Option to unlock content without mandatory MSQ

[Packetdancer]

I mean, I think the bigger problem is that unless I've wildly misunderstood, the OP defined the feature not just as making MSQ wholly optional but also not spoiling the story. So that you could, for instance, sign up, skip right to the Eden raids and go into savage raiding, and then go back and play the story later when you had more time... but not have the Eden raids have spoiled you on any of the MSQ.

Even if mechanically they were willing to make the MSQ optional, that has implications for the MSQ narratively.

It's easy to say "oh, if the MSQ was optional and folks could just go right to Eden raiding out of chargen, that wouldn't affect anyone else's enjoyment of the story". But if SquareEnix were to constrain themselves such that no piece of non-MSQ content could reference things from the MSQ (to avoid spoiling the MSQ for folks), at that point you've changed the nature of the storytelling and the pieces don't all interlock. And changing the nature of the storytelling itself does impact how other people will enjoy the story.

Whether or not I care about someone else skipping the story of not, I would find the game a lot less compelling as a player if the story didn't build on past bits of story; if nothing in the MSQ was ever referenced in any non-MSQ content, I'd feel less like it was a tale of a world and more just a collection of disjointed individual events. And personally, that would interest me less.

Would I stomp off in a sulk because people could skip the story? No.

Would I probably lose interest in the story and wander off to something with a story I found more compelling instead? I know myself well enough to say, "yeah, probably."

And while I don't know how many other folks who are here for the story would say the same, I'm fairly certain that the total quantity is greater than 1.