are a cakewalk compared to RIFT dungeons, which require things like cleanses and interrupts to survive.

• The soul system is the best out of any game I've ever played.

• There's tons of stuff to do.

RIFT neutral:

• Tiny playerbase, 90% of which are mouthbreathing morons, while the other 10% are elitist, incestuous assholes. You will be playing with the same people day in and day out. This is neutral because it can be nice to know a lot of the people you see, but also suck that people will remember every mistake you ever made in PVP or PVE. RIFT is like a large extended family where almost everyone hates this person and loves that other person.

RIFT negatives:

• You will find it almost impossible to get into end-game content at this juncture because of the tiny incestuous playerbase. If you don't know anyone willing to show you the ropes, forget it. You are expected to link your cheevs to get into a run. The fact that you won't have the cheevs until someone lets you in is immaterial.

• It becomes more P2W by the day.

• The devs are lazy and mainly just re-release old content nowadays rather than coming up with anything new.