Naoki Yoshida's Comment in Regard to Jump Potions/Boost Potions

For the role player, the adventure is what matters. Experiencing the story, characters, trials and struggles make the game fun and exciting. In an MMO, other players are necessary to facilitate this. I can personally attest to playing an older MMO for the story but being pushed out by the lack of players doing old content. Nothing turns a new role player off from an MMO like logging into the newbie areas and finding empty fields and silent chats. Boosting players to 50 removes them from the potential player pool of old content. This is completely out of the hands of a newly joining role player. They can't stop others from abandoning them to the newbie areas.

Food for thought.

I think the jump potion is necessary to get players to be able to skip to the start of an expansion. Its not like they are getting bumped up to 70, so there is still a grind. It the western side of the world it will be more widely used than the eastern, which will result in a big reduction in leveling roulette. I just hope it doesnt result in them using the next relic quest to accomodate for Jump potion users.

I simply just don't think it is a good idea. I believe they are underestimating exactly how lazy NA is. These low percentile numbers they've posted from the Korean/Chinese player bases talking about the number of players who actually purchase the potions can be expected to be doubled at the very least. And the large portion of Korean/Chinese players who still progressed the hard way despite access to the potions? They can expect that number to be MUCH lower from the NA players.

When you feed people with a silver spoon, they don't develop the appreciation on how that spoon was acquired in the first place. They reject anything other than that silver spoon going forward. This is nothing more than a cash crop, and apparently SE is willing compromise the integrity of their own work for a bountiful harvest. It's all about quantity of subscribers, not quality. Hope those of you that are pro-potions are ok with that.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

When you feed people with a silver spoon, they don't develop the appreciation on how that spoon was acquired in the first place. They reject anything other than that silver spoon going forward. This is nothing more than a cash crop, and apparently SE is willing compromise the integrity of their own work for a bountiful harvest. It's all about quantity of subscribers, not quality. Hope those of you that are pro-potions are ok with that.

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And what makes a "quality" sub? They leveled uphill both ways in the snow? They spent 8 hours watching cutscenes? None of that matters when they're in my DF group.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

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If it means keeping the game interesting enough to attract new players to play, so that we won't eventually start to see a steep decline of everyday subscribed players, then honestly yes.

My personal experience won't be bothered by it. That point is obvious seeing all the new stuff the Dev team has been working on, even throughout the idea of a jump potion being added.

What WILL bother my experience is starting to see that we are getting less and less content in our free patches, as well also seeing those patches having an increase in the amount of time it takes for them to come out. Starting to see more assets being reused, and less new ideas even being tried. That is something that will definitely happen if the dev team do not have the means to create this content, and by "means" i mean money.

and in a world where modern MMO's are basically the most unpopular type of game in existence right now, more specifically one you have to buy AND pay a subscription for every month, yes, subscribers are everything.

the most popular MMO to date even lets you play its latest content without you really needing to do anything, cause it would have been really dumb for it make you play any content from WoD, or Mists

As I said previously, I'd burned out to the point I went so far as to cancel my service account - and I'd had two fighting roles at 60 (DRG and WHM), previous, and had Grandmaster of the Hand and Land, though undergeared for the truly tricky crafts. Was running Void Ark and first Alexander for gear.

So. I'm back, and crawling back up through the MSQ in anticipation of Stormblood. I am doing the run-around for the Titan fight now. Cringing in dismay thinking ahead to the run-around for Garuda.

I know one thing for sure. Running back through the story again, gives one a sure and certain appreciation - really - for JUST HOW MUCH STORY (main and otherwise) there is, in this game. Holy catfish!

:)

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Originally Posted by dragonseth07

And what makes a "quality" sub? They leveled uphill both ways in the snow? They spent 8 hours watching cutscenes? None of that matters when they're in my DF group.

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A quality sub is someone who is loyal and cares about the community, the integrity, and the prosperity of the game. A quality sub still cares about every single person in their DF group despite the fact that they won't see them again because they are part of the community as a whole. Now that is not a crack at you, or meant to imply that you are not a quality subscriber. It is only meant to hopefully open your eyes to a different perspective.

It isn't even about the leveling, or experiencing the story through progression. It's about acquiring quality subscribers that enhance the experience of those who do play the game. It's about not hanging up the game the moment things get grindy, and then complaining about it and the lack of content in the game when a big chunk of it was left behind. Quality and quantity are not synonymous. You do not get one without sacrificing the other.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

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I can appreciate your sentiment even if I disagree. But I'm going to venture a guess here that it really doesn't matter to SE. The $14.99 of a "quality" sub is worth just as much to them as "non-quality" sub and your comment does alienate people. There are folks that play this game just to play with their close circle of friends and don't involve themselves in the community or care much about the game as a whole since they only want to play with that group of 2-3 friends, by your logic they do not qualify as a "quality" sub. But I don't think SE cares, they make just as much money on either person.

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Originally Posted by Khalithar

I can appreciate your sentiment even if I disagree. But I'm going to venture a guess here that it really doesn't matter to SE. The $14.99 of a "quality" sub is worth just as much to them as "non-quality" sub and your comment does alienate people. There are folks that play this game just to play with their close circle of friends and don't involve themselves in the community or care much about the game as a whole since they only want to play with that group of 2-3 friends, by your logic they do not qualify as a "quality" sub. But I don't think SE cares, they make just as much money on either person.

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And that is perfectly fine if SE feels that way. However, they should know that their MMO won't be much different from any other one out there. They have been passionate in the past about providing a unique experience to the mmo community, and I would begin to feel that my faith in SE has been misplaced. I'm sure others will too.

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Originally Posted by Gemina

A quality sub is someone who is loyal and cares about the community, the integrity, and the prosperity of the game. A quality sub still cares about every single person in their DF group despite the fact that they won't see them again because they are part of the community as a whole. Now that is not a crack at you, or meant to imply that you are not a quality subscriber. It is only meant to hopefully open your eyes to a different perspective.

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"Quality" subs, as you put it, pay the same as everyone else. I've played a lot of MMO's with very dedicated, very loyal fanbases, that died horrible deaths. A small dedicated playerbase doesn't pay for servers. A large playerbase does.

I've seen the deaths of lots of MMO's, and many players who would rather see their games die with "dignity" rather than figure out how to keep on going in a market that doesn't favor them.

If you want an MMO to live, it needs more sales. Always.