Requirement for Coil Not needed for Expansion But...

[Marael]

In FFXI beating older content was never a requirement to start on the new expansion. There were a few side quests that required it for extra bits of story, fun fights, and cool gear like the Apocalypse Nigh storyline, but they were always added after the fact, and never part of the main storyline, or required in order to move on to a new expansion. You didn't even have to finish the main storyline, or any of the previous expansions to be able to start on new ones with the exception of Zilart, the first expansion, which required a certain amount of progression in the main storyline, but far from completion. I would assume that they would do the same thing with FFXIV, especially considering that each main storyline addition to FFXIV after 2.0 has not required that you even beat hardmode Ifrit, Garuda, and Titan to be able to start on them. They may put in hard-ish raiding content that required coil be cleared, but the main storyline will probably be open to anyone who picks up the game.