Cash Shop Announcements from EU Stream

[Tupsi]

Did they happen to mention what subs were used to pay for...

ToS/EULA tells you - Your sub grants you access to the game - everything else is up to SE's discretion. You wouldn't be playing ARR right now if you didn't agree to that. This is why it even tells you that you don't even own your character and they can delete that or your account if they just decide to wake up one day and figure your character data is taking precious space in the database. Not that they would, but you agreed to allow them to.

and if it's not enough to implement things correctly,

Define correctly? Because every update since even 1.0 days everything has been implemented correctly in the sense it's not broken.

[Cynfael]

Some people are still laboring under the misconceptions that SE is a form of government agency, that our sub fees are a form of taxation, and that we are entitled to an itemized report of income and expenses.

The fact that they take the time to address any concerns around the cash shop is amazing to me. Not amazing because I don't think that consumers deserve the communication but amazing because very few of SE's peers in the MMO community are willing to communicate even to that degree.

[Laraul]

People are upset over SE selling mounts and minions via cash shop, but have no objection to paying for access to a video stream where the company and developers inform their customers what to expect in the future? Who cares about the cash shop selling trivial items like mounts. Restricting access to communication to only those willing to pay is ridiculous.

[Cynfael]

People are upset over SE selling mounts and minions via cash shop, but have no objection to paying for access to a video stream where the company and developers inform their customers what to expect in the future? Who cares about the cash shop selling trivial items like mounts. Restricting access to communication to only those willing to pay is ridiculous.

They're only restricting the privilege of experiencing the communication first-hand. The actual information contained therein is available for free from stream-viewers and from media outlets about as quickly as it's released.

[KirakunAUS]

Well.. it doesn't state that items sold in cash sold are not exclusive.
Hence i still feel it is the same with wind up dalamud, wind up bahamut and wind up delivery mount where minions are using cash

[Shadex]

Sorry. Any dev team can say they are using money for X and we would never know. The housing fiasco has proven that Square has no problem saying one thing and doing another. People can defend them all they want but trust is not an easy thing to regain.

[Fyrebrand]

- Future minions will not be exclusively available through the Cash Shop only.

I still hate the very idea of a cash shop in a sub-based game, but if what they're selling can still be obtained through gameplay it is not nearly as bad. Of course, it will be hard not to be cynical about judging what sort of hoops we have to jump through to get those things in-game. And I'm wondering if this statement applies only to minions, or if that's just how they worded it, and meant it as a general rule for everything.

They will not be selling dungeons, re-iterating "No Pay to Win"

I never expected them to sell dungeons, and I don't honestly expect the cash shop to be anything near "Pay to Win" any time soon. Still, I don't think there is an MMORPG in the world who admitted up-front that their cash shop would be "Pay to Win." It means little, when the publisher says it. I think the judgment on that will be ours to make.

Cash Shop revenue can be put towards development of the game, including server development for more housing wards.

Pffffft, yeah, sure. It can be put back into the game, but FFXIV's revenue belongs to Square Enix. The company decides where funds go. If my subscription money is what funded the creation of the cash shop, why should I believe cash shop profits will go anywhere else?

Future minions won't be cash shop exclusive - does this include the 3 minions that were announced in Las Vegas?

Meh, even if they flat-out said "Nothing will be cash shop exclusive, ever," I still would not be confident that they wouldn't change their minds later down the road. Nothing is written in stone.

[Sammich]

- Future minions will not be exclusively available through the Cash Shop only.

As promising as this sounds, it's not an unambiguous statement. When I read it I assumed they meant something along the lines of "some future minions will be sold in the cash shop, but there will still be many future minions that are available in-game". As much as I'd like it to mean "all future minions which are sold in the cash shop will also be available by in-game means", it doesn't explicitly state that.

[MomomiMomi]

As promising as this sounds, it's not an unambiguous statement. When I read it I assumed they meant something along the lines of "some future minions will be sold in the cash shop, but there will still be many future minions that are available in-game". As much as I'd like it to mean "all future minions which are sold in the cash shop will also be available by in-game means", it doesn't explicitly state that.

That's how I'm reading it, unfortunately.

[Noxifer]

- Future minions will not be exclusively available through the Cash Shop only.

This doesn't necessarily mean that Cash Shop minions won't be Cash Shop exclusive. Just that there won't only be Cash Shop minions in the future. There's a rather distinct difference. And until there's been an officially translated and posted statement regarding it, any arguments regarding what is actually meant is only speculation. From both sides. So I agree. Some clarification would be awesome.

But yes, if it means that Cash Shop minions (and hopefully mounts) can be somehow acquired without spending real-life money on them -- except for your subscription, of course -- that's good. Very good.

edit: I see someone posted pretty much the same thing just above XD Ah well.