Possible level/story jumps....really?

[Black_Wing]

To be fair, most MMO xpacs don't require you to beat the story of the base game/previous xpac to access as far as I remember. Not even XI outside of maybe needing to beat the initial story for whatever city you started in (Never played XI so not honestly sure.)

Personally I'd like to keep having to DO the story kept in to access the next xpacs story, but have certain ways to get into the new zone that don't require the story. Like Crafters/Gathers level 50 quest could give them access to Ishgard. Like Miner leads to this well enough on its on as you are a contractor from the Miner's Guild working in Ishgard. No mention at all of how you normally get there, don't even need it.

Areas in each XI expansion are accessible from the outset of release with a few exceptions (Dynamis for example). With the exception of Rise of the Zilart, you can start any of the expansions stories as long as you met the level requirement. Rise of the Zilart requires you to have cleared City Mission 5-2 (aka Shadowlord) to trigger the intro cutscene of the expansion to start it. But yeah, all cities/jobs are accessible as long as you have the expansions installed/registered and met the level requirement(which is having a base job(warrior, monk, white mage, black mage, red mage, thief) at level 30 for access to the advanced jobs).