After mentioning the need to look into some kind of 'Level Up Potion', Executive Producer of Final Fantasy XIV - Naoki Yoshida - took to the game's official forums last week to discuss the possibility of offering these services in the near future.
While for some it may seem a surprise to hear of an MMO offering a way to exchange real cash for quicker access to its latest content, it's a necessary evil in most cases when a game has just become too long for newcomers to catch up with.
Final Fantasy XIV is around 6 months away from its second main expansion. Going into version 4.0 toward the middle of next year, newcomers to the game will have over 3 years of content to push through should the current leveling experience stay the same going into the Stormblood add-on. But with the help of a 'boost' offered for around £35, new players - or those switching to alts - may be able to take their characters all the way to the entry point of the game's current expansion without having to put in the dozens of hours necessary to reach the game's level cap and run through years of story quests.
The last two patches of the current Heavensward expansion will ease us into the next.
Though some existing players would worry the service would mean a rapid increase in high-level characters attempting to run difficult content without a solid grasp of the game's mechanics, others understand how it would prove difficult for the community to grow if it expected every potential player to go through what is essentially 2-3 average length JRPGs just to play with their friends.
The service is already available in places like China and Korea where the MMO scene is handled very differently. There's no exact time-frame of when to expect the new buys (if it happens at all), but it would be a handy thing to advertise during the marketing campaign of next year's Stormblood expansion.
