The new player experience and how FFXIV fails as an MMO.

[Carin-Eri]

Runescape 3 started doing this and its actually kind of nice. They let you do 6th age story quests before you complete the 5th ones but RECOMMENDS you complete 5th age story first. Not 100% sure its the right solution, but I would probably propose a hybrid between WoW in FF

WoW forces you to accelerate to the current expansion.
FF forces you to crawl through 6 expansions of story to play content that isn't either dungeons or dead.
Why not create an accelerated path that perhaps catches you up to DT or whatever the current expansion is but gives the option to take the slow-msq route?

Oddly, it feels as if they could have done what many thought they might - namely let new players actually start from Dawntrail.

When you consider the facts that Dawntrail:
- Makes pretty much no reference to anything that came before Tural
- basically withdrew our 'Warrior of Light' title (I don't recall it being used at all, even by those who referred to our character by that title previously)
- Turned the Scions into generic friends
- Doesn't give us any narrative reason to return to Eoreza

I mean, considering the fact that it seems as if they went out of their way to ignore everything that happened prior to Tural/Dawntrail it does seem confusing that they didn't create a 'new player point'.

[Daralii]

Oddly, it feels as if they could have done what many thought they might - namely let new players actually start from Dawntrail.

When you consider the facts that Dawntrail:
- Makes pretty much no reference to anything that came before Tural
- basically withdrew our 'Warrior of Light' title (I don't recall it being used at all, even by those who referred to our character by that title previously)
- Turned the Scions into generic friends
- Doesn't give us any narrative reason to return to Eoreza

I mean, considering the fact that it seems as if they went out of their way to ignore everything that happened prior to Tural/Dawntrail it does seem confusing that they didn't create a 'new player point'.

Vrtra's cameo wouldn't have made any sense, though that scene doesn't make any sense anyway.

[Carin-Eri]

Vrtra's cameo wouldn't have made any sense, though that scene doesn't make any sense anyway.

Somewhat - I mean, the reference to Radz-at-Han wouldn't mean anything to someone who hadn't played Endwalker, and it certainly wouldn't have the same impact as it did on those of us who know who Vrtra is, but otherwise there isn't really anything else in the scene that requires knowledge of the pre-Dawntrail MSQ.

[Altina_Orion]

Somewhat - I mean, the reference to Radz-at-Han wouldn't mean anything to someone who hadn't played Endwalker, and it certainly wouldn't have the same impact as it did on those of us who know who Vrtra is, but otherwise there isn't really anything else in the scene that requires knowledge of the pre-Dawntrail MSQ.

Even so, it doesn't particularly matter. I would imagine SE would give the option to start on ARR or start on DT and wouldn't force the DT route. If you wanted all the context and the story was the primary reason you started, you would naturally start ARR. If you wanted to raid or do other endgame activities and story was secondary, you likely accept that you will miss out on some details.

[Daralii]

Even so, it doesn't particularly matter. I would imagine SE would give the option to start on ARR or start on DT and wouldn't force the DT route. If you wanted all the context and the story was the primary reason you started, you would naturally start ARR. If you wanted to raid or do other endgame activities and story was secondary, you likely accept that you will miss out on some details.

The trend I've seen in a few games now is either an option on character creation or an option after the tutorial, with some having both.