really? If you play any MMO there is time gated stuff... like in ff14 right now, Halloween event. Yeah it might no be the same but its content they consider "Event" worthy. Give you something to do every couple of weeks instead of being bored for 5 weeks waiting for "Hard" And if hard mode was there from the start, About 80% of people would probably be done with this game and off some where else waiting for something new.