Appears more likely than not that new Stormblood areas gated by 3.5 Completion

[Vexander]

And how did that make you feel?

At the time? Relieved that there was finally a step to buying and playing the game that was relatively, "Easy." I had all kinds of issues finding links and e-mails and stuff, it was just a nightmare getting the game. I was also miffed that I had to wait so many hours to transfer a character to Balmung.

There was a whole lot of frustration all around, but shelling out an additional $20 was nothing.

[AnaviAnael]

http://imgur.com/gallery/kOIU2

"In order to access the content added in Stormblood during early access, players will need to complete certain Heavensward quests. However, as long as you have a Disciple of War or Magic class / job that is level 50, you will be able to acquire the new job, red mage, regardless of quest progression as the quest to unlock red mage will be in a 2.0 area."

I know i'm probably wrong, but the way I interpreted that is you only need HW quests for early access. Let's hope that's the case and all of Stormblood is accessible at "official" launch.

[LadyKairi]

Can't remember if it's been mentioned here or not, but in regards to the jump potions, I believe the devs have said that they won't be giving people free potions with the purchase of the expansion. Or any future expansions really. So if people want them, they're gonna have to fork over the money.

Also, if they implement it like they did in China, there will be two potions. One for skipping through the story (ARR and HW), and the other to get a job to level 60. I wanna say they would be like $20 each. I know they mentioned it, I just have a horrid memory.

[GMERC]

I know i'm probably wrong, but the way I interpreted that is you only need HW quests for early access. Let's hope that's the case and all of Stormblood is accessible at "official" launch.

Let's hope that's not the case so Early Access isn't filled with a bunch of flakes who can't keep up with pretty basic story progression.

[Felis]

To jump through the story to access the new content or to jump to a higher level?

Both seperated
1 potion to jump story an 1 potion to jump level

[Aerowaffle]

Everyone wants to debate. Nobody wants to look at a solution that I see no reason would not appease everyone:

"However, if it were up to me: Give everyone who purchases the expansion access to the new areas. Give everyone who purchases the expansion access to the new dungeons and raids (upon reaching the appropriate level). Take out all cutscenes in the dungeons / raids for players who have not played through the story. Gate the new players from the trials. Gate the new players from the valuable daily roulettes until they do finish the story (providing some incentive to play through the 200+ hours of old content). In my opinion; that is how it should be. Give the new player the opportunity to play up-to-date content in between the hours they will trudge through the old content."

Who has a problem with this? Why?

FFXIV's trials, raids, and dungeons are all linked to the story. This is very different than other MMO's where the dungeon is just another dungeon to dive into. Your character in FFXIV has a reason to be at each of these locations.

Allowing a character, that is still progressing through the storyline, access to some of these instances would feel pretty awkward and subtract from the quality of the experience.

The story jump potion is a full story skip (rather than a partial one). "Okay, your character has now experienced all of this; *shows summary*". It still keeps the integrity of the rule; if your character doesn't have a reason to be here or experience the content, you can't do it.