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

[Luvbunny]

NO, they wouldn't. You'd still need to hit 50 in order to access level 50+ areas.

Contrary to what you seem to think, making the story optional doesn't mean there can't be an Elezen standing at the gate to Ishgard who says, "Oh, I'm sorry, I can't let you in yet!"

They've level-gated content in pretty much EVERY themepark MMO to date without needing to make the story mandatory.

And saying this is to circumvent RMT is a piss-poor excuse when RMT runs goddamn rampant through this game anyway.

Make up your mind then. Trimming fat in 2.1-2.55 is one type of request, most people agree that some of those could be made optional so if you bought 3.0, you can get there faster. Heck I can even agree that 3.0 is suffering the same fate of too many inane fetch quests, but that does not bother me much since it's free xp, and I need to explore these areas anyway, so why not kill a few mobs on my way, and kill several birds in one stone. Which is the way World of Warcraft is structure.

Saying you want everything optional and make all players have access to every content in the game so they can play how they want, that requires another thread Go make one.