FFXI/FFXIV subscription discount

So it seems the following is SE's plan to give a "discount" for those who want to play both games

http://www.playonline.com/ff11eu/top...xiv/index.html

o_O Hurray so I can do this 3 times and that's it lol. Not much a discount to encourage people who might have interest in both. So ya, let's see if I have the math right

On january if you only have one character that's 12.99
Then on March/April/May it'll be 7 dolalrs each.

So For XI instead of paying 51.96 it'll be 33.99

Now if you pickup the 90 day pack for XIV that would be 5.99(17.97) then add in 3 dollars for each 30 day char slot for 26.97.

So basically if you are interested in trying out XIV for 3 months while keeping XI active the difference will be 9 dollars. 60.96 would be the total compared to the 51.96 you are paying now.

While honestly SE should have done all this number crunching if they wanted to entice people to play but to put it in perspective you can think of it as playing XIV for 3 dollars a month if you are curious to see the changes within the three months.

While I think it would be wiser to come up with a more stable discount it's better then nothing and I figured I"d throw it out there since it is a good deal honestly if you wanna dink around in another realm for a bit lol. Never know maybe the changes they make in the next three months might be interesting.

it's currently unknown exactly what will happen, but I hope they don't think just because people tested their game for so long that they can go back on the combo discount they originally promised.

Wow, XI players get a "discount" for a game they've been financially supporting for well over a year now to begin with. How generous.

In other news, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ziyyigo-Tipyigo

Wow, XI players get a "discount" for a game they've been financially supporting for well over a year now to begin with. How generous.

In other news, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

---

Pretty much - they should at least give current FF11 players a chance to add FF14 for a mere one dollar. It is so cheap that most people will probably end up doing it just to see what's the fuss about - and if the updates are any good. And get the current FF11 players hooked and ready for transition when Version 2.0 is launched end of next year. By then, the game has become an investment in time and will be hard to just stop play. Not to mention seeing what is coming to FF11 vs FF14, which is a huge difference in tone, attitude, and vision.

Check Yoshi's regular letters on what he planned for FF14 and you will see what I am talking about. The man even made youtube videos detailing all of it. This guy gives it all when it comes to communicating and making sure that the players are well taken care of.

The fact that the discount is only temporary speaks volumes to their intentions with this.

It's not about enticing players to play both games. It's just about pulling subscribers from one game to the other as opposed to trying to attract a new fan base.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

it's currently unknown exactly what will happen, but I hope they don't think just because people tested their game for so long that they can go back on the combo discount they originally promised.

---

The combo discount originally offered was never going to be permanent in the first place. It was always only going to be for the three month period. The actual discount plan itself has not changed at all. It was always going to be 7 dollars for ffxi while both subs were active for three months.

Now I know you're the type of person who needs proof for everything so I'm sure if you Google a bit you can find the old discount article.

Edit: did not find the SE article but this should be good enough. Link

Still wont make me play 14 even if that's accurate. You gotta do a lot better than the options currently available. Hell I thank you for allowing me to purchase Crysta in a specific amount though. It let me get the perfect amount so I wont have lost any money when I finally quit in January >.>

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Greatguardian

The fact that the discount is only temporary speaks volumes to their intentions with this.

It's not about enticing players to play both games. It's just about pulling subscribers from one game to the other as opposed to trying to attract a new fan base.

---

I'm more partial to it just being plain incompetence myself, since proposing a plan to spend millions of dollars making a new game to keep the same subscribers you already had is either going full retard or incredibly generous.

Clearly it's the latter!

@Vivik: Here's the announcement from POL, in Aug. 2010
http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/topics/ffxiv/

Quote:

---

Players with both an active FINAL FANTASY XI service account and an active FINAL FANTASY XIV service account will be able to discount their FINAL FANTASY XI monthly service fees from $12.95 to $7.00 for up to three months.
* You are only eligible if you have linked your PlayOnline ID to your Square Enix account.

* This discount is available from January 14, 2012 to May 11, 2012. Please note that once this period has ended, the discount will no longer apply.



Billing checks will be performed on January 13, February 12, March 13, and April 12. If both FINAL FANTASY XI and FINAL FANTASY XIV are being billed at the time of the check, FINAL FANTASY XI's service fees on the next billing date will be discounted

---

It continues on with a graph to demonstrate and the list of disclaimers and such.

What happens if you have 4 FFXI accounts and 2 FFXIV accounts signed up to the same SE ID?
All 4 FFXI accounts are cheap for 6 months? all 4 cheap for 3 months? 2 cheap for 3 months? 2 cheap for 6 months? 1 cheap for 6 months? 1 cheap for 3 months?

Quote:

---

The combo discount originally offered was never going to be permanent in the first place.

---

I'm aware of this, but it still never actually took effect because of the lack of fees being charged. They still owe it to the players who want to play or give FFXIV a chance but don't want to abandon FFXI.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

I'm aware of this, but it still never actually took effect because of the lack of fees being charged. They still owe it to the players who want to play or give FFXIV a chance but don't want to abandon FFXI.

---

Is that not what they are doing? Or did I miss something?

