A thought on solving the content gating issue. Long read, pls bare with me.

[Whiteroom]

Considering I never once attempted to define a number, I find it hard to see how you even have an opinion on the matter in the first place.

I don't care how many there are. There are some, and the fix hurts no one.

lol except you aren't taking into account that it does hurt. It takes resources and time to adjust or cut out the story in a story based game, or any game for that matter. These are resources that could be spent anywhere else in the game. Maybe one less dungeon, maybe less new gear sets, maybe something else. Also, as stated before, final fantasy is a story bases series, this is not a hard concept. They are not selling you a story-less game, if you bought it for that, you did in fact buy the wrong product.

They are telling a story, and they have made it obvious that they want it to be heard. This is what they are selling. They aren't trying to sell the game to every gamer in the world if it means cutting out the core of what they want the game to be. Cutting out the the core of your products, just so you can sell to a few more people is how you end up with a cheap, crap product.