In general it is stupid to talk about "beating" FFXI because of just how useless and arbitrary that is as a goal in and of itself.
"What does it take to say you've beaten the piano?"
IMO "beating" a game doesn't have any intrinsic value except for what you yourself describe it to be. Asking about "beating FFXI" just for the sake of "beating FFXI" is completely meaningless.
I personally agree with earlier posters' goal-oriented responses: my goal for the majority of this game's lifespan was to obtain Ryunohige. After that, there have been numerous other goals I have set for myself in order to get stronger. It's an iterative process, but never a terminating one until you get bored and quit.
But to answer OP's original question...
ok, in my ls we got talking and this came up.
"what does it take so say you beaten ffxi?"
so taking this question to players who know abit more then we may have.
the issue is, we want to exclude expansions and add ons. just the core game and updates to said core game. any content that requires an expansion, even if not part of that expansion itself wouldnt count.
id say leave out side Quests as that would be a big list to sort though.
thanks for any info you call can give.
It seems implicit that you and your LS don't care about the MMO-ness of the game, but care to treat the game like a typical Final Fantasy game. In that case, honestly I would say it's just beating the Shadow Lord for the first time. That's really the main story of the main, core game. If you treat this as a traditional video game, everything else the game has to offer is to get you through that questline.