"New Prologue Zone: We want to teach people about the lore behind the Island of Dawn (and throw them into some action), so we created an entirely new tutorial zone that serves as the precursor to the current Island of Dawn experience."

Simple question regarding this new addition to the game. Will it be the new starting zone[period] or will it be optional if someone doesn't care to go through a tutorial zone? I think it's a great idea but once the game has been out for a bit, people making alts might not feel the need to go through this zone anymore.

no one knows... afaik its not even in KR/JAP

We will only know by open beta.

My guess is that it will be optional. Not all of us will want to re-live our first rodeo over and over again. The nice thing about this is that it will allow the developers to avoid a lot of the immersion-breaking dialogue introducing combat and training mechanics on the Isle of Dawn. If we're lucky, they'll put that silly bombing quest there, too.