A serious discussion about abridging the story quest 1-50 (discouraging new players)

[Madjames]

LMAO, why are you here? playing this game? if the actual gameplay and activity is not necessary? and you learn nothing meaningful by doing the dungeons? Since you just stated every thing about the game is useless and just strafe dance memorize pattern.... FF14 is what it is, not perfect, but it is one of the best online RPG right now, at least to some people, a good 2 millions of them.

Hmm I can answer

I am here to do dungeons and make my own story for my character. I already have a 10 page written backstory to him. I have completely disregarded the MSQ as my character would not ever dream of doing anything in it as his personality and how he is would totally not get involved.

I write my own story for my character and when I eventually leave this game, many years from now I will write his death in the already detailed book about his life.

With this said he is in the new area exploring the new expansion looking to make himself more powerful. He is searching for the most dangerous and formidable foe's (Raids) and continues to train and battle monsters in preparation to do so.

IRL I am here to get to end game, raid, and have fun with FRIENDS. An mmorpg for me is to play with friends, not run around doing random solo missions and stupid story fluff that is not influential to my characres story in any way shape or form. My character is his own special snowflake, not some guardian of the land like everyone else in the story. Although I will say that what transpires in the world as far as the MSQ goes, he knows whats going on but is not actively involved at all.

I also play to mine. I love spending 8+ hours doing nothing but mining and selling my wares. I have made quite a list of customers to fill orders for. I have enough on my plate and my character has enough on his plate from an RP standpoint to even worry much less care about the MSQ.

My way of playing an MMORPG has always been this way starting back 18 years ago in Ultima Online and before that, playing Pen and Paper Dungeons and Dragons where you actually have to make a story for YOURSELF and you are not being held or forced to continue on some rail story. There is no right or WRONG way to play an MMORPG as it has been designed for every type of player in mind. Just because some of us are NOT story huggers does not automatically mean that we should quit and play something else.

This is an MMORPG first in a final fantasy THEMED world, Story is second and always will be. If it wasnt, we would be watching a movie/reading a book for hours and hours and hours and NOT interacting much at all and we would be heavily on rails and restricted much like the old FF games were of previous years.

You state also this: "as someone else said, if you bring new players to the game, "I want to do raid ASAP" is the last thing in their mind. They want to explore, get to know the surrounding, learn the lore, play the game, etc... If you are the type of a person who absolutely hate MSQ stuffs, there is not much to love in HW, it is the same thing, repeated again, but takes longer due to the area being massive. And everything is locked out behind MSQ when it comes to dungeons (only one is accessible - but you would not know this unless you explore and do quests)."

This is HIGHLY FAR FROM THE TRUTH!! Most mmorpg Friends of mine came here from wow. They are experienced and veteran hardcore raiders, more so then me by a long shot. Some have world first kills. This is what they came here to do. So they Powerlevel themselves to max level and gear themselves out JUST TO RAID!! That is how they want to play their MMORPG experience! That is not a wrong way to play and for me or anyone else to say otherwise is downright in denial and stupid for doing so, as we do NOT have a right to tell others how to enjoy a game that they are PAYING FOR AND WE ARE NOT! This game has been, BY DESIGN, meant for many different players and not just the story huggers. If all you want is the story then my suggestion is to go and play a single player rpg game like FF6 or FF7 or FFT as they have a much better story anyhow then this game and that way you are not forcing your play-style upon others.

One of the reasons for some hardcore raiders to come here is because Wow has become Faceroll. None of the boss fights are challenging so they came here in search of that challenge and they have found it here. You can not sit there and say people ALL JOIN for ONE REASON ONLY. You can not sit there and say that ALL of them joining are all thinking EXACTLY THE SAME thing and it is EXACTLY how YOU see it. You have NO IDEA why people join this game, we all have our reasons. To sit there and say that we shouldn't play this game because we could give a crap about the story is a bad attitude and if SE follows it, this game will not grow to its full potential and will close down much sooner because people will move onto a more free and accepting new player gaming experience.

Lastly this is an MMORPG FIRST AND FOREMOST in a final fantasy themed world, designed for Tons of different players in mind. To exclude a certain player-base from enjoining said mmorpg the way THEY WANT TO PLAY, by forcing an unnecessary aspect of it on them is the WRONG WAY to go about doing this. Gating is fine, FORCING solo missions and MSQ crap on the general population of joining players when all they want to do is get max level and play with their friends is a stupid marketing move and a stupid strategy! World of warcraft had it right when leveling and expansions are concerned. Those who enjoyed the storys and quests could do that. Those that wanted to do nothing but PVP and level that way could also, do that as well. When an expansion hit, the main area WAS gated by a hard level cap and a 1 minute starting quest to enter said area ONLY! There was no gated areas after this and you could run around and explore as much as you wanted to and level your gethering professions without touching any quest ever again. Flgiht was gated by In game currency and again a hard level cap ONLY! Also NONE of the new classes were gated and could be gotten and played from the beginning of the expansion by any new players joining (With the exclusion of the death knight as they had a hard cap of having one level 55 as they started at level 55 to begin with, not sure if they removed this requirement or not).

SE should follow this model as it clearly has been working great for the past 10 years. This has nothing to do about hand outs. This has everything to do with forcing a play-style upon another. I guarantee you that if SE EVER forced any form of PVP on me to progress, I would quit right then and there as I despise PVP. Other people, some raiding friends of mine HAVE QUIT because of this forced archaic MSQ solo-mission obsession. Others have slogged through it. I just hope it becomes Optional to those who want alts and at least TRIMMED and exp boosted for those who are joining.