What will we lose?

[Vespar]

SNip

What? I am so confused by your worry over this...
I'm not certain why most of what you have mentioned here would ever be removed from the game especially things like Coil. Firstly, Is there some reason folks have this "I'm Special cuz I beat coil" complex? Why would they remove Coil for such a petty reason as that? Coil is a major major major! (cant stress that enough) part of 1.0&2.0's storyline. Even if it did become more of a side content it explains far tooo much of what happened to just be cast aside into the abyss.
Why would achievement data ever be reset? Otherwise what's the point of an achievement?? If anything they'll add onto it. For example Gather X so many times in "insert zone or region name here". But I highly doubt they'd reset this.

Now that being said, Ironworks gear and what not will remain viable for a short while Im sure. But nothing stays the same for ever. In fact, the pieces of gear will likely be moved to some other kind of content like we saw with the i90 sets, but I doubt it'd disappear entirely. It would not surprise me if Soldiery and poetic gear became drops in high level and expert dungeons.

[Moonleg]

Why would they remove Coil for such a petty reason as that? Coil is a major major major! (cant stress that enough) part of 1.0&2.0's storyline. Even if it did become more of a side content it explains far tooo much of what happened to just be cast aside into the abyss.

While I realize SE is not a certain snowstorm company *cough*, and different companies do things differently, the fact remains that the arguably largest MMO on the market decided that with the release of the most recent expansion, the previous expansion's max-level storyline got removed. Poof, gone it was. Nothing to explain to the new players that might get there one day WHY the different raids were there, just ... gone.

And when you've seen that happen it's hard to not sit here and worry what THIS game might lose in the interest of streamlining or *shudder* reducing server load.

[Teslo]

Concerns

While FFXIV is a lot like WoW in many ways, and was constructed that way on purpose, this is where it's going to become obvious that we're NOT playing WoW any more. I think the biggest concern of yours, that storyline will be taken out, is easily addressed by the fact that they're keeping the completion of 2.x storyline a requirement to progress into 3.x. WoW, on the other hand, has taken a stance on storyline closer to "If you're here for it, you get to see it. If you get to it later, you'll have missed it" and they've been like that for a very very long time, not just this expansion.

So I think it's pretty obvious that FFXIV will be taking a pretty different direction from WoW once we start getting into expansion content.

[Vespar]

Snip

HAHAHHAHAHA! If thats what "said company" did, then they are serious morons. >_>;
But in SE's years of MMO service in XIV and XI, I have never once seen them Remove storyline content, usually it was nerfed so Newcomers could quickly get through it and catch up. But never removed entirely.

I highly doubt you have much to fear from SE on that regard.

Sorry while I go chuckle about "said company" some more ... hahaha

[BHGlobbd]

HAHAHHAHAHA! If thats what "said company" did, then they are serious morons. >_>;

What the OP is explaining isn't quite clear as what actually happened. The BC expansion of WoW was removed because the most recent expansion retcons what happens in said BC expansion. It was removed entirely for the sake of the games ongoing story. OP makes it seem like they removed the content to spite newcomers, while yes there are those who got to experience it, storywise it is just rewritten.

[Vespar]

What the OP is explaining isn't quite clear as what actually happened. The BC expansion of WoW was removed because the most recent expansion retcons what happens in said BC expansion. It was removed entirely for the sake of the games ongoing story. OP makes it seem like they removed the content to spite newcomers, while yes there are those who got to experience it, storywise it is just rewritten.

I stopped playing their game soon after Cataclysm was announced. I went back to XI because it was more friendly and I missed it.
I did try to play WoW again after that for like 2 days and was shocked at what they'd done to the entire world. It did feel like everything I had accomplished was ripped out from under me. I've never gone back since.
They may have succeeded bringing in new folks by rewriting the story, but it killed it for many as well.

[Moonleg]

What the OP is explaining isn't quite clear as what actually happened. The BC expansion of WoW was removed because the most recent expansion retcons what happens in said BC expansion. It was removed entirely for the sake of the games ongoing story. OP makes it seem like they removed the content to spite newcomers, while yes there are those who got to experience it, storywise it is just rewritten.

No, I am referring to Pandaria. Wrathion's legendary quest, which tied together all of "What's actually going on here?" at max level was removed. I would compare that quest line with the relic quest, which means that it's happened once with one company; by that logic it can potentially happen again with another company.