Main Story Disconnect and World Altering Events

[Sakuraluna]

But at the same time, if the OP is asking for some grand dalamud-style game changer at the end of 2.0, it's not likely that that'll happen. You have to keep in mind that the end of 1.0 was followed up by a complete overhaul of the game. They aren't rebuilding the game completely for 3.0, they're just adding an expansion. But for me at least, the fact that there are players who can look back on certain bits of lore and say "I remember that, I was there," and the gradual changes to certain areas of the game like Mor Dhona (not only as updates are added to the game but as you progress through the main storyline too) still manage to make the story feel dynamic.

Though sure, new players will miss out on some of these things while they're getting caught up, but there's not much that can be done about that. They'll just have to get caught up to the rest of us and keep playing, and watching events unfold. I started half a year after the game was released, it's what I had to do. With OP admittedly skipping cutscenes though, they're probably not as likely to take notice of some of the changes that are being made to the game in context.

[Orenji-kun]

I'm not expecting the devs to rewrite everyone's story quests and the entire lore of the land to fit every adjustment they make to the world; that'd be crazy talk. I'm talking about a parallel storyline, one that can run adjacent to the main storyline without interfering directly with it.

First, like I said before, the game has to have a complete framework for players to follow their main storyline quests. That means keeping the 3 starting city-states intact as well as every other location specifically involved in these quests untouched.

Second, the world storyline has to be understandable from the perspective of anyone who has reached the physical location where any changes are taking place. Obviously, anyone within the city-states could have just logged in for the first time, but someone in Mor Dhona had to complete their main quests up to a certain point. Simply having the world update with your main quest progress is exactly the kind of disconnect I was talking about.