Staggering Alexander Unlocks After Launch

[carraway]

Will Alexander normal and hard be staggered out after release to allow players to level their current and new jobs, explore the new areas, and enjoy the storyline? Like one or two weeks for normal, then a week after that for hard?

edit: the answer is "yes"; thanks Reddit for the PAX interview question and Hadley for the link.

Looks like it will be gated per this interview:

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/wiki/pax_2015_interview

Yoshida: We do plan to have a two week gap before we open up the content. You may already grasp why we’re doing this but I want to take the opportunity to explain the reasoning. The main reason why we want to wait to open up the new high end raid or the new Allagan Tomestone or any content that has a weekly restriction or lock is that if we open it up right away there’ll be people rushing to get to the content the week of June 20th and just there may be certain players who want to take their time and enjoy Heavensward as it is but we’ll be putting the pressure on them to skip through the cut-scenes and get through your leveling as we feel that we shouldn't make players feel forced to rush through everything or skip over any of the content and allow them to go through it actually enjoying it, especially if you wanted to take the time to enjoy it. So with this two week gap we’d like players to take the time to enjoy the story. We have a rich new story that is going to open up with Heavensward. We also have new jobs that are being introduced so we’d love for people to try them out as well and take a moment to raise your level and get to the new level cap and assess what skills you have in rotation in the case you need to rebuild because of the new skills you've learned. This could be a good time to prepare and strategize on if you want to keep your main job going into endgame content or do you want to switch over to one of the new jobs. There’s just so many things you want to consider ahead of time as well as just enjoy what’s available in Heavensward. It’s not that we’re trying to hold back information or hold back content, we just want to ensure that everyone gets to enjoy the Heavensward content we have available.

[desufin]

For what purpose? No one is forcing you to rush to the content just like no one forced you to rush to The Binding Coil of Bahamut on launch of 2.0. If there is someone forcing you and you don't want to, perhaps it's time to rethink your priorities.

[Karen_Cerfrumos]

The purpose is to give everyone even grounds, otherwise people who can nolife to 60 on day one have advantage over everybody else.

[Vaer]

New capped currency has sort of the same problem. Early access has an extra week (half of one) to get to cap and cap tomes before it resets on launch day if they keep it as normal and start the new tomes on early access launch.

[carraway]

For what purpose? No one is forcing you to rush to the content just like no one forced you to rush to The Binding Coil of Bahamut on launch of 2.0. If there is someone forcing you and you don't want to, perhaps it's time to rethink your priorities.

The purpose is to give everyone even grounds, otherwise people who can nolife to 60 on day one have advantage over everybody else.

Though fairness is a factor, I'm curious not because I feel like I'll personally be at an advantage or disadvantage. I'd just rather have the liberty to approach the new content at leisure without having to worry about Alexander immediately, and I'm sure there are others who feel similarly.

[Ryans]

The purpose is to give everyone even grounds, otherwise people who can nolife to 60 on day one have advantage over everybody else.

Um... everyone is on even ground already. Everyone starts at the same place and the people who devote more of their time to the game are going to get more completed. Do you want the servers to go down when you aren't logged on or something? I don't really see why that would matter though. So what if someone has better gear than you. There isn't a limited number of items per server that drop from a raid so someone having an item you want doesn't prevent you from getting it.

[Jakeson]

Will Alexander normal and hard be staggered out after release to allow players to level their current and new jobs, explore the new areas, and enjoy the storyline? Like one or two weeks for normal, then a week after that for hard?

Faux content. People should be able to do what they want when they want. If it's not ready, stagger it, but don't stagger it to give everyone "even ground". By that logic, nobody should be able to play longer than the player who has the least amount of time to devote.

[DakenBrunel]

Will Alexander normal and hard be staggered out after release to allow players to level their current and new jobs, explore the new areas, and enjoy the storyline? Like one or two weeks for normal, then a week after that for hard?

I definitely agree that the launch of Alexander needs to be staggered, but definitely no longer than early access.

[SinisterJointss]

Wait what? No... just no... There is no reason to stagger it.

The purpose is to give everyone even grounds, otherwise people who can nolife to 60 on day one have advantage over everybody else.

It being open on day 1 is EVEN ground for everyone. Just because someone wants to "nolife 60" in one day has zero to do with you. You want to be 60 in a day, then do it. You dont? Well then you dont have to. It's as simple as that.

Why hold back people because you dont want to put the time in that they are willing to?

[CGMidlander]

For what purpose? No one is forcing you to rush to the content just like no one forced you to rush to The Binding Coil of Bahamut on launch of 2.0. If there is someone forcing you and you don't want to, perhaps it's time to rethink your priorities.

BG is known for world first clears on some raids. Knowing whether or not content will be staggered can help them (and other groups known to go for world firsts) prepare how they will allocate playtime when the update launches.