Full translation of Yoshi interview, including his openness to F2P

[Dyvid]

"The most important thing to me is that we are honest and upfront in describing the current situation and to keep up with the promises we make. I think we were able to make good on our biggest commitment to players when we finally launched the game.

That said, A Realm Reborn is just getting started. We have concerns about whether the game would be able to survive the waves of subscription with the monthly fee since not many MMORPGs have done so successfully in the past few years. Part of it is that we're still lacking on content, so the planned additions to the game will be addressing this. We can't just sit back and celebrate." -Yoshi P

This is the statement that I think best sums up the F2P interview. He understands the current busy of MMOs and understand what it takes to be sub based. As far as cash shop, people have been asking to buy Fantasia potions and if I remember right, FFXIV v1 was originally going to have you purchase extra retainers until it crashed and burned.

Honestly, I look at SWTOR after it went F2P and shake my head. It takes them 2 years to get the same amount of content we get in 3 months.

[Nekodar]

No, as a vanilla wow player who raided from burning crusade to the beginning of mist of pandaria in what he'd call "hardcore" guilds I can assure you that the current FFXIV difficulty can't be compared to the difficulty of the old wow (even twintania). Furthermore, most of the former wow raiders who starded ARR because the game seemed to go back to the fundamentals of wow actually stopped the game.

Even the current wow is more difficult than FFXIV in heroic modes raids (and it's way easier than it used to be, with only a few bosses currently difficult).

You're missing the point... The amount of the type of players you mention is a very small part of the total population.
Why would he mention the 1% when he's speaking in general terms?

[Balfreid]

"WoW is the best.

We need to design after WoW.

WoW. WoW. WoW."

This is the mentality every MMO developer has followed suit and majority of those MMOs flopped hard or had to be relaunched. There's a reason WoW's number's are falling fast and it's not because there's amazing new MMOs out on the market.

Hmm... cause WoW is not a successful MMO or anything. Its not like the game still makes billions of dollars every year...Why would you ever try to take the good ideas from something that is successful and build off of it?

And I don't know what MMOs you are talking about. The only one I know for a fact is a complete WoW clone is SWTOR. All it had different was voice acted scenes where your decisions didn't mean squat. So after you got max level the game was just WoW in space. When in FFXIV, good parts are used in its composition and its not a direct copy and still keeps the Final Fantasy feel to the game. Trying something "completely new and original" is too risky in the current gaming market *cough XIV 1.0 cough*. As a business you would rather do what is safe and will still make profit while still giving something your players can enjoy.

[Atreyu]

I don't post in the forums much, but I had to add my voice in.
If I wanted to play a F2P game, there is nothing stopping me from going to play a F2P game.

But I don't. I want to play a subscription-based game.

A subscription-based game is a socioeconomic stabilizer. For one monthly fee, we all get the same content presented to us.
But a F2P game is a socioeconomic divider. It separates and caters to people with lots of money, while those who don't have as much to spend get let in the dust.

I have no problem with little cosmetic items here and there in a sub-based model, but no F2P game will last long on cash-shop purchases if that is all they offer...
not if they plan to put out new content before the rapture, anyhow.

[Nekodar]

Surprised that with all the whining about vertical progression no one has even mention this part - "Increasing the item level is just one direction, though, we also need to increase the breadth of items available at each level, which we plan to address in the future." Certainly more interesting than flying into hyperbolic seizures over pointing out that F2P is just another option out there.

Probably because a number of the people that's crying about vertical progression are not seriously interested in sidegrades. Soon enough some of the same people will go "why should I get X? It's the same ilevel as Y, just with different stats... not worth getting!"

[DefendPopPunk]

I just think that if they base our appetite for f2p/p2w off of NA forums, its not hard to see where he gets the impression that we're split on it. So many times I see on the forums that people will want some feature, such as world transfers, fantasia, or name changes. People get no official responses immediately or maybe it's just hyperbole, but it leads to people saying "SE just make this service available and I'll PAY a fee for it" (shut up and take my money, etc etc). It's not hard for someone to read those responses and then say "hmm it seems they don't mind paying for things we could probably easily do for free" (is it really free since we pay subs? that's another discussion). Just food for thought.

[Tupsi]

Hmm... cause WoW is not a successful MMO or anything. Its not like the game still makes billions of dollars every year...Why would you ever try to take the good ideas from something that is successful and build off of it?

The problem is, simply emulating doesn't mean auto success - That's the main problem they did with their MMOs and it failed hard because as the saying go: "No one does WoW better than WoW."

Trying something "completely new and original" is too risky in the current gaming market *cough XIV 1.0 cough*

XIV was unfinished and rushed out - That was what killed it, not being "different", because the only reason MMORPGs still exist to date is because developers trying something different, same with any game genre. Video games would have ceased to become a business if you don't try something different lol.

[Stanelis]

You're missing the point... The amount of the type of players you mention is a very small part of the total population.
Why would he mention the 1% when he's speaking in general terms?

It was the 1 % of 7.8 millions players back in the days (which was a lot on a MMORPG standpoint). But still I don't think that his comment on former wow raiders liking FFXIV (non existent) difficulty is relevant. By the way I'm not the one mentioning these players, Yoshida is.

[Delsai]

Reality, noone knows what they want from a MMO. From the existence of the first MMO's and on someone, somewhere complained. Hell, we as humans are truly unsatisfied.
SE is a company and as a company they have to make a profit to exist. If a game goes FTP all the luxury you enjoy now come with a price. A shop selling cosmetic items is not game breaking and is a novelty. Meaning you are not required to purchase a novelty and it will not effect you if you choose not to participate.

[Laf]

Well, SE would start making more money if they add F2P+cashshop. Whiteknights and SE zealots should be happy, no?