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

[Zabuza]

The fact is, a suggestion to change something can be considered on its merit regardless of how many cries of "BUT CHANGING THINGS IZ BAD!!!!11!" arise.

In this case, there's no reason to not make the MSQ optional. No one gets hurt by it, and some people who don't want to do it don't have to.

It's win/win, especially for SE who will rake in more money.

This in bold is incorrect. This will hurt the game for all of the players who care about the story, to just be able to walk into an isolated nation like Ishgard with no explanation behind it. To just go right into dungeons without even a reason as to why. The problem with MMOs nowadays is they make everything accessible to everyone right off the bat. You may think this is good design, but it's not. It greatly shortens the life cycle of said MMO, and people leave because they find themselves without things to do and get bored. Achievements end up feeling hollow because they are not achievements at all since they had to do no work whatsoever, just had it handed to them on a silver platter. Having finished absolutely everything the player believes the game has to offer to them currently, they unsub until other content comes out.

I shudder to think what a lot of MMO players of today would've done in a game like FFXI(the old FFXI) where you had to REALLY work for your rewards. Getting a relic weapon in that game was actually an accomplishment. The face of what the MMO genre is has changed drastically. There is such a thing as being too accessible, too casual, too easy.