The whale mount is up on Mogstation

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Originally Posted by Sigma-Astra

How have people fallen for it? If people have $30 dollars to spend on something and they want to spend it, they'll spend it. They didn't fall for anything unless all of the sudden the price at checkout somehow bumps up to $60.

What people do with their own money doesn't affect you as a consumer. Someone spending $100 in a grocery store on select items that you may think might be too pricey for the brand does not affect you, someone spending $30 on a virtual whale still does not affect you either. It's not your place to judge or butt in.

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It all sets a trend. Companies test the waters to see what they can get away with, and if sales are good, they will continue with that course and possibly add more to it later. If it works well for them, other companies may follow. It's been the same with the cash shop. It started "small", then emotes started getting tossed in. Music entered the scene at some point. Holiday items got added. MSQ skipping books and level potions are the more recent additions. It's all slow, but it creeps. When people grab new items instantly, it shows a pattern and lets the company that the pricing/item is acceptable.

So yeah, I get the point they're making, and I don't disagree. I just can't spare the concern anymore when it comes to XIV. I've turned quite apathetic :P

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Originally Posted by Sigma-Astra

No one is falling for it, if people want to spend their money, they'll do it. And guess what? They don't care what you want at all because it's not your money.

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If you can get the same service for less price by not biting, but instead pay a higher price when it's offered, then yes, you have fallen for it.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

If you can get the same service for less price by not biting, but instead pay a higher price, then yes, you have fallen for it.

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Less price on what? Last I checked, using the Mogstation didn't raise your sub fee. You can't control what other people want or do with themselves, and getting yourself angry over it doesn't do you any good nor does insulting them either by calling them whales or whatever else people use nowadays.

You don't buy it if you don't like it, but there's literally no point in getting upset when other people do and they don't owe you anything to think about not buying it either if it's what they initially want.

They weren't tricked into buying it, they saw it, had $30 to buy it, bought it, and that's the end of the story whether you liked the idea of them buying it or not.

It's weird to see so many people this bent out of shape and controlling about what other people do with their own money when they're literally like....thousands of miles away from each other.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

But what you're paying for has changed. The goal posts have been moved, and people just accept it.

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I mean yes and no, in the past you couldn't have bought the whale because there wasn't cash shops, but that also doesn't mean the whale would have existed. They could have just not made the whale at all, feeling it wasn't worth the dev time then no one gets the whale.
Yes things have changed, sub mmo's can have cash shops now, but you can't know if the whale would have been made if they couldn't have charged for it.
The whale is a mount, there are many other mounts and other two-seaters, you don't have to buy it, personally I did, because I liked it, I got exactly what I paid for, a whale mount, I was not lied to or "scammed" I was asked if I'd pay for a mount, said yes, got the mount.
I could flip this around and say "X MMO is free to play, so 14 shouldn't have a sub, all you people who pay for 14 are being "scammed" because another game dose this for free"
If someone offers you something for money and you can afford it and chose to buy it, it's not a scam, prices go up all the time, sometimes people say "No, that's too much" if enough do they lower it again, if enough are willing and still find it worth the value the price stays the same, clearly in this case SE has found the latter to be true, but that dose not equal a "scam" people made a choice, a choice they are free to make.

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Originally Posted by Skivvy

It all sets a trend. Companies test the waters to see what they can get away with, and if sales are good, they will continue with that course and possibly add more to it later. If it works well for them, other companies may follow. It's been the same with the cash shop. It started "small", then emotes started getting tossed in. Music entered the scene at some point. Holiday items got added. MSQ skipping books and level potions are the more recent additions. It's all slow, but it creeps. When people grab new items instantly, it shows a pattern and lets the company that the pricing/item is acceptable.

