Quote Originally Posted by KayoZ View Post
*snip*
You are comparing stand-alone complete games to an expansion.
HW is an expansion, a story-based expansion to a story-based game, you can't play it without owning the original game, and you can't play it without finishing the story to a certain point.
There might be expansions in the future that won't be connected directly via the story and won't require you to finish anything, outside of a given level/iLevel, but HW is not such a thing.

FF games were always highly story-based, and FFXIV is in no way different just because it's an MMO. Areas were always gated by the story, characters were always gated by the story, and jobs were also most of the time (some FF games have jobs bound to characters) gated by the story.
If you don't like that, then FF is not a series suited for you.

Also the content might be old for you, but it's NOT old for new players who have never done it.