Full translation of Yoshi interview, including his openness to F2P

[Nukocafe]

If this game ever goes free to play I'm out.
The amount of RMT/spam/bots is bad as it is, and with it being free, it'll be 100x worse.
No thanks lol

[LlenCoram]

Yoshida: However, we have about a half and half split for people who are happy with the current degree of difficulty and people who think it's too difficult. The difficulty of WoW has dropped considerably, but the people who loved the time when WoW was difficult are the people who like the difficulty in A Realm Reborn.

As far as the montly billing goes, people are becoming more pragmatic and they're only willing to pay for the things that they want to use. What that means to monthly billing is that there are players who would rather pay based on the amount of time they play in a particular month, after they've played. There used to be no debate about this, since monthly billing was the only standard for MMORPGs, but now F2P is a consideration. We see this desire for players who would rather buy items especially in North America.

He's so disconnected from the userbase it's not even funny...

[Ethos]

I could see them adding a system similar to other MMOs where you can exchange in-game currency for 30 days of playtime.

[Zell]

He's so disconnected from the userbase it's not even funny...

I think that you not realizing you do not represent the majority of the player base is the disconnect. VAST majority of players have never beat Twintania or all three of the primals. That's a fact.

[Nero]

He's so disconnected from the userbase it's not even funny...

He has a little more Informations than people who believe the ~5% of total Forum-Users is a proper Sample-Size to gather Informations.

[Nekodar]

He's so disconnected from the userbase it's not even funny...

Perhaps he's better connected with the userbase than you think...

[Orophin]

He's so disconnected from the userbase it's not even funny...

I think you mean he's disconnected from the forum userbase, where the "majority" (5% of the people that even play the game post on forums regularly, and I imagine even that number is high) clear all the end game content in 2 hours every week.

To the topic at hand, I sincerely hope that Retainers purchased with real money will not have Ventures associated with them. If they do, I definitely won't be playing this game anymore.

I could see them adding a system similar to other MMOs where you can exchange in-game currency for 30 days of playtime.

This is a horrible idea as gil sellers could undercut their stock and make a killing just due to how much more of a market they'd have for their services. Buying gil to use in game is one thing, but if you can pay your subscription cheaper by buying gil? That's opening up a whole different can of worms.

[Wolf_Gang]

So they're getting rid of Philosophy tomestones altogether. I wonder what that means for i70 crafted items.

[LlenCoram]

I think that you not realizing you do not represent the majority of the player base is the disconnect. VAST majority of players have never beat Twintania or all three of the primals. That's a fact.

And I'm one of them. The fact remains that, as far as difficulty goes, this game isn't exactly at the top. Meanwhile every player that's absolutely clambering for the game to shift to the F2P model are also the types of players who will up and leave at the slightest hint of "the next shiny mmo."

EDIT: Despite everyone jumping down my throat, to not be concerned about his "F2P is pretty cool" talk is idiotic.

[Moheeheeko]

And I'm one of them. Im a special snowflake and Yoshi needs to cater directly to me me me!

Legacies need their own forum.

Also I doubt this will go f2p anytime soon, At least not in NA,EU or JPN (wow in china is f2p, so maybe there.)