So yeah, I get the point they're making, and I don't disagree. I just can't spare the concern anymore when it comes to XIV. I've turned quite apathetic :P

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I suppose, but it's out of people's hands for the longest of time. You literally cannot stop people from buying something that they may want. It's a pointless and futile endeavor to be angry over at the people. SE and the Cash Shop? Sure, go ahead. But, at the people buying said things? It just makes you look petty honestly, imo, lol.

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Originally Posted by Sigma-Astra

I suppose, but it's out of people's hands for the longest of time. You literally cannot stop people from buying something that they may want. It's a pointless and futile endeavor to be angry over at the people. SE and the Cash Shop? Sure, go ahead. But, at the people buying said things? It just makes you look petty honestly, imo, lol.

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Business just follow the trends. They're doing what makes them money. Can't be angry at them for that. It's the consumers who set the trends.

And I'm not angry at any individual people. It's consumers in general who are disappointing. They have lost sight of consumer responsibility to themselves. It's a consumer's responsibility to get businesses to offer them the best deals. Not the business's.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

Business just follow the trends. They're doing what makes them money. Can't be angry at them for that. It's the consumers who set the trends.

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That's a hypocritical stance and very contradicting of you disliking the existence of the Cash Shop entirely, but yet not finding the fault of the blame on SE and instead placing it on the players. If you're not okay with people buying items, then you shouldn't be okay with the idea of the Cash Shop existing either.

People wouldn't be spending $30 on a whale mount if the Cash Shop didn't exist.

And who made the Cash Shop, I wonder....certainly not us, unless a few choice people on the forums want to come clean that they were the web designers and coders who implemented the Cash Shop as an e-commerce. :O

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It's a consumer's responsibility to get businesses to offer them the best deals. Not the business's.

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Uh...that's not entirely how economics works. It is the business's job to offer the best deals towards their customers in order to retain a higher turnaround of customer satisfaction and larger, gross profits margins...and I'd say that the customer turnaround for satisfaction regarding the Cash Shop is meeting that quota, as well as the profits margins for continuing to offer different items. The Cash Shop is an e-commerce website and it is doing exactly what it is suppose to be doing regardless.

When I shop online, I go to Amazon.com because they offer the better deals on most things. That is their job or people wouldn't be shopping there.

That's not to say that anything on the Cash Shop could be considered a deal, but it's the only place where you can buy said items, so without any competition, it is what it is.

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Originally Posted by Theodric

It's very interesting. A lot of the people who complain about Mog Station mounts not being available in-game do not appear to be mount collectors to any significant degree if one takes a peek at their character's lodestone profile.

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I want more mounts in-game instead of on Mogstation.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

And I'm not angry at any individual people. It's consumers in general who are disappointing. They have lost sight of consumer responsibility to themselves. It's a consumer's responsibility to get businesses to offer them the best deals. Not the business's.

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Like it or not, people will take this as an attack against themselves because you're tarring with a broad brush.

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Originally Posted by Berteaux_Braumegain

I want more mounts in-game instead of on Mogstation.

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In my perfect (subscription) game, all mounts/glamours/items would be obtainable in-game. RIP the old days. ._.;

Anyone else thing that mounts above $15 should give you a quest line on how you at least found things like this?

Oh, by the way, I totally wish that they made the following theme for the mount instead of slapping the generic mount theme on it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtbxCpitJ1g

<_<

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Originally Posted by Vahlnir

The entire "burger" is half done in this case, and the few "toppings" we receive aren't very good. This game's cash shop puts some f2p ones to shame.

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Not to mention that some of the toppings cost almost 3x the amount of the burger itself... >w>

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

And I'm not angry at any individual people. It's consumers in general who are disappointing. They have lost sight of consumer responsibility to themselves. It's a consumer's responsibility to get businesses to offer them the best deals. Not the business's.

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I would love to be able to haggle the prices of my monthly sub and cash shop purchases down. Sign me up!

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Originally Posted by Mimilu

I would love to be able to haggle the prices of my monthly sub and cash shop purchases down. Sign me up!

