The harp is a lie.

[Davorok]

.... But you unlock bard.. and it can immediately take the place of your archer. For those people who have archer at 50, they are going to effectively have bard at 50 too.

Except that they stated "..you do not level Jobs..", so you are probably never really a r50 Bard but rather an r50 Archer with whatever Bard Abilities are available from r30, although I suspect that there will be extra abilities your Job can learn as you progress on the Archer Class Quests every 10 levels or so. Will the r50's magically have all the abilities as soon as the patch goes live? Perhaps but I am betting they will still have to complete some quests (easy for r50's) to unlock all the abilities.

...You can level as nothing but archer and your bard progresses too. That is what creates dissonance with me. You don't ever have to pick up a harp to know how to use it.

Well, I would guess that you have to pick up the Harp and learn to use it when you do the quest that unlocks it.

...Yeah, your level 30 white mage in ffxi could unlock bard or samurai or ninja... but once unlocked, you started those jobs at level one and you had to level them up for them to be effective... You didn't hit level 30 and magically get a brand new role to play that was also level 30.

Again..the new Job is not r30 but rather your r30 Archer has now unlocked some new abilities (Bard Abilities) and will likely unlock more upon r40, r50, etc by completing the required quests. Even current r50's will probably have to do these quests to unlock the new abilities.

I understand your concerns because if not done delicately, it could all be a disaster but I try to have some faith that the Devs are not complete morons and that they will have a workable, logical progression for new characters/players. The r50's unfortunately just get a "me so sorry" for leveling their classes beyond new content recommendations. That is why I stopped leveling my Archer and just do a little gathering/crafting to maintain my once-a-month requirement for venting on these forums.