Possible level/story jumps....really?

[Voltyblast]

Yoshi said he still wants to have a continuous story through the expansion and hopes people can understand that. He said certain features will not require the MSQs like what happened in 3.0.

Hildibrand not having trials is because it was rushed out due to the demand for it because majority felt the Scholasticate wasnt living up to what Hildibrand was.

And you are correct its not 2000 anymore, games need to be different to survive with interesting features that set them apart. Why do they all need to be clones?

Implying this game isn't a clone? Several features of the game are copied from other games as far as I know. Infact, they are copied from other games but not as polished as they should be: combat is slower than wow (same old tab targetting system present in every MMORPG of the last decade), FATEs are more boring than GW2 ones (to think I complained them, but they were at least varied), Aion's combo were easier and less scripted (can't remember totally, but it was much more intuitive and less stiff), the talents are non-existent (2 monks are absolutely the same), the stats aren't as interesting as any other mmorpg (Parry is worthless and basically there's just one meta) so far, and so on. Heck even the story is underwhelming: SWTOR does story telling much better (8 stories, one for each class, from 1 to 50, then a NON MANDATORY expansion story to follow) and actually give you much better immersion than FFXIV lack of choices and whatnot. Plus the Main Character talks and I honestly loved my Inquisitor with her act of badassery: it was truely enjoyable to follow.

Oh, and I hate Star Wars. Just putting it up there.

Sure, they aren't forced and shouldn't be clones of one game, but FFXIV is really not an exception. Infact I dare say, it's because it's HIGHLY similar to WoW that people like me (and maybe others?) like this game and it's not completely a bad thing: people feel more at home, people know better how skills work etc. But even then, there's so much polish...so much to improve.

But feel free to disagree: I just think that this game needs far more polish in many aspects, than to be bothered with a story: the potion is a bad idea and I don't support it, but thinking about the gameplay first (especially when a lot of the non-raiding content can be achieved on day 1) wouldn't be a totally bad idea, even if it means less story. If they ever make a MSQ skip for players, it would only benefit SE. Not you, not me, but them. But if it means more players - and sequentially more content, I'm all for it.

But again, this is just an opinion.