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World Immersion? Are there other things to do?
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Farming=gardening
Fishing=Yes
Housing=Yes
Running a shop=No (there is an auction house)
Day/Night=Yes
Weather=Yes (rain, snow, sandstorm)
Raising Chocobos=Yes
It only snows in the zones that have snow though, there is no snow that covers the ground etc.
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As already said most of what you asked about is in the game. For me I do find the world gives immersion, but that is my opinion and your's may differ.
I do enjoy the game, I have 6 characters that I work on and enjoy it. The crafting is fun and working with the chocobos is great. Something that hasn't been said is that you can even change the color of your chocobo.
So there is plenty to do, the community is the nicest I have found in any mmo I have played in the past 15 years.
You have the game already so you would have 1 month to play so I say give it a shot, if you don't like it then don't subscribe for any other months.
The game is focused around fighting, ultimately. THe main story line is required in order to unlock some basic aspects of the game. In that regard you could consider it an extended tutorial.
You won't get very far in the game if you ignore combat completely (either Disciple of War or Disciple of Magic, melee/caster classes respectively), and you'll get stuck quickly if you ignore the main story line quests.
But there is a lot to do other than fighting. The crafting is very class-interdependent, and interactive, and at the highest levels is a fairly deep and extensive metagame in and of itself. There are almost as many different crafting classes as there are combat classes. Crafting can't necessarily make THE BEST BIS items for every class, but they can make some very good items, are required for melding (like gems/augments/enchantments), can repair items past what NPCs can, as well as craft a lot of unique items that are well sought after. Most of the very very rich in the game got that way (legitimately) via crafting.
Gathering is another mini-game. It's not nearly quite as involved as the crafting is. It's a good deal more relaxing, and mildly profitable. I'm addicted to fishing, and I love doing that on my PS3 drinking beer (which is odd, because I don't like fishing that much at all IRL).
There are relatively new daily quests, including a line for crafters - for those that like them. They have a reputation/faction associated with each quest line, each with some unique rewards.
There are a good number of side quests. These aren't repeatable, and by the time you have leveled your second class up to 50 you've probably exhausted nearly all of them, but some of them are very entertaining quest lines (Godbert, Hildebrand, plenty more).
Hunts & Roulettes are an entire animal of their own - those are combat based, but something to keep you busy in the mean time. There are a couple of world bosses out right now (Odin, Behemoth) - those are combat related, but when they are up, the whole world usually hears about it.
Leves (solo missions) cover combat missions, gathering, and crafting. You can choose specifically what you would like to do. They can have some useful rewards, and are a great way to grind up some xp if you just need something to push you over the edge. These are a somewhat limited resource, you are only allocated so many per week, up to a cap of 99 at any given time. Most people use these to help level crafting classes, but they work nearly as well for all types of classes. One more thing to do in the game that isn't strictly combat.
Guildhests (Group tutorial missions) help teach you class dynamics and group play. These are short (3-10min) instances. They are combat-based, but another thing to do besides run out and kill stuff.
FATEs are the open-world interactive quests. These are all combat based, but pop up randomly out in the open world. Several quests require FATES, and they are pretty good fodder for getting XP and Grand Company currency (used to buy your first mount plus a lot of other nice odds and ends).
There is housing. This is a bit controversial right now, because there are only a limited number of houses per server, and they are extremely expensive. Most decent-sized Free Companies (FCs, same thing as guilds/clans) will have one with access for members.
There is a small meta in just playing the Marketplace. There is a common "Marketboard" where you can search everything all together, but the 3 main cities each have their own independent marketplaces. If you buy items from a marketplace other than the city you are physically located in, you have to pay additional tax on the item. I know a lot of people that make good money just playing the Marketboard (buying items that people list for less than NPC sale value, listing items found on remote NPCs for a nice markup, buying out underpriced items and relisting, shuffling items - particularly quest related items - from one city to another, etc).
There is farming/gardening, but right now it request access to a house. Some FCs allow their members to garden.
Chocobos - your chocobo can join you in your group out in the world (not instances), and your Chocobo has it's own gear, class, and levels. You can feed/train it in a stable at a house. You can change it's color, but there isn't breeding or racing (yet). It also acts as your basic mount.
You get up to 4 (2 free, 2 for additional cash) retainers, who act upon your behalf selling things in the marketplace. You can also gear them up, give them a class, and they can also run side-quests (not very interactive, but gives you some random interesting things). You get to design your retainers (character creator) and choose what kind of attitude they have.
Glamours allow you to change the worn look of items. These are pretty popular, and make certain items extremely sought after just for their looks.
There are a good deal of vanity mounts and minions. These are just aesthetic for right now.
There is PVP, it's not "competitive" but a lot of people think it's a good distraction. There are both small and large scale events, but nothing open world.
Materia (gems/enchantments) come from "leveling up" equipment, then breaking it down into materia. This can be very profitable, and you often see parties out grinding (both open world and dungeons) just to level up gear for materia. It's not required, but it's a pretty easy way to make some cash. It also provides a steady source of revenue for crafters making the base items, as well as tips for melding materia to equipment. Everyone can "convert" gear to materia (once you have unlocked it), but only crafters can meld materia into gear.
The weather system is amazing.
There is the dungeon finder, which will automatically pair you with a group for a specific dungeon or Roulette. This goes across an entire server cluster (multiple servers). There is also the party finder, which allows players to advertise whatever they want really, and this is server-only. And there is always Shout (zone-wide), Yell (large area but not zone wide), Say (local area), linkshells, FC, etc. It's not terribly painful getting a group for content (although DPS queues can get slow on off-peak times)
Your character will belong to one of three Grand Companies (NPC factions) - that determines who you PVP with on the large scale PVP maps. You can belong to a single Free Company (player-run Guild/Clan). You can belong in up to 8 Linkshells (chat channels). THe world is zoned, and a typical zone will contain a couple of level ranges to keep the character levels mixed up. All characters can be every class, and when you select a new class, you start back over at Level 1, so there are still a lot of people running around in low level areas. FATEs pop up in every open zone (apart from the city zones), and several quests require FATE participation, so these are still pretty active.
