Can't Access 3.0 until you complete 2.0-2.55

[Fenral]

I was responding to the condescending snipe that you made that anyone actually "worried" about new players was just doing so to level their alts as quickly as possible and raid. I agree with most of the things that you've said to an extent, but accessibility of content has been a goal for this dev. team and I really took issue with that snipe so I responded to it.

In that case, I apologize. It was never a statement I intended for anyone to take too seriously, but then again, sarcasm and forums are like oil and water.

[Omegakiyohime]

In that case, I apologize. It was never a statement I intended for anyone to take too seriously, but then again, sarcasm and forums are like oil and water.

I apologize for my tone as well, Fenral. You never really know on these forums and I could have stated my point/issue more eloquently.

[Verdan]

This is a great way to discourage new and returning players who want to see the expansion stuff without dragging through other things.

[Seoulstar]

I apologize for my tone as well, Fenral. You never really know on these forums and I could have stated my point/issue more eloquently.

It's nice to see people settle things in a mature fashion on here..

As for the main topic. I'm not really too excited. I'm a little concerned about any new players that happens to come.

[SpookyGhost]

Who skips the story in a Final Fantasy game? What is wrong with you people?

[Gillionaire]

Who skips the story in a Final Fantasy game? What is wrong with you people?

People that play this game as an MMO, and not final fantasy..
You have 2 schools of people in this game, and they have different tastes.

[Fenral]

I believe what they're trying to address is the possibility of new players being pressured into skipping the story entirely, were it ever to be handled as "optional." Lots of players, especially those new to MMOs, pick up FFXIV for the story. The MMO grinding vets can skip quite a lot already, but if the story were ever to become "optional," then there really would be a high risk of it becoming impossible to complete.

Try to look at it this way:

Making the story a requirement is, in essence, a promise from the dev team that new players will always be able to experience the story. This of course includes making adjustments down the line as the population balance gradually shifts over time. They have no way of predicting the state this game will be in years from now, so the last thing they want to do is start completely overhauling a system that, at the present moment, isn't in need of major adjustments.

I highly doubt any point raised in this thread hasn't occurred to the developers at some point. They seem to have some pretty sophisticated analytics going on their servers, so they'll be aware of shifting trends long before the majority of players are, and will probably have the required measures ready for deployment when the time is right, but not sooner.

[Ilitsa]

Heard that they auto level new characters in WoW, so you can play the new expansion. Hope SE never ever go down that route.

10 years of expansions makes it make some sense, SOME, also you get one free boosted character when you buy the Warlords expansion (Level 90-100), and if you wish to boost any character after that, it's 60.00 each, they don't just auto-boost any newly made character.

That being said, it's one of the things that made me leave that game, and I, too hope SE doesn't do it ever XD

[Adelard]

10 years of expansions makes it make some sense, SOME, also you get one free boosted character when you buy the Warlords expansion (Level 90-100), and if you wish to boost any character after that, it's 60.00 each, they don't just auto-boost any newly made character.

That being said, it's one of the things that made me leave that game, and I, too hope SE doesn't do it ever XD

Yeah it's just a really bad idea, as some people have worked hard to level their characters and a new player could just boost and skip all the old content. What were they thinking? I don't think they considered how it would affect current subscribers.

[TruebladeNuke]

I personally don't have any problems with this. In fact, that's probably because I kinda expected this to happen, given the way the main story is going. How odd would it be to try starting directly in 3.0 content with no understanding (nor even going through) of the main story content from 2.0?

My only question is if we'll be able to march into the new fields anyway, with just the main story content locked out to those players, and still be able to explore the new fields anyway. I could see it being like an old school game for the lower leveled and geared players where wandering into a new zone results in being overkilled by monsters that you suddenly find to be way beyond you at the time.

But eh, all we can do is speculate right now.