not quiet sure what all the drama is about, but I would like reply to the original question. Simple Answer, YES. As far as slowing down lvling, soo what? even if they slowed it down by 50% anyone can solo to 50 in a week at least , and thats with 4-6 hour days. this game is missing the presenence of one simple factor that keeps gamers playing, that factor is, a sense of acomplisment. The only real sense of acomplishment right is building a kick ass set of gear. Wich dosent realy apply considering that if a player soo wished, they could buy their gil and then buy their gear. Some of the droped gear is nice but the rest is kinda just a trophey imo. I have no inventory space for tropheys much less time to attain them. I am too busy trying to build doh/dol jobs in order to build my own gear without spending every gil i save. YAWN!!! I will say, I am looking foward to (Extreme) Ifrit, just hope there is no "speed run" reward. Wana give hard core players an insentive? Just make the fight a challange for even the best geared , talented players and call it good. by adding a speed run mode, they take away from their own ability to tune a fight to epic standards. Make Ifrit hit like CC, regen twice as fast as hard mode, and take half the damage, hell if they wanted to realy fuck with the hard core players , se could make Ifrit invunerable to magic damage , LMFAO! I can hear the crys now. Let the ; ; begin...