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It's not the price, but what you get for the price. And you're too late, it's already been decided by others for you, years ago.

Can we get lootboxes next?

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Originally Posted by Tizzy_Tormentor

Can we get lootboxes next?

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Diadem and the Forbidden Land of Eureka. Next question, please.

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Originally Posted by Aster_E

Diadem and the Forbidden Land of Eureka. Next question, please.

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Don't be silly, the lockboxes don't cost extra money, only your pride and dignity for having spent time in Eureka.

Spending time in Eureka cost me neither of those, but okay.

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Originally Posted by Tizzy_Tormentor

Don't be silly, the lockboxes don't cost extra money, only your pride and dignity for having spent time in Eureka.

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But I ~want~ to be silly, while pointing out how close we already are to what you're asking about. Patch 5.175h-whatever (one week before 5.2) relic via actual lootboxes, I'm calling it.

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Originally Posted by Tizzy_Tormentor

Don't be silly, the lockboxes don't cost extra money, only your pride and dignity for having spent time in Eureka.

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Sure, £1'000'000'000'000 per lockbox. Need 1'000'000'000 lockboxes to be able to open them for a single item. 99.999% chance of sparklers. Will that do it for you?

(and before anyone slams me, I'm not being serious with this)

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Originally Posted by Theodric

Last I checked, the vast majority of F2P MMO's were seeking to squeeze as much money as possible out of their players through business practices more nefarious than those that FFXIV embraces.

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What does FF14 have next to sub:

-RL items with ingame rewards to make more people buy it
- A app with most of its useful features behind a monthly paywall and on top of that will start to use coins that you can buy for rl too.
- A cash shop that was once just there to give people a chance to get old event items and that gets more and more exclusive stuff in it
- monthly retainer fees and no new retainer for a while, in a game with huge amount of glamour and crafting mats
- jump potions to reach certain levels

Honestly I dont feel much difference to this than games like Black desert. In Black desert you only have to pay once to buy the game and are at least not forced to buy anything from that. You get advantages if you do but honestly this is a F2P game if you bought it once so they at least need to have some kind of way to earn money. FF14 has a sub, yet still sells us quite some stuff as a cash shop and puts inventory space behind retainers and now even an app. In Black desert one could also buy parts of an outfit which made it cheaper.

Then lets compare FF14 to another sub MMO: Wow did have the cash shop for more years, yet way less items in it then FF14. Some parts might be more expensive on it but lets not forget that you can buy this ingame too if you have enough money in the game so if you are good at farming this you might not even need to pay one dollar of rl money to sub. And like others have stated, the app they have or had was much bigger and still completely free.

So in my view it does not look good for SEs cash shop.

That WoW token someone can buy with in-game gold? Someone had to buy it from Blizzard with rl money to be able to sell it to you.

So the whole "See, you can get everything in WoW with gold" isn't true because at some point, someone else has to spend rl money in order for it to happen. It's basically how they fought RMT.

Bought the whale as my pay day treat to myself, now I can finally give people lifts in eureka, no way in hell was I buying the moggle one its not my style

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Originally Posted by Alleo

What does FF14 have next to sub:

-RL items with ingame rewards to make more people buy it
- A app with most of its useful features behind a monthly paywall and on top of that will start to use coins that you can buy for rl too.
- A cash shop that was once just there to give people a chance to get old event items and that gets more and more exclusive stuff in it
- monthly retainer fees and no new retainer for a while, in a game with huge amount of glamour and crafting mats
- jump potions to reach certain levels

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Also, if you want to play on both PS4 and PC, even on the same one account, then you have to buy a separate license for the game plus expansions, for each version. No discounts, or anything, just pay up in full for two versions if you want to go back and forth between two versions for whatever foreseeable reason. By itself this is just lousy. With all else, the greed is apparent.

