Gating the whole expansion

[Freyar]

It was public knowledge, as you were.

[Adire]

LOL, thanks for the laugh after a hellish day at work. I'm sorry, but this game is not created solely for those who love the FF story-telling. The story is simply one part of this game. If you fail to understand that people are drawn to different aspects of a game, then I just don't know what to say.

I second this. Don't care for the story, love just about every other aspect of the game.

I don't ever expect to get very interested in an MMO's story. When it happens, great. If it doesn't oh well, wasn't expecting it. I play MMOs to be part of a living world and for all of that aspect's perks and for gameplay. I play single player games expecting a good story and good gameplay. One person's reasons for playing this game aren't more important and superior to anyone else's reasons, so this notion that "if you don't like the story, you don't need to be here" needs to go.

[Alexia89]

Like I said in an earlier post, queuetime for trials right now is over an hour long. There's not much you can do when you have to do some trials to progress main quest. He might be in a queue while making the post.
If they removed trials the main quest could be done in a day.

And of course SE is gonna force us to do ifrit again at level 60 or so because of their silly gating behind quest idea.
If you don't play when content is relevant progressing is gonna be sooo slow, but I feel like a lot of people don't consider that when they make their posts

"main quest is easy you can do it in 3 hours"

You feel like people don't consider when making posts?
Consider this. OP has stated they want to go to the new areas to do mining. Safe assumption this is because they enjoy mining, so what have they probably been doing before EA? MINING. OP treated this game like WoW and ignored the story quests as 'irrelevant' and has paid the price for that.
The information on how to access Heavensward content has been available for months. According to achievements OP hit 50 over a month ago. What did they do? Mining. Got their Atma weapon.

Yeah, trying to do a trial RIGHT NOW is gonna be a friggen chore because of queue times- but I personally went from 2.1 through 2.55 MSQ on my second char last week and it took me at most 5-6 hours total spread over the course of a few days- and that was with rewatching some of the older cutscenes that I couldn't remember. Seeing as OP has no interest in story they could shave a good portion of that through skipping cutscenes. Don't really think it would have been all that much of a struggle to complete even doing a few quests a day.

Yeah- if you don't play when content is relevant progress will be slow. But whose fault is it they didn't do it whilst relevant? SqEnix's????? No. I'M certainly not going to feel any pity.

Maybe you should have put more 'consideration' into your post.

[heynowjose]

For the record, on virtually every single SE page and in every purchasing page, including PS3 where I bought my copy it states very clearly that you need to have finished the story quest.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

Hate to say it, but I told you so. It seems you "veterans" don't know new players after all.

Darn i'm tired!

[Whiteroom]

The point here is that this is a big problem. How can someone be OK with paying for an expansion and being the required level only to find out that they have to run through tons of stupid Pre-expansion bullcrap quests in order to access the main content that they paid for? The answer to me is it is NOT ok and a total stupid move on SE's part. I paid for the expansion and am the required level. Yet I am STUCK doing pre-expansion bullcrap.

If you had payed any attention at all, you would have known. I mean any. You would have had to intentionally ignored so much to miss this.

[Arixtotle]

LOL, thanks for the laugh after a hellish day at work. I'm sorry, but this game is not created solely for those who love the FF story-telling. The story is simply one part of this game. If you fail to understand that people are drawn to different aspects of a game, then I just don't know what to say.

My point is that games are created with a certain focus in mind and in this game it's story. This is a story driven game period. Yes there are other aspects but story is the main one. Like a car's main aspect is that you can drive it. You can also listen to the radio in a car but that's not the main point of a car. Same with FFXIV. Story is the main point with everything else secondary.

[Seig345]

[...] For those not interested in the story - and that's a demographic large enough that SE shouldn't be spitting in their faces [...]

LOL, thanks for the laugh after a hellish day at work. I'm sorry, but this game is not created solely for those who love the FF story-telling. The story is simply one part of this game. If you fail to understand that people are drawn to different aspects of a game, then I just don't know what to say.

Again, people are free to be drawn to the game for whatever content they prefer most, but it's quite clear that the game's focus, determined by the people who created the game, is the story. SE isn't spitting in the faces of those who don't care about story by making a game that focuses on story. That simply means they aren't in the intended demographic for the game. Seeing as how content gated behind story has been a part of the game since ARR launched, and that they STILL decided to gate content from the very beginning of Heavensward, it seems clear that SE feels they're making enough money to continue to cater to the demographics they've been catering to since launch.

2.x content is most certainly not irrelevant, assuming that story is part of what you play Final Fantasy XIV for.

[Alipoprocks]

I actually feel a little bit bad for people that quit this game and decided to come back for this expansion. But only a little. It will be difficult to progress in the old content probably for the next 3 weeks because people that are current with the game are enjoying the rewards of sticking with it.

But really, I would expect that the people who quit before and are behind now will quit again anyway, even if they were caught up.

[Kiara1]

You feel like people don't consider when making posts?
Consider this. OP has stated they want to go to the new areas to do mining. Safe assumption this is because they enjoy mining, so what have they probably been doing before EA? MINING. OP treated this game like WoW and ignored the story quests as 'irrelevant' and has paid the price for that.
The information on how to access Heavensward content has been available for months. According to achievements OP hit 50 over a month ago. What did they do? Mining. Got their Atma weapon.

Yeah, trying to do a trial RIGHT NOW is gonna be a friggen chore because of queue times- but I personally went from 2.1 through 2.55 MSQ on my second char last week and it took me at most 5-6 hours total spread over the course of a few days- and that was with rewatching some of the older cutscenes that I couldn't remember. Seeing as OP has no interest in story they could shave a good portion of that through skipping cutscenes. Don't really think it would have been all that much of a struggle to complete even doing a few quests a day.

Yeah- if you don't play when content is relevant progress will be slow. But whose fault is it they didn't do it whilst relevant? SqEnix's????? No. I'M certainly not going to feel any pity.

Maybe you should have put more 'consideration' into your post.

Yes OP seems to enjoy mining, should he not get to continue enjoying it because you say so?
I don't like the story, I think it's really bad and it's just something I'm doing so I can do what I really want, which is to get all the glamours I want.

You seem to enjoy the story and I'm fine with that, enjoy it! But you need to understand there are a lot of people who play the game that don't enjoy it and why should only the people who enjoy the story get to do what they like doing in the game?

If they made the story optional they would solve the problem imo. Then the people who like it could do it, and the ones who don't could just keep doing what they enjoy.

"Yeah- if you don't play when content is relevant progress will be slow. But whose fault is it they didn't do it whilst relevant? SqEnix's????? No. I'M certainly not going to feel any pity."

Actually I'd say that SE shot themselves in the foot there. They make a game with heavy vertical progress, but they still dont make the old irrelevant content optional.
That statement basically says "F*K you new players for not playing the game when things were new, you are not welcome here"


The expansion could be a good way to bring in new players, but gating things behind everything will probably keep a lot of them away