Price Reduction =)

No, I understood it :) was simply talking about service fee, but thanks :D

"if you consider this the "launch" of the game where we start paying, it is pretty up to par endgame wise to most other games at launch with its endgame content"

What games? pacman?

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

you read it wrong
your actualy paying 8 per month if you choose the 180 day plan(3 per month per character on top of the first number)

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Yeah, the whole extra cost for characters is duping people into thinking they'll be paying less than they really will be.

Another thing I don't like about this business model.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Eugenics

"if you consider this the "launch" of the game where we start paying, it is pretty up to par endgame wise to most other games at launch with its endgame content"

What games? pacman?

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you havent played other games at launch obviously

Obviously NOT.

I'm sure the majority of people who play will barely notice this much coming out of their account. I'm more than happy with the price and look forward to future development of this title.

Thanks SE, looking forward to 2012.

I understand their reasoning to charge for additional characters, but why do they have to charge for having 1 character? They make it somewhat confusing. Just say it is $9.99, plus $3 for addition characters.

Not $6.99 for services, and $3 for your first character. You cannot have one without the other.

Confusing thats all... though $6.99 including one character sure is tempting!

It seems that SE's PR department could do them a huge favor by just simplifying how they post their prices. Some details just cause confusion. No one is going to pay for the monthly service and not have at least 1 active character so they can play it. Why don't they just say..

Reg Subscription Price: $12.99/mo for additional characters add $3/ea
Discounted Subscription Price: $9.99/mo for additional characters add $3/ea

Just stop listing the character fee separately... Additional character fee, sure, but don't even have show an option that no one is going to use. No one in their right mind is going to pay for the game subscription and not have a single character to actually play the game with.

Also..

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Originally Posted by Dreadnought

since this game does not allow one character to experience each story line it means 1 character cannot do everything in game.
also, many people care a great deal for playing different races due to all of their visual aesthetics (animations, physical looks, some gear is displayed differently on different races)
therefore, i have no idea why it is necessary to charge per character.
if its to minimize RMT characters, why not make free characters a fixed amount? RMT characters will forever and ever exist in every MMO regardless of any steps taken.
3 free characters sounds more than fair to me.

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^ This is exactly it. You like to think that if you pay for the game, that every single piece of content will be available to participate in (assuming you spend the time on it).

While I tend to prefer SE's way of letting you work on growing one character instead of splitting my attention between many, I can totally see why people would like to have one from each city-state/grand company. Especially those who like the story aspect of these kind of games. I think to include three character slots would be very reasonable. I personally wish they would. Then charge whatever they want from there on, charge $5.00 per additional character past the three for all I care because past three, really is a vanity situation.

Another reason why I can see people wanting additional characters is that some (like me) have friends that don't play as often as they do. Because there is no "Level Sync" System here, I personally had made a second character, because neither I nor my friend think we should be "required" to powerlevel our way through in order to play together. We don't find being power leved enjoyable. We'd rather play to actually play and experience things at the levels intended, not just to be "ran through". People complain about Level-Sync being a form of powerleveling, but hey, I'd take it any day over the way people are power leveled now. At least when Level-Sync'd, people were actively participating in their own leveling.... but that is a whole other topic...

Can't wait till the forums are full of people who actually play the game. Literally put your money where your mouth is.

(this wasn't directed at anyone in particular. :))

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Originally Posted by ninesunz

Xeonerable,
the payment options are going to change and you can put in exactly crysta amounts of your choice.

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You can already do this, i tried.

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Originally Posted by Katella_Avenlea

It seems that SE's PR department could do them a huge favor by just simplifying how they post their prices. Some details just cause confusion. No one is going to pay for the monthly service and not have at least 1 active character so they can play it. Why don't they just say..

Reg Subscription Price: $12.99/mo for additional characters add $3/ea
Discounted Subscription Price: $9.99/mo for additional characters add $3/ea

Just stop listing the character fee separately... Additional character fee, sure, but don't even have show an option that no one is going to use. No one in their right mind is going to pay for the game subscription and not have a single character to actually play the game with.

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Exactly. It is 9.99/month no matter how you try to dress it down. Taking the character fee out of the equation is deceptive advertising because, at a glance, it makes the sub fee look cheaper.

