Quote Originally Posted by Brill_ View Post
This is something they need to address. Yoshi P states they are planning another 10 years of FFXIV. They are going to need to create entry points into the story. The entire game is locked behind MSQ. How will the game attract new players when a new player will be facing weeks/months of watching cutscenes before they can actually play the game? The story is the core of the game, yes, but it's also a video game. There's people that will want to actually play a video game. This isn't really an issue of skipping the story. They should be able to do it concurrently with other things. If 7.0 is a new story, then that should be able to be started without finishing Endwalker. Let the player work on both. Pop a warning that things will be spoiled, but let them choose to proceed. With each expansion the story gets longer. Having to go through the entire story as prerequisite to actually play the game will likely put keep some from playing the game.

If could actually play the game along side the story(like in FFXI) this would be less of an issue. Locking everything behind MSQ will be problematic for the MMO part of this game down the road.
The difference, I think, is the actual philosophy behind the game and the types of people it's marketed toward. FFXIV isn't marketed toward the eSports crowd that just wants to rush to endgame. It's intended for people who actually want to play through a game with an amazing story, and who are all about the journey rather than just getting to max level. Many of the recent changes with trusts and the like are designed specifically to attract people who are fans of single-player RPG's (including other FF games). Show them that they have hours of an incredible story ahead of them, and that's a selling point, not a deterrent. Watching those cutscenes IS playing the game. (And frankly, I think some people absurdly, absurdly over-inflate the amount of cutscenes there really are. There's a TON of gameplay between them.)