Skipping MSQ

[Jandor]

So if the budget increase isn't due to cash shop sales, where did the money come from? Did it come from their asses?

Probably the millions and millions of dollars the game brings in from sales and subs. This is the game credited with saving SE as a company after all, saving it way before it had a cash shop as well.

Why would anyone start at level one if they had the immediate and free option of starting at 50/60? Why don't we just cut ARR, and eventually Heavensward, out completely? Removing all of those old zones would do a lot to help their profits, not to mention no longer needing to make things work between expansion zones.

Terrible idea, both level jump and yours. Your method just makes less sense.

No, the terrible idea is introducing tangible progress in exchange for money.

Treating 'A realm reborn/Heavensward/Stormblood' as a trilogy and letting weird people start with the 3rd one if for some reason they want to isn't something I particularly want, but considering the push for it (oh please won't someone think of the newbies!) it's by far the better option.

As for why anyone would play it, I've argued for a 'new game+' option before. I'd actually quite like to go back through the story on my character, if I'd started with 4.0 and never done it before it'd be great doing it the first time and getting xp for a 2nd or 3rd class at the same time.

E: In fact, typing this out has made me come around to the idea a bit more, new guy hears about FFXIV from his friends, dives straight into the latest expansion with them, and then can unlock 2.0 and 3.0 from the Wandering Minstrel and play them to level alt classes. New guy is happy, the old MSQ stuff is still useful, cash shop is kept in check, everyone's happy?

Still... this idea is dead in the water anyway. Topic basically opens up with "this shouldn't be in the cash shop" and the first reply is "but then how would SE make money from it?"