Gating the whole expansion

[REPROBEAN_CHILD]

From where you're at... it'll take you only about 3h to finish the MSQ.

In just three hours? Was your ilvl high or did I something wrong? It took me at least a week and a half to finish the MSQ past 2.55, after I beating the Ultima Weapon. I had to grind through lvl 50 dungeons and daily roulette to get soldery to buy ilvl 100 gear in Mor Dhona, after getting blocked by ilvl requirements and dealing with sudden enemy difficulty spikes. Plus, I went on to do a Relic quest to get a better weapon above 1lvl 55. My ilvl was 45 when I beat after the Ultima Weapon. If you were able to do it in just 3 hours, would you mind telling me how you did it? I'll have to do it again for two other characters. I'm not trying to be an ass, but I'm obviously made it harder than it needed to be

It's great that the MSQ now offer EXP, but it does nothing to raise ilvl.

[Ceodore]

Look on the bright side... you can still play as Aura... lol! No, seriously, I'm glad they gated the expac behind the MSQ. For one, bots and RMT are not likely to spend hours and hours on the MSQ to get one character to level 50 to enter the new areas, so we will likely be seeing a drop in shouts, yells, and says rmt sellers. The tells will continue, but thankfully, no more friend requests from the free trial accounts they create.

Further, this isn't new news. This is old news. There has been more than 2 months for players to finish the MSQ and be ready for the expac. If you are saddened that your 50 can't progress because you didn't pull up your big boy/girl pants and get to work, then that's on you. I'm personally happy that people have to actually complete previous content before accessing new content. Weeds out some of the less devoted players.

[Seryl199]

Being familiar with fetch quests doesn't really hold in this case. It's a new map, new classes and so on. Having to do hours of it before you can get to the new stuff isn't really smart imo. Me and my guild decided to return to give it a try. You know pop in for an xpac, see if it's worth staying now, etc. But since we left so long ago (Back when i90 was the highest) we can't. Luckily for us, unlike OP, we decided to read before we actually bought it.

I'm not entirely unsympathetic. I do understand that it's frustrating to have paid for something and not be able to use it, but there have been story gates for dungeons and primals all along. It's nothing new to this MMO, and the story is relevant as to why we are in Ishgard.

OP, I see you're on Siren. If you need help storming the gates of Ishgard, feel free to contact me in game.

[Skivvy]

But the main content you paid for is the continuation of the story you don't seem to enjoy. The entire core of FFXIV and the Final Fantasy franchise in general is the story.

Ehhhh, I don't play this game for the story. I've skipped almost all story, and hey, I still like the game. It is a pretty lame decision to lock all new things behind the MSQ. I would say the main content of this expansion is the new race, new fights, new zones, and some new story. People play MMOs for many different reasons.

[MirielleLavandre]

In just three hours? Was your ilvl high or did I something wrong? .

Not sure of for others, but if you are leveling an alt, many people save up i110 and i120 gear for their alt jobs, and as soon as they hit 50 can go from i45 to i110+ instantly. This makes the farming for ilvl that first 50s have to do not needed. In addition, you can then take that i110+ geared job and do all the trials/dungeons which are open from your main. With a FC to help some with queues, I can see it taking 3 hours or so from where the OP is. At least, that is how I've geared my jobs [I don't do the alt thing]. ^^

[Bracken]

Chains of Promathia was the same in FFXI you coudn't progress to the new area's without doing the quests,

[Seig345]

Ehhhh, I don't play this game for the story. I've skipped almost all story, and hey, I still like the game. It is a pretty lame decision to lock all new things behind the MSQ. I would say the main content of this expansion is the new race, new fights, new zones, and some new story. People play MMOs for many different reasons.

I can understand people aren't playing the game for the story, but gating content behind the story has been SE's MO with this game since ARR launched. I'm not saying everyone should be playing this game for the story, but it should come as no surprise by now that the story is required to access certain content in the game.

[Velisra]

He is at lord of the whorl. He needs to beat a couple of primals and trials. I've been in trial queue for over an hour now and no pop so far actually havent even found a 2nd dps yet. It's gonna take forever for him to enter ishgard because no one is doing the old content right now.

This is really my only concern with the storyline gating the xpac. How many players are really going to be doing this required storyline group content at this point?

Sorry, but while I agree with the storyline gating to a point--and I'm definitely enjoying the storyline and the game overall--I'm very worried about how this will go for new players like me when it's time for me to do this group content so that I can progress to the xpac. I have some time yet for good or ill since my lancer is only 38 today, but I didn't preorder HW for this reason.

[Raim]

You may want to consider a different MMO if you dislike the storyline or story heavy progression in general. Also the point of this 'gating' was to ensure that unlike most MMOs like WoW that the previous content didn't become irrelevant. Theres nothing good about an MMO that makes all its previous content obsolete the moment a patch comes out, and the same applies here for expansions.

[Zeno-Ira]

Meh i agree, it is stupid. I can figure some gated areas.. but everything?