level 30 and can't post in forums

[Enkidoh]

It has to due with the fact that gold sellers will be able to spam their stuff on the forums. RMTs do not generally use their lvl 50 characters or accounts to spam in game or on forums as they are trying to keep a low profile on these accounts. In the TOS, if I'm not mistaken, you can actually be banned in game as well based on the severity of your forum violation. By not allowing low levels to post they prevent spam or advertising accounts from filling up the forums as seen in other MMOs.

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). 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.

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).

Yes, some of these restrictions can be annoying, but they're not to hard to deal with (the 1000 character restriction is easily worked around by simply going back and editing your post, like I just did ).

[Atlasphalanx]

Given the nature of this game, I think we are lucky you don't have to do a 3 hour long multi-fetch quest to unlock forum posting "mechanics."

This made me lol. It's funny because it's true. The questing in this game is a bit over the top, which wouldn't be a problem if it was avoidable, but you simply MUST do the story line to be able to play the game. Not a fan of that, quests should be optional, in the same way that pvp, dungeons, grinding, or crafting is optional.

[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.