It is only a $3 discount.

Price isn't too bad but it's leaving the space between 1.20 and billing starting awfully close. I do think that £2.10 per character fee is a bit ridiculous (seriously, we're still in the age of charging extra character fees?) but the base rate is pretty low so it kinda balances.

Hopefully 1.20 makes the game worth logging onto again though, I'm just hoping we have enough time to experiment with 1.20 to decide if we want to stay after billing commences.

$4.99 per month with the 180 day plan. That's like 30 bucks for half a year which is a steal imo and i have no problem paying that. If you can't fork that out then get a job or gtfo.

To the ppl complaining about 3 bucks per character: If you use multiple characters then you are probably fairly hardcore anyway (although i only use one char and consider myself decently hardcore), so you will probably be around for quite some time. Just go with the 90 or 180 day plan and use those savings to pay for your extra character(s). I don't understand why people have multi characters anyway but I digress.

Stop whining.

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Originally Posted by Riv

$4.99 per month with the 180 day plan.

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No, it's $7.99 because you're not factoring in the character fee. Who's only going to be paying the service fee? Nobody.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Riv

Stop whining.

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Stop helping to spread false information.

Oh Bohoo you trolls will be gone soon. That is when I will be happy for those who don't want to pay.

What's with all the "extra character" rage? True, most MMO's allow you a number of more characters free... Then again most MMO's restrict your character to one job class, one crafting class, etc.

FFXI and XIV have the advantage of giving your character access to all classes. XIV even has retainers so you don't have to have a mule for selling stuff.

Also:

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Originally Posted by Neko_Yanagi

"The above price plan includes a save slot for one character and the 30 day basic service fee."

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+1

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Originally Posted by Neko_Yanagi

READ!

"The above price plan includes a save slot for one character and the 30 day basic service fee."

I think you need to re-evaluate who is spreading false information.

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you may want to re-read what you looked at

the 9.99 is what that applies to(6.99 + 3 = 9.99)


the pricing itself says this

"* One character save slot as well as a basic service fee is required to play FINAL FANTASY XIV "

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Neko_Yanagi

READ!

"The above price plan includes a save slot for one character and the 30 day basic service fee."

I think you need to re-evaluate who is spreading false information.

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Wow. This is what I'm talking about. SE's talent for making things convoluted once again confuses people. People actually think they're getting a bigger discount than they really are.

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

you may want to re-read what you looked at

the 9.99 is what that applies to(6.99 + 3 = 9.99)


the pricing itself says this

"* One character save slot as well as a basic service fee is required to play FINAL FANTASY XIV "

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TheVedis is right. If you scroll down the page and look at the fee breakdown, you'll see the real details.

http://www.kindredlinkshell.com/medi...-discount3.jpg

What this means, in reality, is this:

30 Days - $6.99 Service Fee + $3.00 Character Fee = $9.99
90 Days - $5.99 Service Fee + $3.00 Character Fee = $8.99
180 Days - $4.99 Service Fee + $3.00 Character Fee = $7.99

The absolute cheapest you can play this game is 8 bucks a month. But the only people who will benefit are the diehard fans, the ones who will be willing to pay 6 months worth of fees upfront. Anyone who is on the fence and only wants to pay by the month will get it at 10 bucks a month.

This may be completely wrong, so don't hold me to it. This is jusat an example.

Personally I don't mind the character fee, and there is probably a good reason behind it. Like previously said by many people, one character can do everything. Now in an MMO, being able to everything entails ALOT. Now think for a second, how much memory do you think one character takes up. Everytime you log in or log off you character data is being retrivied or stored on the ffxiv servers (I think, please someone who knows more about this help me explain). This has to be the case, otherwise you couldn't play your ffxiv character on a different computer. So somewhere stored in ffxiv's memory is all of your character data. Which includes things like, character graphics, quests completed, jobs leveled, items held, linkshells, friends, etc. But not only does it include that, but each character also probably has a massive chunk of memory reserved for things to come. If not, then everytime they add new content they will expand on the memory allocated for each character. Now, imagine 5 years from now and think about how huge this game will be and how much memory each character alone will take up. I personally am curious of the exact amount of memory SE reserves for each character. Probably could make some interesting comparisons between memory and cost.

