Eternal Bond - Standard Plan and Gold Plan

[Negotiator]

if you EDIT your own comment you can get past the character limit.

[seida]

Having premium versions of in-game content is certainly worrying for me. I would really like them to release more info. But frankly, for everyone who supports this because it's "not p2w", do you realise how many doors it opens?

Premium versions of housing? And who knows what else at the Gold Saucer....

But there will still be people who say it's ok, because it's "not p2w". :/

I hope they are seeing the forum responses and reconsidering how they are going to implement it.

[Mogi]

Having premium versions of in-game content is certainly worrying for me. I would really like them to release more info. But frankly, for everyone who supports this because it's "not p2w", do you realise how many doors it opens?

Premium versions of housing? And who knows what else at the Gold Saucer....

But there will still be people who say it's ok, because it's "not p2w". :/

I hope they are seeing the forum responses and reconsidering how they are going to implement it.

Nope since it's mostly NA crying about it so i can't see SE reconsidering anything but id still like to see anything saying yes this will in fact be for the cash shop :P at this point we will have to wait till DEC 8th and hope the real notes come out fast

[seida]

Nope since it's mostly NA crying about it so i can't see SE reconsidering anything but id still like to see anything saying yes this will in fact be for the cash shop :P at this point we will have to wait till DEC 8th and hope the real notes come out fast

Actually no, there is a thread in the jp general discussion with people voicing their concerns.

[Arcari]

Skimming over the Japanese General Discussion, most people do not seem fussed about the cash shop at all. Their thread about the cash shop degenerated into people talking about how cool Sleipnir is and how they want to see stuff like Cloud's bike and beast tribe cosplay available and hoping for minion sets instead of just having them available individually. There are people who don't like it, but it tends to be more of a "aww I was hoping it would be free but oh well" or "Sleipnir is kind of expensive" sort of thing.

The one thread about the Eternal Bond system on the most recent two pages is people asking questions about it, like whether you'll be able to invite friends from other servers. No mention about the different plans or money or anything of that sort whatsoever.

EDIT: Going back a little further, there is one thread with people who are upset over the fact that there will be paid plans, but that's it. All of the outcry is contained in that single thread. 99% of General Discussion at the moment is about things like favorite NPCs, a fanart contest, the Starlight Celebration, and changes and improvements people want to see in Heavensward.

When I asked one of my friends (who's way more into Japanese culture then I could ever be) why she thinks SE didn't go the gil route, she explained to me that the Japanese actually seem to prefer the cash shop approach. Her explanation to me was that the people who buy the cash shop stuff are the same people that will spend $130 on a figurine without blinking an eye, and there's a lot of those people there lol.

So yeah, it's mainly the English forums that are making the most kicking and screaming (big surprise there...not!). Also, we really could learn a lesson from the Japanese forums and keep all of our subjects contained into one topic for each.

[Anatha]

The bottom line is, if SE wants to monetize the game they're free to do so as a company. They should at least state it clearly and well in advance, not hype features for a year and then announce the monetized part of it later. They should announce they're monetizing it at the same time they start announcing that feature, months before it's implemented. Maybe not mention the exact prices because sure plans change, but a simple "we are going to charge for a certain part of this feature" would suffice.

People will respect them more for it.

Exactly. They dropped this last minute thinking they could somehow.. meh, it was a bad decision. It makes the last 6 or so months a deception on their part. If we'd have been told way back when, we'd all have time to come to grips and decide on just what we're personally going to do.

They really need to confess their plans for Golden Saucer, so people don't waste their time hoping. If they remain silent, they leave us with the impression that they're going to monetize everything they can at the last minute.

[Anatha]

If you think there are no paid advantages or paywalls in this game, You Have Not Been Paying Attention.

Arguing that SE is a greedy corporate devil and one should expect them to behave this way is not a legitimate mode of thought. You are not a corporation, you are a consumer, YOU allow them to behave this way by rolling over like you suggest everyone do.

You're the problem. The more you let an entity treat you like garbage, the more you try to influence others to put up with the same treatment, the more you reinforce that behavior as acceptable.

Consumers are the last line of defense. Speaking out is a good thing.

[Mikikoto]

You lot are overreacting way too much. Take off the tinfoil hats alright? It's not Pay2Win, it's not 'greedy', it's not 'corrupt'.

First of all, Square -needs- money, they are a company and FFXIV 1.0 took a major hit in their banks so for anyways saying that they don't need the money should just zip it up. This isn't Blizzard rolling in billions of dollars and doing hardly anything with it.

Second of all, WoW has a cash shop. I know we're NOT WoW but P2P games also have Cash shop for COSMETICS and OPTIONAL SERVICES.

Third of all, You lot are crying about the mount+minion+dress choices not the wedding itself since the wedding part IS free. Riddle me this, to get the only 2 seater mount currently what do you have to do? Can you get it with normal Gil? Can you craft? Oh. . .what's that? A no? You need to refer a person and they need to pay for 3 months? Oh you don't say. Point is right there. Square is doing this to limit the amount of people doing false marriages to get a free 2 seater mount that's ALREADY rare as it is. It's a vanity item nothing less and nothing more. Your gameplay won't change if you don't have a minion/mount/better dress for the wedding.

Funny how the JP forums are calm yet everyone here has a tinfoil, pitchfork, and crazy theories spouting out all over the place because Square isn't making a rare mount free for all, lol. As for the people saying that they didn't communicate . . .what? Is the wedding system out yet? UH NO. This is all pre-release information. Them not saying anything until they drop the patch and people find out for themselves is what I'll call hiding information but they clearly said it multiple times considering I read it in reddit a while ago that there will be pay tiers [ the original comment had 3 tiers ]. Chill the heck out overblowing something that's not even affecting the gameplay and is pure cosmetic. At least we're getting a wedding system, what other MMOs do that in modern times.

[Laerune]

Wait.. The premium version has a new hairstyle aswell?

I hope this is not a standard where we see cash shop exclusive hairstyles.

[Roris]

Funny how the only accounts of this issue on the JP forums come from cash shop supporters, funny how those same kinds of people were saying "lol just because it got posted on the JP forums doesn't make it more valid" when they were even more vocal about the housing prices debacle over there, to try and downplay the housing bait and switch over here.