Question for the Devs; will Heavensward include a new STARTER City-State?

[Lulu89]

I'm 100% sure~There will NOT be a new Starter City you can start in, AND you will have to meet the level/Quest (Story) to even open the new jobs. Why do i say this... Look at FF11! It's to much work to make a new 'Starter" City for EVERY new job. In FF11 you had to have the right Level and a quest finshed to open the new jobs/Zones to Even GO GET the new job/s.

[Teryaani]

Just to interject, part of OP's desire for answering this questionw as born out of wondering whether to wait or not before creating the character, but I remember being told that it was announced that you needed to have certain classes already levelled in order to unlock DRK. I never read this on anything official so I'm not sure if somebody has a source but, if that's the case, you really want to make your character first, and then swap if you want to play DRK right away. If I'm wrong, then my post is completely invalid.

It makes sense that the new classes would be gated behind something, but I don't think SE has said anything official. They're keeping quiet about it (It's 4ish months out and a lot can change, so I suppose that makes sense). If I were to guess, I'd say a potential player on the fence about starting now or waiting until 3.0 should start now and push a few classes up in level and at least get to Coerthas. I'm guessing they'll handle it like NIN (at least to level 10 with level 10 quest complete), but I could be way off.

[Ecks007]

If you think about how they are pretty much using WoW as a base example of how they generally want to run this MMORPG because of it's (WoW) success. Also considering Yoshida himself was a WoW player. Then I would think that like WoW, you'd have to go through a majority of the older main scenario if not the entire thing, before you get to the point where story-wise things make sense as to why you can go to Ishgard as well as the new areas.

From my personal experience, I played WoW for maybe about 3 months after the Cataclysm expansion was out, finally giving in and trying it with some friends of mine. I started at the lower level and the main story pretty much guided me along all the way through the various past expansion stories to some degree. (There were some areas that were blocked off from what I was told since they weren't relevant to the current world story anymore) Also there were many normal quests that were just side-stepped since experience was boosted from other quests. Those old quests might have held some minor back stories and stuff for all I know, but I didn't do them or even have to. Though the main story still seemed to flow together as I leveled up, eventually hitting the then level cap of 80 and completely finishing off what was available of the main story. (At that point, they hadn't even added in the fight against um... w/e that dragon's name was). But after I finished what was available of the main story, though I found that part actually kind of interesting, there wasn't anything else to hold my attention and the game got rather boring pretty quickly. Couple that in with my friends having stopped playing and I was done with the game.

Point is, I still experienced the older storylines and had to do quests to progress through the older content. I didn't just zoom straight to Cataclysm level content.

Though from what I understand the newest WoW expansion actually gave people who bought it (or was it just a preorder thing?) a free max level character, or near max level character. Personally I think that's the dumbest gimmick I've ever seen to try to entice a person to buy a game. "Buy our game! You don't even have to play it, just buy it!"

I hope they don't do anything like that with FFXIV. Players should experience the story from the beginning and catch up to the expansion's story. This is a Final Fantasy for crying out loud. Story is the main part of the game. If you don't want to see the story at all, imo you shouldn't be playing a game with one. People like that should just go play a MOBA or something, they don't seem to have stories from what I can tell. (I don't play them though, so just speaking as someone who has kinda sorta watched friends play them)

[Teryaani]

Though from what I understand the newest WoW expansion actually gave people who bought it (or was it just a preorder thing?) a free max level character, or near max level character. Personally I think that's the dumbest gimmick I've ever seen to try to entice a person to buy a game. "Buy our game! You don't even have to play it, just buy it!"

I think it was a terrible idea too (just buying the expac got you a free 90 boost and you could pay for more of them). The 1-90 leveling experience didn't take that long and was important to figure out how your class worked. That said, WoW has ten years of content and expansions and this is probably one of it's last ones before a new flagship is launched. It was still dumb though.

[Korilynn]

Keep in mind that each of our characters, regardless of starting city, is considered an adventurer that has just traveled to Eorzea from Parts Unknown.

This was my first thought as well. Though Yugri's reason for keeping herself hidden would seem to make little sense to to another Au Ra.

As to other comments in the thread. I started playing when ARR came out and played for about a week or two. Came back only recently and it really didn't take much time to get to 50 or complete all the Main Story Quests (I didn't even run them every day, not with some 12 hour work days thrown in). So, I don't think it'd be to hard for a new player to get caught up. Took me less than a month (and I did leveling of a Lancer to 15 when I hit level 29 on Pugilist, and then to level 34 and Maruader to 26 before continuing the Main Storyline).

I think the secret will be in the new players learning a faster way to level their first character. I googled to figure out, since I wanted to catch up to my FC. Also, since I googled every guide for every dungeon before actually running them Leveling is pretty quick for the first 50 imo.

[Ramen]

It's not hard to put new race @ 3 newbie cities at all. The male kitty in this game are supposed to be rare. However, you the player happened to be one (if you choose it). You know for lore aspect, the other players exist but also not exist. Only you are the special one, warrior of light. So, for the new race, all they need to do is change the text, such as:
"oh my... please dont hurt me" /scared
"oh you are a safe ppl."
"It's rare to see your kind @ here" then continue

[Ecks007]

It's not hard to put new race @ 3 newbie cities at all. The male kitty in this game are supposed to be rare. However, you the player happened to be one (if you choose it). You know for lore aspect, the other players exist but also not exist. Only you are the special one, warrior of light. So, for the new race, all they need to do is change the text, such as:
"oh my... please dont hurt me" /scared
"oh you are a safe ppl."
"It's rare to see your kind @ here" then continue

Oh, what? The new race IS and WILL be available to players to create at the start of the game, as long as they have the expansion. It's a race, and ultimately holds no sway on the story considering you are still the hero.

The new Jobs on the other hand won't be available in character creation. Because no jobs are available in character creation. Classes are meant to be the starter/beginner thing, so you start as a class only.

[Firepower]

I don't think there will be a new city state but it does look like they are slowly building Mor Dhona into some kind of city that lies inbetween the 3 starter states. Perhaps that could end up much like Jeuno did in FFXI.

[Ecks007]

I don't think there will be a new city state but it does look like they are slowly building Mor Dhona into some kind of city that lies inbetween the 3 starter states. Perhaps that could end up much like Jeuno did in FFXI.

Well they are definitely building Revenant's Toll into a ...something. It's a little small to be a city, but it does appear that it's being built upwards. Hopefully 2.5 lets us start going into the upper section that already exists but is blocked off at the stairs in Rowena's place.

We will have a new city state. That is Ishgard, but it's not going to be a beginner city-state like the current 3. Also doubtful it will partake in the Grand Companies due to their constant war against Dragonkind. Though they might have their own version of a system that would work like the GCs do. Hard to say anything concrete at this point though.

[Rbstr]

There's a interesting case for an MMO to let the past be the past and have new characters start somewhat more "current".
At the same time it seems kind of crazy to toss all of the 2.X content out...but 3.0 was said to have a 2.0-like amount of content.

I would not be surprised if 3.0 again started everyone on the Main Story at the same point and that a new city in the expansion also function as a new starter city. That is ishguard would not be a starter city but perhaps some Au Ra center. New players start where their classes/jobs are, like before, but have some new starter main story. Then the new-player and old-player stories would then converge rather quickly.