When I bought FFXI, I couldn't do the Zilart stuff right away (NA players did not get the game when it was only XI vanilla, we had only the bundle) and that didn't bum me out...There was plenty of stuff that kept my attention until then. Also I main'd DRG in XI and I couldn't play it right away, I had to get to 18 first, unlock my subjob, level another job to 15 so I could level my first job to 30 without being gimped, then do the DRG side quest to unlock it; only then could I play my DRG (I honestly did not level up ANY other job in XI until COR came out 3-4 years later as none of the other ones interested me). Not to mention leveling up in XI was a royal PAIN IN THE @$$, leveling up in XIV is a freakin' joke, in fact out of boredom until the expansion I've started leveling up my other jobs in this game, and it has taken me 4 days (5 hours a day) to level from 1-40 on my Ninja, and with the way N.Than Fates dropping exp like popcorn chicken at Popeye's I can probably get to 50 within 30 hours of playtime.

Main story line takes roughly 50-60 hours to complete from 2.0-2.56. So new players will have to deal with roughly 80-90 hours of catching up, at 5 hours a day (I assume is the average play time for most people), that is up to 18 days or 2 and a half weeks. The first stuff (besides leveling and jobs) starts to drop 2 weeks after the game launches...so they will only be a half a week behind assuming they play every day for 5 hours, oh wait Early Access, so they can actually be on par with the content release if they really try, if not they will only be slightly behind.