Jynx, I understand you see leveling as an accomplishment and that's great for you. Many people feel a great deal of accomplishment for reaching paramounts in a virtual world. I'm not taking a shot at that and I think they should have that right.

But, it needs to come from an element that is not mandatory such as a player's level. The only result of this will be a reduction in players at the appropriate level to work with. It absolutely will not by any means extend the life of the game by any significant amount. Even if you doubled the time required to get to 50 all that would do is extend it a month x each class which at best gives you 7-8 months of longevity for someone to level every class.

I say this with 7 years of FFXI and at the end I only had 2 lvl 75s. Level played absolutely no part in my playing the game for 7 years. On the other side I knew people who quit the game with 6+ jobs at 75 after only a year. In my opinion your point is moot.

It's not even calling it hardcore, it's simply masochistic. I'm not asking for something to be awarded to me for being a more casual player or that I deserve to get what everyone else gets. I think that hard work should yield better rewards and as for content, yes Hard Mode should be hard in that not everyone can do it without the same effort. But just to enjoy the content they paid for? Hell the **** no that's just asinine.