Do you think the Next Expansion will be Gated Behind HW?

[aesteval]

good, keep the bots out forever.

There are bots in HW areas. Gil generating bots. Not spam bots.

[Jijifli]

Well, if it's going to not be behind 3.x Storylines... There is one storyline they probably need to take to a close before 4.0 comes out, the stuff with the Warriors of Darkness which is most likely worth a patch or two of storyline... Unless they really want them to just pop up from nowhere for people who didn't go through all the HW story...

I can see it now. It's not resolved by then, we go into 4.0, and someone who never did the HW stuff sees the WoD and go, "Who?" and complain about how SE's story just threw these random 5 dudes trying to kill us.

[Chessala]

Assuming the expansion will come in late Spring/ Early summer like HW, we still have a good 10 months to go. Only having one more patch in that time would be a killer for a game that lacks content like FFXIV does.

Honestly, I think it would be more important to remove the gate for HW and instead gate 4.0. IMO, that would be the logical step to take. I just leveled an alt at the 2.x-3.0 gate was killing the process so much that I couldn't continue for a long time. All the fetch quests.....

[Lulu89]

Yes it will be gated behind HW, but if what there trying to do pays off, HW won't be gated behind RR.
There's talk about them adding a lving potion to the MogStaton that lets you jump one job to HW and by pass all of RR story(jump to LV 50 for 1 Job pre toon & 2.55 Patch)
Again it just talk, but will see.

[Aylis]

From what I can recall on people from twitter saying about the devs stating that the expansion would be new and old player friendly alike. My best assumption is when 3.0 is finished, then so is that particular story and 4.0 will be some sort of transition story much like the transition from 1.0 to 2.0. The story will continue but will have a gap in it that will allow new players to come into it. That's my best guess.

[Xlantaa]

What I want to know is how will be. If people don't complete 3.X (or not buy it) will be under level 60, or level 50. How the hell they will do? 4.0 seems wil lbe 60-70 on levels. People which dont' buy Heavesnwar how wil llevel? Only doing leveling roulettes till have level 60 and go 4.0? Or they will get auto level 60 only for buy the expasion (ahem, stupid idea, ahem).

[MilesSaintboroguh]

Assuming the expansion will come in late Spring/ Early summer like HW, we still have a good 10 months to go. Only having one more patch in that time would be a killer for a game that lacks content like FFXIV does.

Honestly, I think it would be more important to remove the gate for HW and instead gate 4.0. IMO, that would be the logical step to take. I just leveled an alt at the 2.x-3.0 gate was killing the process so much that I couldn't continue for a long time. All the fetch quests.....

All you're doing is moving one gate to another. People that can grind through the MSQ now have to do all of 3.X to reach 4.0.

[Kaoru_Nagisa]

For a game that emphasises story, I worry how it could continue to make sense to people if they haven't done Heavensward's - if we have the WoDs show up, and more Ascian stuff that was touched upon in 3.0's lifetime but never fully explained, people who completely skip HW and go straight to 4.0 after finishing 2.0's storyline will be more than a little confused.. and I don't know how they'd even explain it, either, since the final story patches of 2.0's lifetime were very clearly leading people towards Ishgard and thus to Heavensward's storyline.

Even if 4.0's storyline differed slightly depending on whether Heavensward was finished or not, the 2.55 storyline will still be a little confusing, for it to shepherd people to Ishgard only for them to be able to completely ignore it and go to wherever 4.0 leads (Gyr Abania, more than likely).

[Nalien]

I'd like a scenario in which 4.0 (and beyond) does both;

Give us an entirely new plot development, lets say 4.0 we can go to Thavnairia and it has its own story, completely independent from the current MSQ, and that's where all new Jobs are, as such people can pick up the expansion and just play that part. You can go there and enjoy it without even doing 2.55, although for this example that might create some conflicts, given some of the Scions were hiding out in Thavnairia.

Meanwhile, 3.5s plot developments are also continued elsewhere, presumably Ala Mhigo. Could even eventually tie the two together, have a point in the MSQ where the Thavnairian story is a requirement, and bring in those characters to the MSQ.

[aesteval]

For a game that emphasises story, I worry how it could continue to make sense to people if they haven't done Heavensward's

I'm personally conflicted about the storyline focus and having all players experience the full story themself vs the capability of a growing and persistent world. From a world building standpoint - life continues to go on whether the player is present or not. The world is capable of changing. I'm actually a little bit disappointed at the focus on the player character being the center of everything vs a living and changing world that the player is part of.