Quote Originally Posted by Dhex View Post
It feels like CoP all over again heheh.
Nah, it's not like CoP at all. While CoP DID have areas that were locked away until you completed content, ALL of the content you had to complete was included with the expansion. You didn't have to make a speck of progress in the base game or in Rise of the Zilart. As long as you could bring your character to Delkfutt's Tower, you could start the CoP missions and eventually access everything that expansion had to offer.

When it came to Chains of Promathia, players had a choice after they purchased the expansion. They could do Main Scenario, if they wanted. They could do Chains of Promathia. Or, they could do both. It was all up to them. In Heavensward, there is no choice.

On top of that, CoP added numerous zones that WERE accessable immediately upon release. Places like Bibiki Bay, Carpenter's Landing, Attohwa Chasm - you could march right in. These areas came in a variety of level ranges, so you didn't have to be capped to enjoy them. The CoP missions themselves had a variety of level requirements, along with level capping (handled much less gracefully than in FFXIV, admittedly - you had to buy extra sets of gear of the appropriate level, or wind up naked!).

CoP had its problems to be sure, but excluding new players from the content was not one of them. New or old, everyone could dive right in the moment the expansion hit the shelves.

Heavensward more closely follows the model of Rise of the Zilart, FFXI's first expansion - but even there, RotZ was MUCH more accessable than Heavensward. Once again, numerous areas were accessible right from launch, at a variety of level ranges (the Elshimo jungles, Altepa Desert, the Sanctuary of Zi'tah), and the new jobs that were offered did not require any Main Scenario progress to unlock - but you DID need to complete all the base set Main Scenario quests before you could access the RotZ Main Scenario. So I say "more closely", but it's still not very close at all...