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

[SirDiscoFrog]

There are no credible sources for either of us to cite.

However its very apparent the game is doing fine with the story in place.
If SE lost so many subs due to story gating it would have been noticeable. So many of these forum posts are people speaking for a friend or hopping on the bandwagon of 'but what about new players?' or 'I did it and I have no problem doing it.....but id rather not' and they usually happen in a surge because 1 is posted and stays on page #1 for long enough and then boom all of a sudden there are 5 posts about MSQ when last week not a soul cared. And yes some have quit due to the story gate, but most of them left in the first place for a different reason. I could agree with the fact that people wont quit if story was made optional but that would still annoy those of us who HAD to do it(and honestly just that could cause people to quit). And in a game that is mostly story driven, it would make no sense to make the story optional. I mean the MSQ gives a TON of exp for your first 1-60.

I will say through if they trim the fat in the MSQ that would be okay, but even then sometimes its a nice break from all the actiony action drama drama. Part of making a good story for anything is allowing the player to rest and absorb what they've seen/read/played.

I do NOT want to see XIV take WoWs route where the game is so jumbled around with broken timelines that it no longer makes sense, even for the people that were there from the beginning.

I'd also rather this not be the case. I enjoy seeing the conversations in Mor Dhona with theories about the MSQ and just people in general discussing it in the game/outside the game even. The moment the MSQ becomes lost in the void, XIV just turns into another MMO and less of a Final Fantasy game.