I know almost nothing about XIV. So with that in mind...
I played FFXI for a total of 5 years (give or take a few months), 3.5 solid, then I didn't play for about 5years, and then did another 1.5 about a year ago.
In the 5 year gap I played WoW, and have returned to WoW when it's newest xpack came out (almost a year ago). and I made a joke in FFXI, and it back fired on me... I had been working on my BST Axes, managed to get the ones for DMG reduction...joke that I was done with the game. The next day POL would not let me log in..after weeks of trying to work it out, I gave up.
I'm being told by people who, like me have played FFXI and WoW for years, that I should look into XIV. This is me looking into it.
So a few questions for the people who have been playing in beta, version 1, etc.:
-This all "party" play like XI? or can I solo to level?
-Quest just give EXP? Am I going to have to spend weeks/month farming currency, or do quest reward gil (I assume it is called gil in this game as well)?
Basically need to know... is this FFXI all over again, but in "HD"?