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

[RichardButte]

The answer is Zero.

This thread alone has already proven otherwise at least thirty times over.

FFXIV's raids, trials and endgame are actually pretty damn good, by MMO standards. The people I've been trying to get to play FFXIV are the same people I've raided with in previous games. These are people who will stay subbed to a game for a LOOOONG time, so long as you keep challenging them with new raid content.

And Coil was a really solid, challenging raid, one I would've very much liked to play with these folks.

But the problem stems from the fact that no one has much time these days. In the precious time they have to set aside for entertainment, they don't want to spend it doing something they don't enjoy with only the potential for future enjoyment possibly somewhere on the horizon.

Really, there is content at the end of FFXIV that people would pay to play for months on end, but they're not willing to grind through the mountain of boredom that comes before it and I can't really blame them.

Folks need to accept the fact that XIV has content that can be appreciated by people who don't give a crap about the story.

Seriously, do you think hardcore world first guilds in WoW are doing it because they want to see Garrosh brought to justice for his crimes against Azeroth? :P

Let's assume that SE makes the storyline optional. People can skip it, or save it for later, or whatever, and delve into whatever content they choose, whenever they choose to.

Who, exactly, are we losing as a result of this? People who like the story, still have the story. People who like the story, but have other priorities, can save the story for later. People who don't care about the story at all, have the choice to bypass it. I'm not seeing a lot of unhappy people here.

As near as I can tell, the ONLY people who could possibly be unhappy about a change like this are people who endured what they see as a horrendous ordeal, and are enraged by jealousy at the thought of others catching up to them without having to endure the same ordeal. If they've endured the ordeal, it doesn't sound like these people are exactly what you'd call lore-hungry storyline fans. I'll take the story-haters who don't make a big deal over it over story-haters who are spitefully jealous any day.

You win the internet. Seriously, this is absolutely spot-on...

If you enjoyed the story quest, you'd look at others skipping it as "Well, it's THEIR loss..." and not "NO!!! THEY SHOULD HAVE TO DO IT BECAUSE I HAD TO DO IT!!!!!"

Funny how even subtle things like this betray so much about these people...