Yes, I have it, got it 2 days after release and I'm already nearing the end of the free month trial.
The game is strickly PvE. But its not just your basic grind of leveling and experience, its rather fun.
I'm in the server Bahamut as a level 18 WhiteMage Taur (they are so cute btw).
Yes, its true about the world pass, the system is rather dumb, but if you were to read some forums a bit, there are tricks around it. When you create a character, it randomly throws you into the servers, mainly those with low population. (btw this is a great idea for population distribution). I knew many of my daoc friends that were playing on Bahamut server and so I created a character/deleted until it threw me into that server. Took me about 10 tries but i made it.
But to be honest, it doesn't really matter, I have yet to even play and/or group with my friends, and I've easily made friends since we're all doing the same thing, leveling. Not to mention I'm a healer class and very attractive and high in demand for groups.
FFXI has a interesting crafting system called synthesizing. The graphics on it is pretty cool, and I'm barely starting clothcrafting so I can't really talk much about this.
Anyways, its a great game and I believe anyone that has played any FF games would enjoy this. Those merely interested in PvP only might not, but the PvE is so damn good that its distracts the fact that there isn't a PvP system in yet and is still fun despite that.
ONE PROBLEM though. I've noticed this lately; i've started to come across a lot of n00b players. Mainly kids. You mix kids with MMORPGs and you get ass-wholes. A lot of these kids dont know the complexity of things, such as group etique, tactical points (TP, aka limitbreaks, overcharge, you know what i mean), and just the mere concept of GROUPING. As a healer i notice these things. There's just a lot of inexperienced "players" that i've begun to notice.
All in all, i'm loving this game. I've evening bought myself a PS2 type-USB controller since the controls of the game SUCK with just a keyboard/mouse.
If you want to read more of this, here's a 18 page thread that started over at a daoc server i USED to play at.
http://pub106.ezboard.com/fpalomidesfrm5.showMessage?topicID=7899.topic
enjoy
danny~!