Friends of mine, new to the game, becoming discouraged by STORY QUESTS

[Bourne_Endeavor]

I for one hope there isn't ever some kind of shortcut put into the story.
That's just wrong. CS skipping is one thing but to just ignore all the questing before endgame is not cool.

They really have to. Demanding new players to play through the massive ARR storyline and a whole expansion thereafter just to get into another expansion would be borderline suicidal on the business end of things. People simply won't do it. Unlike most MMOs, FFXIV has such an enormous amount of story content it will push away players not interested if you force them to press through all of it.

[bass9020]

They really have to. Demanding new players to play through the massive ARR storyline and a whole expansion thereafter just to get into another expansion would be borderline suicidal on the business end of things. People simply won't do it. Unlike most MMOs, FFXIV has such an enormous amount of story content it will push away players not interested if you force them to press through all of it.

They have already talked about making the next expansion not tied to HW. But with everything HW gave idk how they will handle the features added.

[Nici]

They really have to. Demanding new players to play through the massive ARR storyline and a whole expansion thereafter just to get into another expansion would be borderline suicidal on the business end of things. People simply won't do it. Unlike most MMOs, FFXIV has such an enormous amount of story content it will push away players not interested if you force them to press through all of it.

They have already talked about making the next expansion not tied to HW. But with everything HW gave idk how they will handle the features added.

Yeah as bass says they had already mentioned it in a live letter or maybe it was in a Q&A (can't really recall where i had read about it)...about having new players "skip" the HW expansion, i understand why they need to do this but at the same time it seems a little sad new players won't get to experience the great story lines we have already experienced.

[Yasuhiro]

Final Fantasy is in its title and it's a numbered game, how do people find out about this game but have not heard of FF? Even my grandmother could tell you FF is story heavy and she doesn't know anything about video games! I don't think the story in this game is good but people upset that there's storyline here in this game?

[seekified]

The only thing I can feasibly see them doing is cutting out all the outright crap that the story quests make you do, especially in ARR.

[Vespar]

If they are after HW access, do ONLY the main scenario quests and ignore EVERYTHING else. I have been playing an alt, and it took me about 2.5 days of ample playtime each day to get through it all (mind you I was skipping boring scenes as it is my 4th playthrough). It will probably take a few days to a week to get through it all if they do only the Main Scenario, depending on how long they play each day. Plus, if they are after a HW job, ignoring the other non-main scenario quests will leave them with plenty of dungeons and quests left over to get experience from.

[Nestama]

That's what different MMOs are for then. Some MMOs are designed for raiders, some are designed for crafting, some are designed for those who enjoy sandbox elements more, some are designed with a PvP focus, and some are designed for those who enjoy narrative and story. FFXIV is a game designed for people who enjoy narrative and story. If you don't like narrative, you're playing the wrong game xD

So does that mean we shouldn't be playing FFXIV once we're done with the storyline?

[AskaRay]

So does that mean we shouldn't be playing FFXIV once we're done with the storyline?

Not necessarily, but lemme tell you I do enjoy doing all the side quests and reading about the lore while waiting for more storyline to be released.

[TankHunter678]

They have already talked about making the next expansion not tied to HW. But with everything HW gave idk how they will handle the features added.

I believe what they will do is have the next expansion take place at the same general time period of HW.

Lore wise there are bound to be periods where things are relatively stable but otherwise lack activity for the WoL, going by them having the player leave Ishgard to go handle things back in Ul'dah and the other city states.

Then in the expansion after that the two storylines will merge.

They will have it setup so that if you go through the next expansion after HW the dialog is different and the scenes different. As well as change HW so that if you go through the other storyline first the dialog and scenes will be slightly different. Both expansions will probably start with the arrival at Ishgard.

When it comes to the major players of the two storylines they will be too busy managing things in their area to be able to go help the WoL in the other area. We will probably get someone to replace Alphinaud as the companion for the non HW storyline.

It will be like those sections of the story where you need to go follow to separate but linked sections of the main story. One example being the two MSQ chains that lead you into Falcon's Nest/Camp Cloudtop at the same time early into HW. In the end both expansions will link into the expansion beyond them.

[Belhi]

They have said that they would likely in 4.0 not require players to complete the 3.x story to start on 4.0 and instead provide characters who chose to skip forward a 'the story so far' cutscene or something. Its not like 4.0's story will start from scratch. They will still need to level up to 60 and need a certain ilvl to get buy in the new content. Chances are if they step into 4.0 in 150 gear they will get their asses handed to them. Still that leaves the option to just buy some crafted gear.

Of course we don't know if this means permanently skipping the 3.x story. It really depends on how their game system works and I seriously doubt it will remove any of the current pre 60 gating. It also won't change the fact that the MSQ is really the fastest way you can level and you will probably still need to own HW to access the zones for Job quests.