What are the Chances FFXIV will go F2P?

[Jennestia]

Say what? Did you miss the recent 60$ monocle debacle? O.o

As well as charging for something they initially said would be free and not forced? People always leave out the fine details that may hurt their argument.

@ OP: zero chance.

But i would recommend SE seriously discuss the monthly fee, cuz having it too expensive wont make the game better.
Or even better, have a poll on how much would we consider an fair monthly fee.
(an official one, not some random crap post made by a player wich will involve alot of flaming etc)

Players hate paying for video games, especially monthly -- so a fair price would be "free" or serverly under the cost to break even or make a profit; There's a reason most P2P MMOs are at least $12+ a month or have a $120-$220+ yearly sub option.

[Andrien]

i think the game is to difficult to go f2p. but I don't mind I like free stuff anyways

[Xenor]

If ps3 version fails, (which it will if its release anytime this year / early next year) then it will have to stay free to play.

In its current state up until way past 1.20 if they went p2p or micro-transactions people will leave in a heart beat.

If the game isn't worth paying for after 1.2 then they may as well shut the servers down because they'll have failed. It's people like you expecting the game to stay free forever that will kill this game. Developing extra content and expansions relies on funding, if it remains FTP for much longer after 1.2 you'll see many people leaving. I don't wish to play a FTP game.

[Physic]

well they could theoreticallly go b2p like guild wars 1, and i think gw2. There is also ftp/subscription models that arent that bad.

But problem is to be f2p/hybrid you need to have consistent content updates, to have b2p, you have to have very beefy expansions with full story lines, new gears, and you in general want to release one, 2x a year, maybe 1 if the sales are really great. But since they are used to getting more, for less, with ffxi, i doubt they will want to go either route. FFXI sold expansions, and charged you each month while they rolled out the story line from each expansion slowly. Dunno if the devs are up to it

[Quoc]

After what's happened to FFXIV, they're not going to reinstate the subscription fee. Charging players to play when there are no players playing is more costly than opting for a F2P system with micro transactions.

[BlackHawkGS]

well they could theoreticallly go b2p like guild wars 1, and i think gw2. There is also ftp/subscription models that arent that bad.

But problem is to be f2p/hybrid you need to have consistent content updates, to have b2p, you have to have very beefy expansions with full story lines, new gears, and you in general want to release one, 2x a year, maybe 1 if the sales are really great. But since they are used to getting more, for less, with ffxi, i doubt they will want to go either route. FFXI sold expansions, and charged you each month while they rolled out the story line from each expansion slowly. Dunno if the devs are up to it

Well, that's not really the only reason Guild Wars could do a B2P model. It was also very heavily instanced, from the overworld to the cities, everything was broken down into many instances. This can really help with server load when it's being hosted on other people's comps, hence why games like Call of Duty on consoles can refrain from charging extra for online.

FFXIV can't exactly do that since the world is all one giant instance; there's no real cheap way to break that down, lol. They unfortunately need an extra source of income, whether it be via micro-transactions or subscription fee, to pay for maintenance on servers hosting all this on their end.

[Physic]

Well, that's not really the only reason Guild Wars could do a B2P model. It was also very heavily instanced, from the overworld to the cities, everything was broken down into many instances. This can really help with server load when it's being hosted on other people's comps, hence why games like Call of Duty on consoles can refrain from charging extra for online.

FFXIV can't exactly do that since the world is all one giant instance; there's no real cheap way to break that down, lol. They unfortunately need an extra source of income, whether it be via micro-transactions or subscription fee, to pay for maintenance on servers hosting all this on their end.

GW2 is going to be full MMO, and it also offering b2p, the whole server thing is highly overated, look at private servers, they usually work off of donations, the real costs are in the development side.

[Jennestia]

After what's happened to FFXIV, they're not going to reinstate the subscription fee. Charging players to play when there are no players playing is more costly than opting for a F2P system with micro transactions.

XIV hasn't been fully released nor has it ever had a subscription system yet either, as in no one paid monthly for this game yet -- also no it's not more costly, it's more costly to bleed money than make SOME profit.

[Miyochan]

Um... are we F2P now? lol

[Xatsh]

Um... are we F2P now? lol

Technically we are buy to play atm.

If square was to let people download the game off the website without needing a registration code, then we would be free to play.