Quote Originally Posted by Kurogaea View Post
Nahh, he's just too smart for us.

Lol jking. I think he's trying to say players are being too easily discouraged from this games massive slope to funner content.
That's fair enough. Combined with...:

Quote Originally Posted by Aethaeryn View Post
it took me 114 hours ... But yeah, it's a pretty significant time investment for a new player to do 1-60 and join their friends.And most new players are probably gonna want to explore and experience some of the side options like crafting/gathering/gold saucer.
I think this is why a lot of MMOs these days, as they mature, offer to let new players start at max level (and often with other goodies). I wouldn't be surprised to see FFXIV go this route in time.

OTOH:

Quote Originally Posted by Aethaeryn View Post
I just recently rushed a new character from 1-60 as quickly as I could manage... partially out of curiosity. Skipping all cutscenes (since it's my 4th character and I practically have everything memorized) and leveling lancer to 34 for cross-class bfb, it took me 114 hours (/playtime - I didn't play 114 hours straight). That means it'd take a month if you played 4 hours every day and didn't read anything at all.
For some of us it's more of a "about the journey, not the destination" kind of thing. If a player doesn't care about story and just wants to rush to endgame and raid with friends, they won't like this, but me... If I were just starting now, I'd like having a story that I could log into and work on a bit each day (or however often my schedule allowed). I mean, you don't buy a 60+ hour CRPG expecting to finish it in a sitting or two; just a longer version of that.

Over 114 hours... if you view it as a gate, it's horrible. If you view it as 114+ hours of adventure, on the other hand...