I promise I'm not trolling you. :)
The trapped-in-a-game sequence is there for a few reasons, I wanted to introduce each character's fantasy, I wanted to introduce some concepts/ground rules for how the sim stuff will work, I needed a time-skip for the sort of soft reset that happens as of the end of the last release, and it's where the big break in Qai's path happens.
For the most part, the rest of the game will take place in the 'real world'. Instead of getting thrown into characters' sims, aspects of their sims will be bleeding into 'reality'.
So, no, you couldn't have avoided all that bullshit. Sorry.