There's no way in hell I would pay SE to play FF14 given how they have treated us as paying customers of FF11 right now. And there's absolutely no reasons for me to believe that they would change their mind set, which is:

1. We're right and you as paying customers dont know any better so just stfu and play the game the way 'we' (as in SE) intended it to be. Even though we now finally have an official customer facing public forum to collect customers' feedback, those only gets read by the rep and nothing meaningful from the feedback will ever be considered by the 'producers' in further game adjustments because we know what we're doing better than the customers who actually play the damn game.

2. We (SE) biased against certain regional players. When caught, we just stick our head into the sand and pretend the complainting doesnt' exits. When ask for a clarification, silence is our answer to the paying customers.

3. Your subscription fee will and can be used for development of a completely different game while we will gut the development team down to the core numbers only so the game would have some sort of fake progressions consisting of "new development of reskinned zones" and more "time sink events that 99.99% of the time only drops logs and ores or other meaningless items to the players".

What it boils down to is if you want to play both
month plan its $16.99
3 month plan $15.99
6 month plan $14.99

If you get the best deal the 6 month plan really only paying $2 a month for FFXIV.

Vote with your wallet - as usual this provide more incentive to the developers than any rants or feedback. It snapped them from their vacuum when droves of people abandoned FF14 and the numbers gave them a heart attack. Mr T was sacked, shamed, and forced to apologize publicly - and was given FF11 back, lucky for us... I do like Yoshi and hope he will do great job revamping FF14.

We actually lucky SE didn't pull a Star Wars shut down their old game in favor of the new one. Swtor is coming out so they decide to shut down the old starwars mmo Star Wars Galaxies.

They shut down star wars galaxies because it sucked and hardly anyone was playing it. It just wasn't cost effective. FFXI still has a tonne of subscribers and they are making money so are keeping it going. This isn't a star wars galaxies scenario yet.

Abyssea instilled a TONNE of confidence back into the development team and that's why a lot of people are still playing and some have come back. However their blunt comments saying pretty much that Abyssea was a bad idea as it meant that we would expect more of the same has dented their reputation.

I highly doubt that FFXI will ever get the treatment that it deserves - that WE deserve. The development team just doesn't either have the time/manpower/ability or just don't feel they need to give us anything since most people will play anyways hoping that the game will continue to evolve. All it seems to be getting is a haircut every once and a while.

Giving FFXIV bells and whistles while leaving FFXI behind is also not helping the situation - further along the road FFXIV is going to get the same treatment as FFXI and be kicked around and eventually replaced by something else and just get occasional haircuts.

I personally have lost confidence that this company will ever be able to fix FFXI or FFXIV - mostly based on development policy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Greatguardian

The fact that the discount is only temporary speaks volumes to their intentions with this.

It's not about enticing players to play both games. It's just about pulling subscribers from one game to the other as opposed to trying to attract a new fan base.

---

Well it will fail hard if that is their intention. I will probably do this though, because I do like to check out patches and I've essentially said over and over again that if they offered the combo I would give it a whirl. Depends on how much the game sucks once they remove 75% of all the skills from every class...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Olor

Well it will fail hard if that is their intention. I will probably do this though, because I do like to check out patches and I've essentially said over and over again that if they offered the combo I would give it a whirl. Depends on how much the game sucks once they remove 75% of all the skills from every class...

---

It's pretty much the underlying problem with all SE overseas marketing tactics.

They don't advertise for their god damn MMOs. They just expect their existing fanbase to keep buying their shit over and over and over again. This is a big part of why the fresh blood for FFXI dried up so quickly. Practically no one knew that this game existed outside of existing SE/FF fans. At this point, aside from the occasional rare exception, the only "New" players are just old players who are trying the game out again. There is no new blood, no influx into the market, nothing - and SE does not even try to change this.

Hell, some of the only people who knew about FFXIV before it became a huge, media-spanning flop, were FFXI players and FF fans (eg, existing market base again). Until XIV flopped hardcore, it was fairly clear to all parties involved that SE's plan was to just slowly phase players over from XI over to XIV. This makes absolutely no sense to me. Why do they insist on rearranging their market rather than expanding it? They're not actually gaining any subscribers by having people swap MMOs.

tl;dr, Camate, please tell your bosses to tell their bosses that some college kid on the internet says that they should really stop trying to push FFXIV onto FFXI players and, you know, push it onto people who aren't already paying them every month instead.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vivik

Is that not what they are doing? Or did I miss something?

---

Are they? Because I thought the whole reason this thread existed is because we don't know if they're going to do it or not.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Greatguardian

tl;dr, Camate, please tell your bosses to tell their bosses that some college kid on the internet says that they should really stop trying to push FFXIV onto FFXI players and, you know, push it onto people who aren't already paying them every month instead.

---

I second that motion.

On the bright side I had quit XI years before... and it was XIV flopping which brought me back.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

Are they? Because I thought the whole reason this thread existed is because we don't know if they're going to do it or not.

---

I think maybe you need to go back and read the OP. Maybe click on the link and look at the dates.

