My thoughts on the Ishgard lockout: Lemme in! Lemme in! *Wraps fists on the doors*

In seriousness, I understand why they locked it out - because of story continuaty - no one's allowed into Ishgard until they prove themselves - end of story. Thats what makes that them who they are - the major bulk of their lore...
But at the same time it makes me pout lol. If I wanted to make an alt that would look badass as a machinist, or what ever, it means starting over again (which after a certain amount of times gets boring) - or along similar lines as BlueVann's situation, might be a discouragement to new players - "omg that astrologian job looks awesome, I wanna do that! ..... wait, I've now been playing for days, wondering how to become an Astrologian and now I find out that I can't until I do aallll of this other stuff, first? ".
It's simple to us (though boring z.z) because we know how to power level, already know what we're doing and know exactly what to expect - even skip cutscenes we've already seen - but for a newer player it might seem like forever, since they have no frame of reference as to how long it may take. It is easy, but could potentially drive off some if their main draw were one of the gated jobs/features (....though they should play, anyway. lol).

It probably would have been better not to put the new jobs in a situation where they're gated like this in the first place, but it is what it is at this point. I don't really completely agree or completely disagree with the decision