Quote Originally Posted by Loony BoB View Post
I'm surprised Jeuno wasn't around when the game was first out. Oh well. I still think it's a sham that Ishgard is completely locked. I was really looking forward to the first level 50 user posting screenshots, but then... it just didn't happen. Gutting.
A local friend of mine, KrsJin, played Final Fantasy XI and Final Fantasy XIV by importing it as soon as it became available in Japan. From what I have gathered in his comments about both games, it sounds like they were released in a similar fashion with a key difference.

Final Fantasy XI lacked significant content in its original release in a similar way. Only six job classes were available. Only missions that led up to Rank 5 were available. This was enough to keep people interested for the months to come. The Japanese players acted as a type of beta test in a way, because the game was not released outside of Japan for some time until an expansion pack had been released and more job classes and quests were available from the start of the game.