This is just an example for I am sure there is far more to the character cost than just memory cost, maybe memory cost doesn't even play a factor (It is kind of cheap now). I can't really say, only SE knows.

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Originally Posted by Pebe

This may be completely wrong, so don't hold me to it. This is jusat an example.

Personally I don't mind the character fee, and there is probably a good reason behind it. Like previously said by many people, one character can do everything. Now in an MMO, being able to everything entails ALOT. Now think for a second, how much memory do you think one character takes up. Everytime you log in or log off you character data is being retrivied or stored on the ffxiv servers (I think, please someone who knows more about this help me explain). This has to be the case, otherwise you couldn't play your ffxiv character on a different computer. So somewhere stored in ffxiv's memory is all of your character data. Which includes things like, character graphics, quests completed, jobs leveled, items held, linkshells, friends, etc. But not only does it include that, but each character also probably has a massive chunk of memory reserved for things to come. If not, then everytime they add new content they will expand on the memory allocated for each character. Now, imagine 5 years from now and think about how huge this game will be and how much memory each character alone will take up. I personally am curious of the exact amount of memory SE reserves for each character. Probably could make some interesting comparisons between memory and cost.

This is just an example for I am sure there is far more to the character cost than just memory cost, maybe memory cost doesn't even play a factor (It is kind of cheap now). I can't really say, only SE knows.

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Honestly there is no real way of us knowing how much it takes it up, but its just data stored in a database. My guess would be a file under 1MB.

I'd like to see there reasoning for the $3 fee for our first character. 2nd character I understand, but the first? I guess maybe other people charge you for that kind of stuff and just lump it in, but here they separate it. It's just always made me wonder, since CE release.

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Originally Posted by zaviermhigo

I'd like to see there reasoning for the $3 fee for our first character. 2nd character I understand, but the first? I guess maybe other people charge you for that kind of stuff and just lump it in, but here they separate it. It's just always made me wonder, since CE release.

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SE just fail at marketing.

To the consumer, it sounds way nicer to say : $9.99 + $3 per extra character rather than : $6.99 without any character + add $3 per character.

Following the billing announcement today, a lot of medias published the news, and feedbacks from non XI/XIV players were almost always "wow, charging $3 for a character, this is retarded". While if it was advertised as an extra service (since after all you can do everything with one char), there would less negative feedback.

And I believe that SE should even mention on the billing page that one character can plays all classes.

A future customer coming out from any MMO out there, willing to try XIV, checking the fees page and seeing "$3 per character" may just run away because of that, without even bothering asking/looking for more information.

Well, failing is the speciality of this dev team! So everything is as planned!

Sometimes i wonder if Wada and Yoshida really are SE employees or if they are there as saboteurs, just to crash the company so someone else can buy it...because it's not possible someone never learning with the mistakes and ALWAYS picking the worst options.

I winder a lot as well.

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Originally Posted by PrettyPrincess

I winder a lot as well.

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good lord...shut up.

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Originally Posted by PrettyPrincess

I winder a lot as well.

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Oh, yeah...i forgot you never did a typo. /facepalm

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Antipika

SE just fail at marketing.

To the consumer, it sounds way nicer to say : $9.99 + $3 per extra character rather than : $6.99 without any character + add $3 per character.

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This... I would personally rather have a $9.99 basic service that includes 1 character then have a $6.99 basic service that includes no character + $3.00 to add a character.

I know there is no difference, it's $9.99 either way, but I feel more cheated with the second option.

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Originally Posted by Ashiee

This... I would personally rather have a $9.99 basic service that includes 1 character then have a $6.99 basic service that includes no character + $3.00 to add a character.

I know there is no difference, it's $9.99 either way, but I feel more cheated with the second option.

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Unless I'm mistaken, the process disallows simply paying for the service fee alone. You have to pay for at least one character.

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Originally Posted by Answa

Unless I'm mistaken, the process disallows simply paying for the service fee alone. You have to pay for at least one character.

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Exactly why the first character should just be bundled into the $9.99 price. Breaking it out is only confusing people and making it look like silly additional fees.

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

Exactly why the first character should just be bundled into the $9.99 price. Breaking it out is only confusing people and making it look like silly additional fees.

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Exactly.

This:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...-discount4.jpg

would have been way more straight forward then this...:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...-discount3.jpg

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Originally Posted by Ashiee

Exactly.

This:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...-discount4.jpg

would have been way more straight forward then this...:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...-discount3.jpg

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Made of win.

You should work for SE marketing, Ashiee.

Thing is.. if more old players start coming back, they'll be more willing to pay if they like it (vs other games).

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Originally Posted by Rowyne

Made of win.

You should work for SE marketing, Ashiee.

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I'd even include something like [You save X% ou $X] next to 90/180 days pricing plan. The goal is to show the consumer that he will save money. Consumers aren't supposed to do maths and find out how much they save. You want to attract customers, like for any bundled sale for any kind of product/service. How will I save?

I had really high hopes for this game, as most of us did. The willingingness to pay any fee with the game in the shape its in now is comepletely subjective on a person to person basis. Those of you that are happy and willing to pay the reduced price, kudos. But dont call out those of us that aren't. This game is still a looooonnnggggg way from being a true FF title, and even SE acknowledged that. I personally don't understand why they didn't at least wait for the new jobs and maybe a level cap increase to start charging. Those of us that have been playing for over a year now still don't have a whole lot to do in the game, and paying even 9$ a month to sit around and do the same 5 activities we have been doing for the past year seems like asking a lot. To me, a truelly good MMO worth paying for is one in which there is litterally so much to do in the game, you don't know where to begin. This game is far from that at the moment. Your options now are to level, craft, do 2 dungeons or the Ifrit fight. Thats a pretty short list, even for 9.99 $ a month.

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Originally Posted by Biggs

I had really high hopes for this game, as most of us did. The willingingness to pay any fee with the game in the shape its in now is comepletely subjective on a person to person basis. Those of you that are happy and willing to pay the reduced price, kudos. But dont call out those of us that aren't. This game is still a looooonnnggggg way from being a true FF title, and even SE acknowledged that. I personally don't understand why they didn't at least wait for the new jobs and maybe a level cap increase to start charging. Those of us that have been playing for over a year now still don't have a whole lot to do in the game, and paying even 9$ a month to sit around and do the same 5 activities we have been doing for the past year seems like asking a lot. To me, a truelly good MMO worth paying for is one in which there is litterally so much to do in the game, you don't know where to begin. This game is far from that at the moment. Your options now are to level, craft, do 2 dungeons or the Ifrit fight. Thats a pretty short list, even for 9.99 $ a month.

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well put, this bout sums up my feelings on the subject. i hit 50 on everything a week ago and not been even logging in anymore. paying even 5bucks witch is what i was kinda expecting not a lol 3bucks off, is still too much for no content. i would be paying 10bucks for just the moggle fight witch i'll be fine with being done with in the week or 2 before they start to charge. if they did add cap raise, new classes or jobs i might of stayed just to waist my time doing it. the game is fine for people who are very casual and it shows how much mmo's are targeting them. also empty servers are my most hated thing in mmo's and is why i leave them and it's just horrid on some servers and no merges for another year or 1.5years till 2.0 is up and going is tooooo long a time.

not to mention i can't give my money to a company for it's development of a game unless they plan to pay me interest on it like all the big boys up top that pay them. SE hit me up for a loan or something i'll shave a few points off of what your getting now. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by weeble

well put, this bout sums up my feelings on the subject. i hit 50 on everything a week ago and not been even logging in anymore. paying even 5bucks witch is what i was kinda expecting not a lol 3bucks off, is still too much for no content. i would be paying 10bucks for just the moggle fight witch i'll be fine with being done with in the week or 2 before they start to charge. if they did add cap raise, new classes or jobs i might of stayed just to waist my time doing it. the game is fine for people who are very casual and it shows how much mmo's are targeting them. also empty servers are my most hated thing in mmo's and is why i leave them and it's just horrid on some servers and no merges for another year or 1.5years till 2.0 is up and going is tooooo long a time.

not to mention i can't give my money to a company for it's development of a game unless they plan to pay me interest on it like all the big boys up top that pay them. SE hit me up for a loan or something i'll shave a few points off of what your getting now. :)

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agree with you both. My main reason for not wanting to pay, other then the fact that it defnitly feels like a beta for 2.0...is the lack of things to do. I started a character on lindblum a week or 2 into 1.19....and look how much i got done in a short time....and i didnt even play that much.

