This year is not the right time to end the no subscription period in my opinion

You should hold out until about mid-length next year, or even until 2.0, because it will be better for you to be "over the top" than to limp by with what exists right now.

Here are several things wrong with it:

You're allowing your remaining player base to go away with feelings of that it was getting there, but "I don't know". Then you have older players who want to check the game out in the future who wont, because they lost the trust in the company. These same people are the ones who talk about how they played FFXIV, how it was awful, and they will keep doing so all the way up to the new launch. Having it free is having a 25,000 person viral marketing base to market the game for Square. How much does it cost you? Just the cost of having the servers up - the same cost it's going to cost you whether or not they're playing.

Once you charge a subscription fee and the majority of the players of this leave the game, a good chunk of them are going to become established to another MMO, whether upcoming or already released. MMO's take a huge chunk of time, and now you've just lost a fraction of these players forever, because FFXIV does not have enough within the game to justify a subscription currently.

You've also set apart a "benchmark" players were looking for in the schedule of this game; the job system. Players were counting on that to show them how the game can change, and now that isn't something players can do without paying a subscription until the relaunch of the game. This is a mistake.


The game will be worth paying for one day, but it's not worth paying for today, and it won't be worth paying for in December. Until then, it is Square's responsibility to earn back the trust of the players, and this action stalls that regain of trust, but it doesn't stop the dissemination of the bad taste left in most FFXIV's ex-players mouths.

Thank you Yoshi-P and the development team for your incredible and stunning revisioning of FFXIV. I hope you succeed in the long run, but I am afraid your company is currently making the wrong choice by requiring a subscription fee before the game has earned it.

Agreed. There is no doubt that this game is getting there, but I don't feel like next month is the time to charge. There are still so many basic functions missing (character search, mail system, skillchains, etc.) as well as latency issues and UI design flaws. Yes, I realize all of these are coming but they won't be available for another 6 months at least.

Unfortunately this was most likely a decision made not by the Devs but the real power figures of SE so guess we'll have to live with it or quit.

I've merged this post with post 1.

I am willing to pay as the game is awesome.
SE FFXIV has my full support!!!!!!

I'm going to pay. Otherwise, how am I supposed to beat up a vicious Moogle Primal?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Platinumstorm

You should hold out until about mid-length next year, or even until 2.0, because it will be better for you to be "over the top" than to limp by with what exists right now.

Edit: I've moved Post 3 into this post for ease of reading

Here are several things wrong with it:

You're allowing your remaining player base to go away with feelings of that it was getting there, but "I don't know". Then you have older players who want to check the game out in the future who wont, because they lost the trust in the company. These same people are the ones who talk about how they played FFXIV, how it was awful, and they will keep doing so all the way up to the new launch. Having it free is having a 25,000 person viral marketing base to market the game for Square. How much does it cost you? Just the cost of having the servers up - the same cost it's going to cost you whether or not they're playing.

Once you charge a subscription fee and the majority of the players of this leave the game, a good chunk of them are going to become established to another MMO, whether upcoming or already released. MMO's take a huge chunk of time, and now you've just lost a fraction of these players forever, because FFXIV does not have enough within the game to justify a subscription currently.

You've also set apart a "benchmark" players were looking for in the schedule of this game; the job system. Players were counting on that to show them how the game can change, and now that isn't something players can do without paying a subscription until the relaunch of the game. This is a mistake.


The game will be worth paying for one day, but it's not worth paying for today, and it won't be worth paying for in December. Until then, it is Square's responsibility to earn back the trust of the players, and this action stalls that regain of trust, but it doesn't stop the dissemination of the bad taste left in most FFXIV's ex-players mouths.

Thank you Yoshi-P and the development team for your incredible and stunning revisioning of FFXIV. I hope you succeed in the long run, but I am afraid your company is currently making the wrong choice by requiring a subscription fee before the game has earned it.

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Don't forget people invested in buying a PC just so they can play this game :D

I certainly agree with the TC.

I was excited to see the list of changes taking place, especially the whole map redisign, but then I read they were mostly scheduled to be added between June and December next year. And yet they want to charge for the game next month.

No doubt I'll be playing and paying for FFXIV when all these changes finally hit... but to be honest I don't feel like playing now, let alone paying. I just hope this won't end up being a terrible decision for the game.

I agree, reactivating the subscription is a really bad idea. For players, the best thing would be to make the game P2P a month after the new version, so that people can try the "new FFXIV" and decide whether they want to pay for it or not.

However maybe they just can't afford to do so, honestly it looks more like a desperate attempt to get out of the money pit they dug with the failed launch of this game than a real dev decision.

TBH the only reason I bought FF14 - even though I loved FF11 - is because I got it for 5€ without subscription. I'll probably buy a month once the new version is stable to see what the fuss is all about, but I'm not sticking around once it becomes P2P... I seriously hope they won't lose too much players, this game has potential.

I can't help but think this is another instance of rushing something that hasn't quite come to fruition yet, I'll be happy to pay to play this game when it's finished, but to tell me you want me to start paying you a good half-full year before you even think the game is in a state to release anew... well I might have an issue with that, and I think that the game will suffer from lack of diverse opinion if all that is left are those who are willing to pay for a game on long term promises. I've been having actual fun playing the game for some time now, and I know for a fact that I'll be here around the release of the re-imagined game, but I don't know that I'm willing to put forth money between now and when they feel the game is ready for a new release. I really don't know what the purpose of playing in that intervening time would be.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rolum

However maybe they just can't afford to do so, honestly it looks more like a desperate attempt to get out of the money pit they dug with the failed launch of this game than a real dev decision.

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That's the issue here. That's Square's fault - it was their fault for releasing an unfinished beta, so I don't think we should be "investing" money into the game when all they're doing at the moment is using money to fix what was broken in the first place. It's basically a too bad so sad for SE - they may be losing money but it was *completely* their fault. The product isn't anywhere near a finished state yet they're expecting us to basically fund their development costs, development costs that should've been spent before the game was released. Those costs should not be transferred to the customer - we shouldn't have to "invest" in the game and hope that one year from now the game doesn't suck.

I definitely agree this was a bad move by Wada and the higher ups. I'm sure Yoshi-P had absolutely no control over this, but seriously, compared to the competition out there the game should not be collecting subscription fees for what essentially is still a paid beta.