Originally Posted by
Petridish
I think forcing people into a progression path is exactly what should be needed.
People should *have* to do T1 and T2 content (all of it) before moving up to T3. Otherwise what's to stop them hitting 80 and rocking up with no knowledge of what raiding is about, or being extremely poorly geared? Nothing. At least making them do T1 and T2 will (hopefully) teach them the ropes about how to play in a raiding environment, and garner them a few epics along the way.
Funcom seemingly removed the progression lockouts to assist those people that play many alts (so you don't have to do T2 on every character in order to take it into T3), but their introduction of AA falls afoul of that premise (i.e. Funcom seem to suggest for people to focus on a single character).
Granted, this gets a bit muddy with the addition of the Khitai dungeons because the gear is generally better than T2 gear, yet it hasn't required you to raid to achieve it. So the gear would be there, but not the experience.
If a very casual player does not want to follow that progression path, then that's fine. But they have no place in T3 in that case. They will cause nothing but problems.