2.2 Retainers via Microtransactions

[Orophin]

I guess people don't really care that an NPC is playing a bit of the game for you, regardless if buy extra retainers or not.
But are more hung up on the fact that additional retainers cost extra on top of the basic monthly fee.

People are hung up on the fact that if paid retainers also have access to Ventures that those that choose to buy those retainers will have an advantage over those that don't, regardless how small it is.

Half of it is the issue where they haven't been accounting for inflation over the past ten years or so. People paying $15 per month back in, say, 2004, was much nicer than people paying $15 per month nearly a decade later. I'm waiting for P2P MMOs to switch to something like $17.99 a month or $20 and remove all microtransactions, but the problem with that is it's incredibly risky to assume people would rather pay an extra $5 a month to play your game than have to deal with benign microtransactions. If I was developing an MMO that was costing millions if not tens of millions of dollars, I would want to choose as safe of a pricing model as possible.

You have to take into consideration that bandwidth costs and storage costs are a LOT cheaper than they were 10 years ago too. It's all relative really. If anything, the extra money is covering the extra cost that game development runs these days.

stuff

You know just as much about the Ventures system as we do. We have no idea how fast the tokens in game accumulate or anything. So yes, anyone that has more RL money and is willing to dump it on more retainers innately has an advantage over those that can't. This is exactly what P2W is.

And apparently the Fantasia Potion being an optional service is totally okay? Guess what, that's a microtransaction.

It's also an item that doesn't give anyone an advantage in game. If the paid retainers come with the ability to undertake Ventures, they do.

The key word here is you can send your retainers to go and gather items for you. None of you bitter folk bothered to consider that RMTers could very easily abuse that system and completely destroy the Market Board economy? No. No you didn't. There's a REASON extra retainers cost extra. The system would get abused hard if they were all simply free.

If it's cost effective for the RMTs to drop an extra $1 a month to do this, what's to stop them from doing it anyway? From my understanding a lot of them use stolen CCs anyway.

[Dhex]

You know just as much about the Ventures system as we do. We have no idea how fast the tokens in game accumulate or anything. So yes, anyone that has more RL money and is willing to dump it on more retainers innately has an advantage over those that can't. This is exactly what P2W is.

I know what I've observed. I don't see anything pay to win about having additional Retainers; they aren't going to beat Binding Coil of Bahamut for you, or farm Tomes for you. It at most allows you to farm a few items in an hour with less effort - in a market where things have essentially no value. In a game where everyone can level and gear a crafting/gathering class themselves.

Paying to win at what precisely?

Edit:
P2W in regards to Retainers and Ventures, "I WIN I WIN I HAVE MORE INVENTORY THAN YOU! CAN YOU FEEL THE WEIGHT OF MY EXTRA INVENTORY SLOTS PLEBIAN!? I CAN GET 99 APKALLU EGGS AND OTHER USELESS JUNK IN A FEW HOURS WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING AND YOU CAN'T AND I ONLY PAID AN EXTRA 15$ FEE MWAHAHAHA SUCH SUPERIORITY. WEEP AND QUIT THE GAME!" - Orophin's Nightmare (Yes you have nightmares in Caps.)

Edit again: I'd much rather pay to view and access my two Retainer's inventory in the field than pay to have access a bajillion Retainers at a bell I need stand next to talk to and can't walk away from while I manage my items.