WoW nerfed the exp you get when finishing Dungeons and leveling is way more harder now. So, you need days to reach a decent level. Whatsmore, you dont need to follow a MSQ, yeah, you have to repeat the same quests over and over and over again. Oh, and they dont have teleport; have fun eating all those flying times.

Btw, i prefer the MSQ thing than the reputation grinding to advance into the game.

FF XIV isnt perfect, but having all the classes in the same char is just amazing.

PD: You can change your race here for 7 euro. In WoW is just... 25. And barely 50 if you want to change faction too.

a school of whale mounts in Pagos and soon Pyros

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Originally Posted by Sigma-Astra

What people do with their own money doesn't affect you as a consumer. Someone spending $100 in a grocery store on select items that you may think might be too pricey for the brand does not affect you, someone spending $30 on a virtual whale still does not affect you either. It's not your place to judge or butt in.

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It's a bit disingenuous to say that you're not affecting the market. This current market trend in games was only solidified because people kept buying into microtransactions for things that were already offered for no additional cost. If they add a lootbox tomorrow and no one buys it that would be the end of it, but if people started buying it then you're gonna see more and more items added to the lootbox, when before the lootbox said items would have been part of the sub price at no additional cost.

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Originally Posted by Deceptus

All my achievement certificates collecting dust.

No way to get it in game.

30 freaking bucks (2 months of sub time)

A whale for the whales indeed. Stop your Greed Square Enix. . . Stop your Greed.

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They are loosing a lot of Subs right now, they have to compensate.

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Originally Posted by Araxes

They are loosing a lot of Subs right now, they have to compensate.

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They are? Not even BfA made a dent in active player count. We even got an influx of people coming from WoW...

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Originally Posted by JohnSpawnVFX

They are? Not even BfA made a dent in active player count. We even got an influx of people coming from WoW...

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Only SE knows how many paying active players there are right now. Of course they won't tell us because the number is not so impressive, otherwise they wouldn't resort to PR spins like "14 mln players".
My linkshells and my fc are deserted though...

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Originally Posted by Ilan

You should've known that people will start to complain, as they always do, when something new is in the mogstation.

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True.. I guess I thought that it had been done to death already!

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Originally Posted by Lastelli

Only SE knows how many paying active players there are right now. Of course they won't tell us because the number is not so impressive, otherwise they wouldn't resort to PR spins like "14 mln players".
My linkshells and my fc are deserted though...

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People come and go in MMO's all the time. Even at the height of WoW, during WOTLK, I'd have to spend some time networking to replace people who just fell off of the radar. In my experience, the people who take frequent breaks are flaky and generally aren't too invested in the game to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Soraki-Muppe

Speaking as a norwegian.
That is not a mount, that there is DINNER!

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What makes this statement even more hilarious is that it's made by a miqo'te

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Originally Posted by Hypnotic13371337

Anyone else thing that mounts above $15 should give you a quest line on how you at least found things like this?

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I think every major questline (like Scholasticate and each segment of Hildy) should reward a mount.

Not sure why some are so bothered by this mount being put up and has roughly prices of the mog mount or odin mount. Don't forget is optional you don't need it I assume those that are upset want it but they don't want pay the price for it.

Just saying.

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Originally Posted by Hestzhyen

If people want to waste their money that's their business. I hate the cash shop so I will never use it. And yes I'm annoyed to see yet another potential in-game incentive/reward aim for people who have no idea what digital goods are really worth. Very on the nose at least this time.

That said, when are we going to get more achievement/longevity rewards? I have tons and tons of points sitting around and nothing to spend them on since the claw mount was released (which hardly made a dent). Another mount- especially a two-seater- would be great to have.

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This carries the assumption Cash Shop items were ever going to be rewards to begin with. They aren't. They are designed for one singular purpose: to make a profit.

Riddle me this. Everyone whining about the Cash Shop views it as a greedy tactic from SE, yes? Okay. What is a greedy company like SE more likely to do in the event people actually did boycott the Cash Shop?