I totally didn't notice that it now says 2012 and not 2011. :p

In this case, it's good for me, because the new team has been taking the game in a good direction, so it's an incentive for me to see where it's going to go from here. It's a good point though, that they really shouldn't have been trying to market it to FFXI players in the first place.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wish12oz

What happens if you have 4 FFXI accounts and 2 FFXIV accounts signed up to the same SE ID?
All 4 FFXI accounts are cheap for 6 months? all 4 cheap for 3 months? 2 cheap for 3 months? 2 cheap for 6 months? 1 cheap for 6 months? 1 cheap for 3 months?

---

Anyone know?

Not for absolute sure, but I'm pretty sure it's a 1:1 ratio for accounts recieving the discount. As for how long, it's simply if those accounts are active when they do the check.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dreamin

There's no way in hell I would pay SE to play FF14 given how they have treated us as paying customers of FF11 right now. And there's absolutely no reasons for me to believe that they would change their mind set, which is:

1. We're right and you as paying customers dont know any better so just stfu and play the game the way 'we' (as in SE) intended it to be. Even though we now finally have an official customer facing public forum to collect customers' feedback, those only gets read by the rep and nothing meaningful from the feedback will ever be considered by the 'producers' in further game adjustments because we know what we're doing better than the customers who actually play the damn game.

2. We (SE) biased against certain regional players. When caught, we just stick our head into the sand and pretend the complainting doesnt' exits. When ask for a clarification, silence is our answer to the paying customers.

3. Your subscription fee will and can be used for development of a completely different game while we will gut the development team down to the core numbers only so the game would have some sort of fake progressions consisting of "new development of reskinned zones" and more "time sink events that 99.99% of the time only drops logs and ores or other meaningless items to the players".

---

--------

Amen

This is assuming that in January when the subscription plan for FF14 comes into play that there isn't a mass exodus forcing SE to just shut it down like they should have done a year ago.

Sometimes it is better to cut and run. They are using their pride as a shovel to dig a deeper hole.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by xbobx

This is assuming that in January when the subscription plan for FF14 comes into play that there isn't a mass exodus forcing SE to just shut it down like they should have done a year ago.

Sometimes it is better to cut and run. They are using their pride as a shovel to dig a deeper hole.

---

Sometimes it's better to keep going anyway, such that you might polish your skills and learn to make a game that actually is good. If they simply waited another year to release it (it was one of the silliest things i'd ever seen to release the game at almost the same time as FFXIII even if it was totally ready for release) we most likely wouldn't be ridiculing them the way we are now. Then again, maybe not, because regardless of the quality or lack thereof of FFXIV, the probability is high that if you're posting on this forum, you hate it just for it existing, whether it's good or not.

They still have a chance- All Points Bulletin, a game that had its plug pulled suddenly within 90 days of its release, has recently been re-launched by a new team and seems to be going well (though one of the primary reasons was the original developers lacked the financial capital to support the game long enough for it to have any chance of making a profit, rather than it just being bad)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by wish12oz

What happens if you have 4 FFXI accounts and 2 FFXIV accounts signed up to the same SE ID?
All 4 FFXI accounts are cheap for 6 months? all 4 cheap for 3 months? 2 cheap for 3 months? 2 cheap for 6 months? 1 cheap for 6 months? 1 cheap for 3 months?

---

If you have 4 FFXI accounts, and 2 FFXIV accounts all on the same SE ID, 2 of the 4 FFXI accounts will get the discount and the other 2 will not. It's a 1 for 1 pairing of service accounts.

The FFXI accounts to receive the discount will be the first 2 due to be billed after the check is run. If the FFXI accounts are all due to be charged the same day, the 2 receiving the discount will be chosen at random.

Once you have received 3 discounts per pairing, the discounts will end.

Also, the whole promotion ends by May 12. No discounts will occur after that date even if you haven't yet received 3 discounts on a pairing.

So for your list of possible answers, it would be 2 cheap for 3 months.

Just don't play till 2.0. Save even MORE!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xellith

Just don't play till 2.0. Save even MORE!

---

There will be exclusive content between now and 2.0 that only current subscribers will be able to go through. Once 2.0 comes out, that story arc comes to an end and the world changes.

Hahaha the discount is temporary are they serious? It's like they enjoy bad PR.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alhanelem

There will be exclusive content between now and 2.0 that only current subscribers will be able to go through. Once 2.0 comes out, that story arc comes to an end and the world changes.

---

Paying for a beta just for a few digital items that might not even be that good and hoping that the game is actually playable by 2.0 is not enough reason to play at this time. I mean a one time story until the 2.0 sounds fun on paper but if its implemented with the way the game currently is then its still just the beta.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Xellith

Paying for a beta just for a few digital items that might not even be that good and hoping that the game is actually playable by 2.0 is not enough reason to play at this time. I mean a one time story until the 2.0 sounds fun on paper but if its implemented with the way the game currently is then its still just the beta.

---

They would be better off making it a package deal where you pay $1-2 dollars more to have both games. As you said, it is still in beta - the low price will make the FF11 players not noticing and play FF14 out of sheer curiosity, once they have invested over a year and if 2.0 indeed is a game changer, these subscribers will be more reluctant to quit. And since it cost them very little, they will continue to pay for both games - easy money for SE.