Originally Posted by
Raist
You actually had to be rank 6 in your starter nation to start RotZ--as in Shadow Lord fight (remember that laied the foundation fir DRk?). XI's content releases were not "seperate"--parrallel past certain points ofin the main story maybe, but not seperate. All the other content you mentioned was also gated as well. Most everything in XI was gated behind something---any combination of 1 or more things would deny you access: reputation, nation rank, level, job, imperial standing, allied standing, mission/quest track, time of day (real life or in-game), season (real life or in-game), weather, moon phase... May be more. Those are just things off the top of my head.
Gating is far more common than I think some if you may realize. At least they were up front with Heavenward.