Nowadays i log in, look for an ifrit or darkhold shout (which rarely happens) get bored and log off. The next patch is add some great features (that should have been in here AGES ago) but very little content...nothing that would keep me occupied for a couple months or more for sure. They should not even be charging until 2.0 IMO, but if they insist on it...its their problem. I know a few people including myself who will end up trying a couple of the new MMOs coming and if we like it enough... we might never return...and im sure this will happen with others.

an entire year is just too long to wait, theres a good chance most people who are waiting will find other things to play.

swtor in 12days, 8days if you pre ordered :)
tera witch is free game play if willing to use there chronoskulls method
gw2 no monthly
diablo3 no monthly not mmo but still.
by 2013 i wouldn't be surprised to see a new blizzard? fallout, marvel, dark millennium
all these mmo's are different but all will take a piece of players slowly but surely till 2.0 comes ..lets hope they still come back and don't fall in love with there characters in those games instead. hell i been playing dcu f2p all week cause nothing to do in ffxiv and even though it don't feel like a mmo the week there has been more entertaining then the last 6months of ffxiv.

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Originally Posted by Biggs

This game is still a looooonnnggggg way from being a true FF title, and even SE acknowledged that.

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As much as I appreciate what your trying to say here, Its appears a bit hipocritically back words. Being as you have the lower quote first in your comments over the upper quote.

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Originally Posted by Biggs

The willingingness to pay any fee with the game in the shape its in now is comepletely subjective on a person to person basis.

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I would believe the second quote also applies to the first, and everything else you said. Its a matter of personal opinion and subjective as to whether or not the game is a long way from being a treu FF tittle. I personally believe it is one now.

In my experience it has as much as many other MMOs, that are considered successful, had on there release.

subjective or not, what is being said is a mmo company can subjectively pick there customers and keep making mmo's in this manner instead. why waste resources on things when they don't have to anymore cause subjectively they will find people to pay for it. it should be the other way around. in all things in this world when you make new things from a predecessor it is always with the concept of "More" more apps and speed and choices on cell phones, more options in mmo's, more content, more speed, graphics and what have you. not less, nor launch early and charge for development cause some are willing to pay. they tip toe into the water with there mmo's and they all are going f2p and no new content by time they would of added that new content that matters. it's like half the tv series on tv, they make a season or 2 and canceled b4 you get a middle or an end. it's a cop out to not going all out to building a good mmo.

SE and the old team put out a bad game, SE admits it and that = Free game for over a year! Regardless of the state the game was in, people got to play it for free for a year and many people took great advantage of that.

New Team comes along and that = really good changes, the game improves, we continue to get to play it for free.

SE gives up a in depth outline of what will happen in the next year, so we know what we are paying for, and about 2.0 and what will happen afterwards.

Game is just about where it should have been over a year ago, with the supposed last few things being in 1.20 (and at this time it's still free).


SE also gives a discount per month for the next year until 2.0, and is going to allow us to change our characters if we wish, change race if we wish, play a story line no one else will get to play and maybe (haven't confirmed) let people change their names if they wish with the release of 2.0 and the new engine. Not to mention the 'special gift' players who stay will get.

Seem to me (regardless if people are happy with the game or not) that SE is doing a lot to try and make up for what they did at the release of this game. I think they went beyond what they had to do in my opinion. I have never seen a company do as much for its players as SE has done for the people who want to see FFXIV be a success.

... Yet all people do is complain about everything, even when SE gives people what they ask for.

I'm going to stay; I enjoy this game, the people within my shell and the friends that I have made. I also still have an interest in this game and, I'm sorry but a bloody a discount is a bloody discount. I never asked SE for a discount, I would have paid the 12.99 a month if SE said it was that price.


Think I'm a fangirl or a white knight, whatever... at least I'm not kicking a dog while it's down and said dog is doing everything to make people happy. If I'm unhappy I'll leave the game, god knows there are other MMO's coming out I'm interested in.


If other players are unhappy or don't like the game, well that's fine because that's their opinion. Stay. Leave. Start Over. Whatever floats your boat.

This is my opinion, and you don't have to like it. I like FFXIV and I'll pay. :)