- Decide to release all future exclusive mounts in the game for free
- Determinate the team who designs these Cash Shop exclusives are better utilized on another project, thus the exclusive mounts and etc simply stop being made

I'll give you a hint, it isn't the free option.

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Originally Posted by MomomiMomi

It's double dipping, and people are falling for it. In the past, a subscription meant that you would gain access to everything the game has to offer. That's not the case anymore, because companies have realized they can get people to double dip.

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Name one industry in the entire world that has remained exactly the same spanning over decades. "In the past," games cost substantially less to make. FFX cost approximately $34 million whereas many triple A titles nowadays broach the $100 million mark. You can't look to ten ago and say, "well that's how it used to be. So it better never change!"

This is what triple A games looked like in 1999
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/...20100510071734
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/W6j6UfyQ-gE/maxresdefault.jpg

And this is in 2013 and 2018, respectively
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon....330007706_.jpg
https://cdn.pastemagazine.com/www/ar...iew%20main.jpg

Hmm, I wonder what changed...

Naive players whom buy these things are just supporting cheap quality from Square Enix's side, it just nurtures their ambitions without making the game better!...


Where does all this money go to!?...

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Originally Posted by SigmaOZ

Naive players whom buy these things are just supporting cheap quality from Square Enix's side, it just nurtures their ambitions without making the game better!...


Where does all this money go to!?...

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Who's naive exactly? The person who has $30 dollars to spend and wants to spend it. Or, the person who doesn't want to spend $30, but is quick to call out and judge what others do with their money. And then, they think that the Mogstation holds the game back from a better quality when it's actually the server infrastructure, outdated game engine, and the CEO's who don't want to push a budget that would require the game designers to make an entirely new engine from scrap.

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Originally Posted by alimdia

It's a bit disingenuous to say that you're not affecting the market. This current market trend in games was only solidified because people kept buying into microtransactions for things that were already offered for no additional cost. If they add a lootbox tomorrow and no one buys it that would be the end of it, but if people started buying it then you're gonna see more and more items added to the lootbox, when before the lootbox said items would have been part of the sub price at no additional cost.

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Not necessarily at all since market trends are a constantly revolving door and the people buying from the cash shop haven't influenced anything that already wasn't in place from the past, this isn't a completely new trend at all that has recently surfaced like you're making it out to be. It's just a more common placed one now since people who have the extra income voluntarily want to spend it on things they they like and see. No one would buy anything if they didn't like what they saw. Micro transactions have been a thing since Facebook's inception of Farmville from 2009 (maybe sooner than that), and before that lootboxes have been a thing since 2004 (maybe sooner than that). This trend has been going on for at least 14 years minimum.

And sorry to say, but the needs of many outweigh the few that don't want it. People need to let go of the past, we're not going back to it.

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Originally Posted by Bourne_Endeavor

Riddle me this. Everyone whining about the Cash Shop views it as a greedy tactic from SE, yes? Okay. What is a greedy company like SE more likely to do in the event people actually did boycott the Cash Shop?

- Decide to release all future exclusive mounts in the game for free

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No need to exaggerate. Few people expect Enix to release all future cash shop mounts ingame for free. Nor do we expect them not to have a cash shop. Some of us even prefer it, it's like donating to the company as a thank you for creating a game we enjoy. There's nothing wrong with buying the Whale.

The complaints source from the fact that Enix has a far bigger cash shop than other subscription MMO's and is one of the few large subscription MMO's to lock bank space, alts and their mobile app behind microtransactions. People start to feel annoyed when they continually stuff things into the inflated cash shop while throwing Pagos at us as content.

Overall it's excessive. In fact, that's a good question for those who feel it's fine, how much would Enix have to tie to microtransaction for you to view it as excessive? For example if all mounts besides your chocobo were cash shop exclusive, or glamour prisms, or the gold saucer? They're all optional after all.