level 30 and can't post in forums

[Xystic]

It actually wasn't added because of RMT, as the forum never had these restrictions originally when version 1.0 was running (and the 1.0 forum never had any RMT advertising their ill-gotten gains from what I was aware).

We need to keep in mind that the further we go back in time the smaller the presence of RMTs.

These restrictions in fact were first added to the ARR Beta forum, as there was a massive influx of new testers between Phases 2 and 3, sadly it resulted in a sudden increase in the amount of trolling and flaming going on, both from new testers and Legacy members and Alpha/early Beta phase testers. It became such a sordid affair that SE hurriedly introduced posting restrictions in an attempt to bring some order to the chaos.

Character lvl restrictions do not impede an individual from flaming or trolling or arguing. Even with the current level restrictions we still see individuals coming to the forums to troll and flame. Character level restrictions keep low level accounts from spamming the forums. Most RMT spamming bots are disposable as they eventually get reported and since they are disposable you might as well advertise on the forums as well. We saw this on D3 early on in its Paypal period. There is nothing wrong with killing 2 birds with 1 stone if the system allows it. Although 1.0 may not have used such restrictions, at the current time, most MMOs are also adopting the character lvl or subscription base requirement for the forums as RMTs continue to find new ways to advertise their goods.

No doubt the Beta forum incident spooked SE and thus they decided in order to head off any possible repeat of such nonsense when the game went live, they added similar restrictions to the official FFXIV forum, which up to that stage, was for version 1.0 only (and in fact was only accessible if you had a 1.0 account).

Every MMO forum to date has some sort of drama as long as people can post at some time or another.