Unless they completely rebuild FFXI, I'd rather play a good FFXIV.
I love the feel of FFXI, the races, the world, and so on... but it's old. It's stale. It's been ten years now, the adventure is all but dead. Most of us are coasting on nostalgia, in-game friends, and the dopamine rush we get from a new item rather than any sense of wonder, immersion, or adventure.
I miss being new. I miss not being able to alt-tab and read while running from point A to B without missing a turn. I miss being lost, I miss not knowing whether or not I'd win, I miss having to bug my linkshell to find out where to get a spell and I miss leveling somewhere and wondering whether or not an NM popped there or not.
I have high hopes but low expectations for Adoulin. It'll be an expansion designed for level 99s; I can't see there being 'level' oriented content, since it'd be very difficult to overthrow Abyssea as the exp destination of choice. This means the content will have to be very quest oriented.
The areas will be new, we won't know everything, maybe there's an adventure to be had? SE seems to be on the right track... but while I hope it will rekindle the old spirit of FFXI, the realistic part of me expects a bunch of abyssea styled content: Kill the trash mobs, get the pop item, pop the NM, ad nauseum. That said, I'm optimistic enough to cross my fingers and wait giddily for an expansion that sends us all on an adventure again, rather than more content where you simply go to a location and kill the same boss over and over.
tl;dr: I want something new. As much as I love FFXI, it'd old hat to me and I can play it with my eyes closed. Unless they do a reboot or make Adoulin an amazing expansion, I will jump ship for XIV the moment XIV is good.
Edited, Jul 22nd 2012 11:05pm by ItsAMyri