The new jobs / Ishgard city access - yes, again.

[Losian]

Still would love to get an official and definitive dev response on this once and for all, not some random 3rd party site interview correction - is just the main story gated or is the ENTIRE expansion gated behind 2.55/50?

You guys really did great with the 1.0-2.0, you humbly took responsibility for it, but now are about to make another mistake here without listening to the community. Gating the ENTIRE expansion, save Au'ra, behind all content up to 2.55 is just downright silly. The main story makes perfect sense to be gated, but nothing else does.

Mostly I'm concerned it's misleading. New folks will buy the bundle and find out they have access to NONE of Heavensward, except the race, despite dropping $40 for it. It's sleazy and kinda feels like you guys are trying to pad your sales/pre-order numbers by not being honest and up front about it; anyone who doesn't spend a lot of time on the forums/news sites will be unaware.

There is still time, please consider adjusting this.

[Losian]

The only reason I can think of is lore/continuity, but.. let's be honest.. Fantasia? Suddenly on June 19th hundreds of players will transform randomly into a totally different race apparently never before having set foot in any city/town we've been to and not a single NPC will notice.. and that's perfectly okay? But allowing people to slip into Ishgard to explore/unlock new jobs/etc. before 50/2.55 completion is out of the question? And nevermind the lack of continuity that's already in place in some parts of the game..

We can ignore that "Hand Behind The Curtain" because it's reasonable to do so, much the same we can ignore it so as to allow access to Ishgard before 50/2.55. Or heck, we can make it make since with a simple quest at 30ish to sneak in or be smuggled in, that's all it'd take..

It seems a little asinine to keep the whole expansion locked out for any lore/continuity-based reasons while ignoring the huge gaps already in place, doesn't it?

[Losian]

At the very least be up front about it - the store page/official site should clearly indicate that no part of the expansion is accessible until players have reached 50 and then completed another 100+ quests.. no other MMO expansion has been so heavily gated, and I say that from personal experience, even from playing back with EQ/XI/etc. You could at least play new races/classes freely, and explore a little bit.. Even XI wasn't that restrictive, and that sure as heck says a lot! It's just a bad idea to fumble on the first big expansion in such a silly way, while not being at all honest about it. It should be extremely clear, not hinted at vaguely and then slapped on as an afterthought in one interview on a third party site.

[GenJoe]

This is because lore-wise they are specific to Ishgard which has long been closed off to outsiders, which completing the main storyline will explain why the player will suddenly be allowed to enter Ishgard.

But nooooooooooo! That damn lore c-blocking me every part of the way!

It does take away from the RPG element though, for an MMO this game has some very strict restrictions arising from lore one of my alt has the concept of a traveling merchant, even named after one from another game. She doesn't fight.. she just crafts and gathers stuff and plays the market board.. SE COULD clarify if the end-game crafting recipes will be available in Mor Dhona, then I won't have to worry about getting MSQ done on her.. At this point I'm just waiting and seeing.. But if that was my main character, I would be way more uneasy about the waiting in the dark.

[AzraelX]

Op I personally don't like it either ... But it is what it's for now... I'm sure if they see some backlash from it.... They will change it in a path. You can wait til then or just play the game.. It's up 2 u

[Losian]

Another thing comes to mind, actually..

A new tank/healer job would mean a lot more people playing those roles in the trials/dungeons from 30-50 for story and quest requirements, and would help a lot in speeding up those queues for a while. We always need more tanks/healers, so all the more reason it's kinda lame to restrict the jobs to those who have already done all of the trials/quests in this range, rather than take advantage of the rush on new jobs to keep the queues smooth for a bit longer. It's only going to take longer as fewer and fewer folks do the 1-50 dungeon/trials.

[Nanaho]

Whine Whine Put up or Shut up Whine Whine

do some due dilligence, go look, it's been stated, on this site, the "official" forums, by Devs and Yoshi that it is completely locked without completing 2.55 story, End of discussion, you keep asking, go look it's in there, a lot. it's not been said once or twice, its been said multitudes of times across many different Q&A's, Dev posts. etc. and not on a third party site, stop askign for stuff that's already there. take some responsibility and do some research.

[Nanaho]

Snip

the Roleplayers in this game are a very very small minority in this game, if SE had to cater to only them nothing would happen. This is a video game first and foremost, play the game, don't just sit there and ponder why you're "Wandering merchant" cant get into other areas. Go out of Character, do what you need to do, then go back into character.

[Whiteroom]

I hope you're right not so much for my MAIN but for my alt who is at lv 35 would love to be MACH, AST on her due to those jobs dont fit the theme of my main.

Tbh, choosing to do an alt is entirely your decision. The game gives you no reason to need an alt. You can level all classes on one character and freely switch between them. So the alt argument is foolish at best.

And yes, I have alts, not only is my original character now an alt, but I have three others besides. All my crafter is on my original char, whom I stopped playing at Shiva. I no way do they have to take unlock Ishgard for me for those characters. You made the alt, play it or don't.

[Pyretta_Blaze]

I just did 2 searches of the forum dev posts.

It is documented in an official dev post that access to Ishgard requires you to complete 2.55.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...te#post2836394

Also documented in a dev post is the fact that the new jobs can only be unlocked in Ishgard

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...te#post2919167

We do know that you can gain exp on your current classes right away as well as the new race is available right away.

What we don't know for sure is if any of the other Heavensward zones/content/whatever is accessible without finishing the 2.55 story. Ishgard may or may not be a bottleneck to the new zones.

All of that aside I don't think it would hurt for them to put a little red footnote on the Heavensward site warning people.