A thought on solving the content gating issue. Long read, pls bare with me.

[Treble]

So, I was sittin there thinkin about the content gating arguments. Debating both sides in my head, and I came to the conclusion that it can truly only be done to one extreme or the other. You either content gate everyone 100%, or you make the storyline seem less relevant and let people bypass it.


Sooooooooooooooooooo my thought about this was... Let people start in ilvl90, and in ishgard at the intro for the story of heavensward. BUT!!! for each old phase of the game (in this case its 1.0 and ARR), make an interactive movie/storybook scenario.

Something that takes the important scenes of each game, and narrates them. Something with interactive menu's, with the menus fading in and out as you say chose your job. Something polished and nice, with your main story and class/job story nicely organized.

Add a character creator to it, make the file from that importable to new players that start HeavensWard or whatever expansion the game is on in the future. When they load up their game for the first time it'll prompt the player to import their created character from their storybook experience, or proceed anyways and make one in the client.



The idea with this, adding a narrated movie version of each expansions important story points/events, while keeping their dungeons relevant in game so players can go back and experience them, would allow for an interesting experience for all walks.

And then, when all is said and done, and FF14 is long gone, we'll always have the storybook to revisit and enjoy the story as many times as we want. Something we'll always be able to show our friends in the future that may have missed out on past final fantasies.
It could even be used as an advertising tool, a demo of it being available to dl to tell the story side of the game if they so desired.


This story book program would come with each game you purchase either on the install CD/packaged with the initial download, or as a seperate cd/download, but put right next to it and strongly reccomended or needed to dl along with the client.



I dunno, it's a skeleton idea that would need fleshing out, but I think it could be a very cool solution. What do you guys think?

[lordoftheapes79]

This isn't a bad idea, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them do something similar in future expansions, but in this case opening the gates to ishgard is rightfully story driven. It's one that's been in the works since 1.0, that city looming over cch, for some nearly half a decade now, has been a long sought after destination. To allow people to hop right in after having waited years to see it would be a bit insulting. That said when we go to doma and ala migo for the first time a scenario like this is possible.

[Ditto]

The content gating 'issue' is not an 'issue' at all, it's just spoiled people who think that the subscription they're paying entitles them to have everything immediately, without any bit of work.

[Havenae]

The content gating 'issue' is not an 'issue' at all, it's just spoiled people who think that the subscription they're paying entitles them to have everything immediately, without any bit of work.

Actually it isn't right now. But it will be. As time rolls on and more expansions come, they can't expect fresh players to go through every bit of content from 2.0 on. Otherwise they should just expect to not get new customers.

Imagine, if you will, that today you just started an older MMO like wow or even Everquest, because you saw they had a cool new expansions out and you wanted to experience it. Now imagine if those games required you follow the main story from level 1 before you got to that expansion content. You're talking a decade or more of regular content. You'd likely reach it just before they were wrapping it up and everyone else who had been playing g was long past running it.

It's just not conducive to pulling in new customers. Right now it's not too bad although I'll grant you I've heard plenty of complaints already from new and returning players. They won't be able to pull this off again I the next one.

They at the very least need to remove some of the bloat quests from the main story.

[Felis]

Sooooooooooooooooooo my thought about this was... Let people start in ilvl90, and in ishgard at the intro for the story of heavensward. BUT!!! for each old phase of the game (in this case its 1.0 and ARR), make an interactive movie/storybook scenario.

Only if the players, who starting the game with Ishgard access, are still level 1 in ilevel 1 equip, starting still in the city with their starting class guild and can't do the 2.0-2.55 MSQ. They can enter Ishgard, but have to first level up to 50 to do quests there with no help of the 2.x MSQ exp they have choosed to skip.

[sirDarts]

While I do like the story book idea, I can't imagine letting everyone start at l50, i90, with access to the comparably harder dungeons in Ishgard.
Remember what Yoshi P said - the first 50 levels are a tutorial, slowly easing people into the game, into mechanics, etc.

I can't imagine a completely new player join Longstop, Cutter's Cry, or AV, let alone any of the HM dungeons. There might be a few that would handle it, but it's an insignificant number.

What I would like to see is a slow condensation of the "lower" levels.
This is partially already happening - new players level fast as hell using just MSQ, and get some of the best equips. IMO the journey from 1 to 50 on a new character is smooth sailing and not long at all.
What they could do in the future is to up the exp even more, and remove the "fetch" quests, in the end leaving only main story parts and dungeons. But dungeons have to ALL stay mandatory.

[odie]

I'm actually wanting people to have to work through the 2.0 half before getting to Heavensward. I know it sucks that you want to pick right up and be a dark knight right away but you cant. But a lot of these people are going to start in ishgard (i90 is probably way too low for the average player to just be heading in and fighting the new mobs in western coerthas) and a bunch of old mechanics and parts of the game that taught them how to play would be passed and ignored. You're basically giving someone a free level 50, they've never learned any of the skills they now have from the start, and they'll be in the dungeons before long making the runs incredibly miserable. I know you want all that stuff right away, but you're going to be hurting everyone else by letting this happen. I'd hate to be in this new content trying to teach a 50^ what their role is and how to play it so that we can get through content.

[Luvbunny]

I'm actually wanting people to have to work through the 2.0 half before getting to Heavensward. A ot of these people are going to start in ishgard (i90 is probably way too low for the average player to just be heading in and fighting the new mobs in western coerthas) and a bunch of old mechanics and parts of the game that taught them how to play would be passed and ignored. You're basically giving someone a free level 50, they've never learned any of the skills they now have from the start, and they'll be in the dungeons before long making the runs incredibly miserable. I know you want all that stuff right away, but you're going to be hurting everyone else by letting this happen. I'd hate to be in this new content trying to teach a 50^ what their role is and how to play it so that we can get through content.

I could not agree with you more. There are so many beautiful dungeons, each with their own mechanic that will be essential later on since 3.0 endgame starts to throw everything and the kitchen sinks at you with bazillion gazillion AOE everywhere and bunch of adds that needs to be burn down FAST by your DPS (assume they are not too tunnel vision auto random button mashings at the boss). This is already beyond casual and easy game for newbies and extremely friendly with handholding players, showing you areas, and starting mechanics.

Tanking as dark is another beast, it helps when you have already level paladin or warrior to at least 40-50. It makes the dungeons run so much smoother and enjoyable. There is absolutely zero reasons to aggravate your random party members by making dungeon runs longer than needed because "I am too new to read wiki and watch youtube - and frankly I have no clue what I am suppose to do, and oh I don't read any of my abilities tool tip, because you know, who has time to read when I just want to random buttons mashing."

They will probably do a condensed version of 2.0-3.0 later on when they launch the next expansion on 4.0, but for now, as new player, you have so much content to go through, you really do get your most bang for your bucks. Why not enjoy this, take your time and experience the games as is intended by the creator.

[randysquirrel]

I can't really support what would effectively be them dedicating resource to something just to accommodate a few whiners.
And completely agree with odie, we'd have level 50 people trying to run things without knowing anything at all about their role (it's bad enough already XD)

[Cid_Grim]

There is no issue. If people hate playing the game, maybe they shouldn't play it.

The developers should not work extra hard just so you can skip all their hard work.