I am extremely concerned about this

[DrForester]

Admittedly a much smaller scale, but they made it work with all the players who didn't complete 1.0.

I think it could work. The Hydaelyn/Zodiark story is pretty much done with (I'm sure the 4 outstanding Convocation members will show up at some point). They can start a new story with 7.0 and just adjust dialog like they did with the 1.0 WOL for all the people who aren't the 1.0 WOL.

I do question 6.1 as a starting point though. I did enjoy 6.x's story, but even though it's not something major to the story, I feel like Zero's backstory as Zeno's familiar will be tough to explain.


In the end, there will be many, many people urging players to complete the MSQ from the start. At the same time, every expansion makes it a bit tougher sell to say "Hey, try out this game. There's a few hundred hours of MSQ to get caught up with!"

[Iscah]

Admittedly a much smaller scale, but they made it work with all the players who didn't complete 1.0.

I think it could work. The Hydaelyn/Zodiark story is pretty much done with (I'm sure the 4 outstanding Convocation members will show up at some point). They can start a new story with 7.0 and just adjust dialog like they did with the 1.0 WOL for all the people who aren't the 1.0 WOL.

I do question 6.1 as a starting point though. I did enjoy 6.x's story, but even though it's not something major to the story, I feel like Zero's backstory as Zeno's familiar will be tough to explain.

Nothing Yoshida has said on the matter suggests that a jump to 6.1 (if implemented) would involve an ARR-style alternate narrative if you didn't play the preceding storyline.

Additionally, unless starting in such a way would also lock people out of accessing NG+, it would cause a narrative mess if someone started to go back and play those quests if they're not supposed to be part of their character's backstory.

It's not at all the same situation as 1.0 where everyone is equally and permanently barred off from ever accessing it again, and with a relatively small amount of story lost.

I expect and hope that any potential "story skip" is exactly that – a skip and not an erasure of the past games' storylines, no different functionally from the story skips sold in the online store.