Quote Originally Posted by Gyson View Post
I don't see a world where the story is essentially shelved and this game becomes another WoW-clone.
Is anyone asking for that? The issue keeps getting framed as a binary one where the story has to overshadow every other part of the game or it has to be irrelevant. Those are only the most extreme options. The length of the story stops having downsides when it stops interfering with the MMO side of the game. I also don't see any benefit to making the story required when it comes to player interest. If anything, letting the player choose when to engage with the story should lead to the least burnout because there are no competing goals like trying to catch up with friends.

Going back and changing the structure of the game from ARR to DT would be a lot of work so there might not be many feasible ways to make changes there, but the future is an open book and I think the game could benefit a lot from allowing more player freedom and interaction.