There are achievements (like most MMOs/Console games), and there are Challenges (reset weekly, award bonus XP/Gil). There is a crafting log (keeps track of everything you've made), a gathering log, and a fishing log. Just stuff for those completionists out there.
Several servers have pretty active Roleplayers, and the emote system is fairly expansive in the game to support it (you can actually sit on nearby chairs, you can "lay down" on your bed to log out, you can do various emotes while riding, etc).
Coming Soon (tm) - Golden Saucer (gambling/casino, possibly with Chocobo racing/breeding). I don't think they will go back to shops (they had something like this in 1.0 and it was godawful)
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The world in itself is rather beautiful to look at, but what drove me to insanity are the invisible walls everywhere! I came from GW2 and have played Wildstar just before returning and I really had to rethink the way I got from point A to point B, because I could not jump down things I could've in the former two games and ... I felt awfully forced on rails, to be honest.
Edit: This is in response to 'world immersion' in general, since I feel the freedom of movement is a huge part of being able to immerse myself in the surrounding I play in. Might just be me, though.
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
The thing is, the barriers are located in spots you'd expect them to be - at the edge of a cliff or crevasse that would kill your character if they fell, or blocking locations there would be no other way out of otherwise. You're not going to be hitting walls in places that they don't make sense, or that you would expect to be able to go to.
In general: If it's someplace you'd have a reason to get to, and would expect to be able to reach - and get out of alive - you can likely get there, with no walls in the way.
If it's someplace you'd have no reasonable expectation to get to - unless your character is suicidal, or you find immersion in getting yourself stuck for the hell of it - then there is likely an invisible wall there.
The placement is all very common-sense. Rather than having mountains or cliffs as arbitrary ways of blocking you, like many so-called "seamless world" games have, SE has created other, more creative and believable environments where that kind of restriction would make sense. No one in their right mind, or with a glimmer of self-preservation, would want to jump off a ledge into the abyss far below... so your character simply won't do it.
As for Vanguard, well.. having flying mounts kinda eliminates what would normally be a barrier for someone on foot. You can't jump across a huge crevasse... but you could fly over it. You can't survive the jump off a tall cliff.. but you could fly down to the bottom. And so forth. And in those cases, I'd imagine you'd have done the latter, rather than the former. Even then, Vanguard did have invisible barriers and limits to where you could go; I found a number of them myself when I played.
In FFXIV, there are no flying mounts and, so, you're dealing with the limitations of a "mere mortal"... even one blessed by the crystal. And I don't think Hydalaen is going to choose someone prone to suicide to be a hero for the planet.
Or would it?
A lot of people don't like the zoning either - although it doesn't bother me so much. The zones are big enough, the zone time is very fast (at least on my PC, it's manageable on my standard PS3 without an SSD), and the zones tend to house multiple level areas, so they stay somewhat busy.
As far as invisible walls go - yeah, there are some. But as was pointed out - they are in mostly logical places.
If you came from FFXIV1.0 - you couldn't jump, and a rock in the path would block your progress (no kidding). We are worlds away from that, but I admit that is a low hurdle to clear. Mostly the travel restrictions make sense and don't really impede where you would normally want to travel in the first place.
Some people don't like the instant travel option either - every character can teleport around. It's quite expensive if you do nothing but instant teleport around (rather than walk, take your mount, or hire a porter (NPC Chocobo taxi service)). I chose not to use it all the time (mostly because I'm poor) but I love having it available when I'm in a hurry.
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The questions never cease!
I think the phrase on rails is being used too liberally nowadays. Having invisible walls doesn't mean the game is a linear on rails experience.
There are three online games which I found to be incredibly immersive - UO, WoW and GW1. If you don't know GW1 is a game which had tons of invisible walls, you couldn't go everywhere and you couldn't even jump. Did that make it less immersive? Certainly not. Immersion comes from world cohesion, the lore and storyline. Not having an engaging storyline automatically breaks immersion for me.
GW1 was more complex and immersive than 99% of all the MMOs I have played. Wildstar, e.g., was not immersive one bit. It felt like a game which didn't take itself seriously and that really felt like an action rpg with very little world immersion.
@OP, as people have already mentioned there are tons of non-combat related stuff in this game. Pretty much anything you can normally think of is in the game - awesome crafting and gathering system, farming/gardening, housing, chocobo raising, appearance customisation and hunting, tons of achievements to go for, tons of logs to complete - fishing log, challenges log, hunting log, sightseeing log, gathering log, crafting log. It all focuses you on discovering new things.
But one of the things I absolutely love about this game is that you never have to make new characters. You can level up every single combat, crafting and gathering profession on 1 toon. Each crafting and gathering profession is a whole new journey to level 50.
Combine that with tons of good PvE content - great dungeons, awesome storytelling, huge variety of quests, fates, hunts and even different types of PvP and you can play this game for a long time if you enjoy it. To top it all off they release massive content updates - things like PvP, housing, new raids, dungeons and even a new class are being added in patches. The patch that's coming up next is introducing the rogue class and ninja job.
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I rather enjoyed FFIX. Besides the combat, you have all of the basic crafting and gathering things you can do. There are also dungeons and some things I haven't gotten to. I am playing AA right now so I put it on the back burner, but it is definitely a fun game.
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Ridelynn, thanks so much for your very detailed information on the game. I bought it on sale on Steam this past March/April and got distracted with AA.
Your helpful guide, helps me a lot indeed!