New Expansion? What it means for New Players

[Slap_Happy]

As a new player I am excited about the new expansion announcement and the patches that are coming.. Only down side is I am no where near the level of actually playing any of this new content..

So my question is.. Will I be required to buy this new Expansion to keep playing? I haven't been around any MMO's like WOW so I am unfamiliar with how it works..

[JoeDono]

The expansion will probably have 2 types of stuff in it: balancing fixes and new content. If you don't buy the Expansion, you can keep playing and all the balancing fixes will be applied to you. You just won't have access to any of the new content. You won't be able to take any of the Expansion-specific quests, get into the Expansion-specific instances, create/transform a character into an Au'Ra, level the Dark Knight class, etc.

[Slap_Happy]

That sounds all and good to me. I just wanted to make sure that if I progress slowly I won't be forced to purchase content that I can't at say a level 30 or so have access to. Unless this expansion isn't only end game.. I haven't looked into the new content being provided in the expansion. If anyone wants to link me to a summary that would be helpful!

[Terrini]

There has been debate about whether any lower level content will be revealed, but ultimately, if they DO Have lower level content, most doubt you'd have access to it before getting to that area's story content (For example the new jobs will have low level quests associated with them but you won't get access to them without first unlocking the expansion story/area that reveals them) And if they add Expansion low level quests, you won't miss out on much because they'd be best to be done as an alternate class anyway.

The way the game is set up now, for example, is you can level 3 different jobs up fairly nicely by doing certain city-state side-quests just on one class and not on the first time through... I did this for all three Disciple of Magic classes. Now I pretty much have no quests left except for high level achievement oriented quests.

The new content that has been revealed is mainly new features: Flying Mounts (in new zones only), New Race, New High end Raid, new Beast Tribes/Primals, New area (Ishgard), Ishgardian factions ect. So most of it will be restricted to the new areas fro what has been revealed and The client will be updated for ALL subscribers so that you can interact with players with new content, you just can't access it yourself.