Man I wish I went all in on FF14 when realm reborn was released. Feels like I'm a bit late to the party now, plus I can't really commit the money to it.
Hyped for 16 though so looking forward to more of that!
AGHH. I hate reading this because people like me sound like a broken record in every 14 thread BUT:
You have at least 80 hours of JRPG goodness in the free trial with the fantastic first expansion included at no additional cost. Each expansion after that comes with the latest one which routinely goes on sale for 20/30 bucks all the time. Each its own 40 hour story with 10 hours of story patches full of dungeon and trials in-between.
14 is not some insurmountable 12 month subscription commitment. Next month slow on new releases? Sub and go through the next expac and come back later if you get busy. Millions of people pay only for a month when a new patch comes out then unsub until the next one, which the producer even encourages. They literally restructured the entire base 2.0 game for people like you so I dont know why you have the impression you would be late for anything. This isn't a traditional MMO or F2p game with a dozen layers and systems that are thrown at you at once. 14 is a theme park MMO and classic FF game at once that is basically 95% solo with an amazing commuity that is designed to be easy to get into.
If anything, buying the latest expansion that gives you everything, including one month free, is probably one of the best values in terms of time/experience out there right now, even if you end up paying for an additional 3 months on top of it.