the free trial has infinite time and some minor restrictions so imo you should try it

i didn't know what to expect and only played guikdwars 1 and some 2 and very little WOW and ff14 won me over

it's a very charming game with lots of character and you can tell it was made with love

I only pitch it to people who already play MMOs. It's a massive time sink, and very heavy with cutscenes. Sometimes the story gets really slow (like basically doing chores for people to convince them to help you save the world) but at other times it's absolutely incredible. I agree that the 4th xpac is some of the best writing ever.

As for spoilers in the game, you should be pretty safe. The game itself will take you through the story linearly and the community is generally very respectful.

You can play the base game and I think the first expansion up to level 60 for free. Be aware that it is an MMO, and they've kept most of the content that they've added in the game, so it's pretty daunting starting out.

I’d say it is, because while it’s a slow burn the buildup leads to some pretty epic payoffs.

And the game will not only take you through each story in sequence so you don’t have to worry about spoilers, it will lock you out of progressing class quests (if they have spoilers, and the later ones often have at least a few) until you’ve played the relevant story parts. So it’s extra-anti-spoiler.

Very definitely worth it. And it's free so if you don't like it, not like you're wasting anything. Have something like 10k hours in it. I don't play it much anymore other than to check in and/or dick around with friends since I've done most of what I wanted. There's no FOMO or anything like that. It's very much built as an RPG, just online (though with the recent updates you can play the entire thing single player if you so wish). So you can just take your leave of it once you've done the content you want and come back later without missing anything. Very worth it.

Unironiconally one of my favorite FF stories, third to 9 and 10. And that probably has to do with them taking the time to build up a backstory and lore. So it's not off to the racetracks minute one, big deal. Do you expect that when you read a book? Makes you care more about the people later on since they've been established as actual people and not just Spiky Hair Video Game Guy #1 and Woman Who Should Be Cold In Those Clothes #8

Only if you don't have a family or plans to do much else for a year

The main story alone will take you literal months

I tried the free trial recently, and... it wasn't for me.

Cool art. Running around and interacting is pretty straightforward. Good linux/proton support (though couldn't recognize my controller immediately, so I just went mnk).

But it's delivery missions for like 10s of hours. I don't have much MMORPG experience, so maybe it's just not the right genre for me. I had more fun in character creation than I did in the actual game. Plus I couldn't play at all during peak because I apparently chose a popular server/world. Combat felt clunky on mnk.

If I had friends who played, maybe I'd be more inclined to push through, but as a solo player it felt like doing chores.