New People, Old Zones

[Vidu]

But with these methods of leveling I feel the new players are going to skip or lose out on the great story FFXIV has to offer. How do we address this?

Why do we need to force feed lore and stories to new players who might not be that intrested in them in the first place?
And if they are intrested in them, dont you think they'll go looking for such things themself at somepoint? They dont need to discover everything in the level 30 area at level 30 - they can come back month later and see all the great stuff they missed intially too!

I'm also not really sure what you are refering to when you're talking about lore and great stories being missed - do you mean the FATE descriptions? Because if you do... yes, some of them are pretty good, informative or amusing. But they certainly dont offer that much of deep lore or amazing stories - some do, the majority doesnt.

They attempted to get us back in the old zones several times now - atmas, yo-kai, to an extend maybe bluemage - and each time people went, got their rewards within two weeks and left again because lets face it: The FATEs arent fun and once you have what you need, you rather not go back. This will end up the same way with your suggestion: Two weeks in which the vets will get their stuff and after that the old zones are deserted again.

And frankly I dont see an issue with that - FATEs scale their difficulty based on how many people did the last one in the zone, so for 95% of FATEs a newbie can solo them with their chocobo, if they wish to do so. Having a lot of people in the starting areas also doesnt really help to build a community or anything, because for the most part its just a bunch of people rushing from FATE to FATE and if they're communicating at all, its to /shout at each other about how they have to wait with the next FATE for everyone and what they're gonna do to your mom if you dont. Its just filling the areas with bodies, not with players.
And from what I've observed of new people they're either so dissorientated by all the new stuff they're confronted with that it doesnt matter to them if there are other people around or not - or they already played MMOs and are familiar with new zones being dead and real endgame being further down the line.

I dont know if you miss the FATE-trains we had in south shroud and northern Thanalan when FATEs were the best source of exp, specially for dps - I can tell you that I dont. And that I'm very happy for all the new people who dont have to go through that.
I also dont think we need to force anyone back into the old zones, just so newbies who might not be intrested in lore and stories to begin with, can fail at FATEs because you suddenly need 15 people to beat them instead of being able to solo them.
Those who care about lore, background, stories and exploring can and will come back - and those who dont, wont. I dont see a problem here.

[Enkidoh]

Why do we need to force feed lore and stories to new players who might not be that intrested in them in the first place?

Because it's a Final Fantasy game first and foremost and a MMORPG second (in other words, it's a FF game played online with thousands, even millions, of other players, rather than just a 'MMORPG with the FF name tacked on', and FF games (especially the SNES and beyond titles) are renowned for immersive narratives. And yes, that extends to the MMO titles, which broke the mould as far as MMORPGs went in showing that deep and immersive storytelling can work in online games. The mentality of "as it's a MMORPG it's all about endlessly grinding raids for shinez and street cred" is really not all that correct here.

Certainly there is endgame and raiding, but it's only part of the story, and I think those who take the above view of the game being all about the endgame are usually the ones who end up most disappointed.

[Vidu]

Because it's a Final Fantasy game first and foremost and a MMORPG second (in other words, it's a FF game played online with thousands, even millions, of other players, rather than just a 'MMORPG with the FF name tacked on', and FF games (especially the SNES and beyond titles) are renowned for in depth narratives. And yes, that extends to the MMO titles, which broke the mould as far as MMORPGs went in showing that deep and immersive storytelling can work in online games. The mentality of "as it's a MMORPG it's all about endlessly grinding raids for shinez and street cred" is really not all that correct here.

Certainly there is endgame and raiding, but it's only part of the story, and I think those who take the above view of the game being all about the endgame are usually the ones who end up most disappointed.

Just because its a Final Fantasy game doesnt mean people have to care about lore and story. While I agree with you that thats a huge part and selling point (and certainly the reason I started playing the game and stuck with it), I dont see why this has to be the case for everyone. I've met enough people over the years who didnt care much for the story, lore and characters, but still enjoyed the game for its gameplay - which to me is totally legit aswell.

I love that all that lore is there and I'm going out of my way to learn abut it - but that doesnt mean that everyone has to. The game is perfectly enjoyable without having to learn every bit of lore. New players are also already presented a good deal of lore and stories. And on top of all that I personally always felt that it was a lot more rewarding to figure out stuff "by myself" (for example by going out of the way to discover a FATE descirption, some NPC dialouge or a sight seeing spot) than being pushed at it by the game.

I'm not saying that new people shouldnt explore all that lore - but I dare say that they should do it on their own terms, at their own pace and according to their intrests. Specially during ARR they'll be busy with figuring so much basic stuff out that I cant imagine that pushing them towards MORE lore would lead to them enjoying any of it.
And as I said: FATEs can be solo'd with your chocobo, so there is no need to make veterans go back into old areas for the 2 weeks it takes them to get the rewards only to leave FATEs to the lonely new guy again.

[Lilseph]

Just because its a Final Fantasy game doesnt mean people have to care about lore and story.

Pretty much.

People play games for different reasons. Let's knock it off with this FF cultism, trying to shove the story down their throat. If they don't care about it, they don't care. They may like the game for other reasons.