It's time to reevaluate the idea of adding a PLEX/Chronoscroll-like system to FFXIV

[Dererk]

You know people keep saying the word poor people what the heck dose this mean. This is a pay to play game if your willing to pay the sub tour not really poor.

Use better wording people this system would be just bad period.

[MageBlack]

I don't think SE will adopt the CREDD style system of account payment. Simple reason being that takes money from the development of the game. once you remove the need to give SE money for an account, profits decline, production slows, updates come fewer and further between. i think they would only introduce a system like that IF the game was starting to see a decline in population. If you really want a good measuring stick to see how SE will handle this game, look at the 10+yo FFXI. If a system like that were to be introduced, it would be there first.

Regardless, I don't really want it. To me, it sounds like one of those desperate please "Come Play Me! You can play for free if you can earn enough in game money!"

[Jandor]

I don't think SE will adopt the CREDD style system of account payment. Simple reason being that takes money from the development of the game. once you remove the need to give SE money for an account, profits decline, production slows, updates come fewer and further between. i think they would only introduce a system like that IF the game was starting to see a decline in population. If you really want a good measuring stick to see how SE will handle this game, look at the 10+yo FFXI. If a system like that were to be introduced, it would be there first. Regardless, I don't really want it. To me, it sounds like one of those desperate please "Come Play Me! You can play for free if you can earn enough in game money!"

SE gets the same amount of money. A months subscription time always comes from SE and always requires real money to be created, just under the proposed system you can buy more months than you need and then sell them on the market board in-game.

[Synestra]

That's the idea, it allows rich players in game to play for free and allows rich people out of game to prosper with no effort.

Well i would still pay my sub with my own RL money but i would also start to play tradeable sub markets to make even more in-game currency, because money making is one of the funniest "mini-games" in MMO's imo.

[MageBlack]

SE gets the same amount of money. A months subscription time always comes from SE and always requires real money to be created, just under the proposed system you can buy more months than you need and then sell them on the market board in-game.

Ah, that's true. But unless the cost of those "CREDD/PLEX" items on the market boards can be regulated and limited to a set cost of gil, then either the players selling will end up making huge profits off this or get undercut so badly that the items become worthless as in game money.

[Jandor]

Ah, that's true. But unless the cost of those "CREDD/PLEX" items on the market boards can be regulated and limited to a set cost of gil, then either the players selling will end up making huge profits off this or get undercut so badly that the items become worthless as in game money.

If everyone undercuts and it becomes worthless then people will stop buying them from SE and as they are consumable the price will slowly increase until buying them from SE to sell in-game is worthwhile again. It should regulate itself to a degree.

Although considering how often people on this forum find something to moan about I'm sure every little fluctuation in price would result in a 100 page mega-thread asking Yoshi-P to step in .

[Bishop81]

Except that doesn't appear to be case. People didn't stop using those cheaper items moving on to others instead leaving the supply lower. They just got more expensive and the demand on them stayed the same. Meaning the supply and demand relationship for these crafting items didn't change but per item price went up. Inflation.

And I'm telling you, it happens.

Say they introduce a new ore, and the ore is need for new popular weapons. New ore will be in high demand. Some players stop mining old ore and mine new ore. Old ore price increases due to lower supply.

Low supply = higher price (assuming no change in demand)

Problem?

What you are calling "inflation" is just the market changing as the types of goods available for sale changes.

[axemtitanium]

People disagreeing on the internet? You don't say.



Except that doesn't appear to be case. People didn't stop using those cheaper items moving on to others instead leaving the supply lower. They just got more expensive and the demand on them stayed the same. Meaning the supply and demand relationship for these crafting items didn't change but per item price went up. Inflation.

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what "inflation" means as an economics term. Inflation only refers to buying power: when inflation is high, buying power increases at a slower rate than the average price of goods. When inflation is low, your buying power (per unit currency) remains steady or slightly increases compared to the rate of increase of price of goods.

Imagine a hypothetical scenario where all RMT activity (bots, gil buying, account hacking, tellspam, etc.) were completely eliminated tomorrow by some magical force. What do you think would happen? RMT botting activity causes inflation because it injects massive amounts of gil into circulation, as well as trivializing the supply of certain basic goods like shards, fleece, etc. It also allows the buyers of RMT gil to compete to pay a premium for certain extremely high-end luxury items like rare minions, HQ crafted equipment, materia for melds, the prices of which are all driven up by pent-up demand and surplus of gil concentrated in the hands of the "rich". If all RMT were eliminated instantly, it would have a complex impact on the economy in which low level basic goods like shards and fleece would increase in price and extreme luxury items would decrease in price as a result of natural redistribution of wealth through "normal" commerce. It's easy to misconstrue that Runescape forum thread to suggest that the introduction of Bonds caused inflation, when in reality, it merely caused the economy to normalize itself along producer and consumer lines. Currently, it's impossible to make a profit in FFXIV by producing low level goods because you're instantly out-competed by RMT bots who can afford to undercut you forever. If all bots are eliminated, the price of shards would invariably go up (this is not "inflation") since it would now actually require effort on the part of real players to produce this basic good. However, this ultimately stimulates the economy because the players who go through this effort are rewarded with larger profits than before.

I still see people perpetuating the myth that PLEX could be easily defeated by RMT if the RMT merely lowered their prices. It doesn't work that way. Are you mad when you get undercut 5 minutes after putting something up on the Market Board? By putting players in competition with RMT, you have every single PLEX-buying player in direct competition with RMT who will undercut the living hell out of the RMT constantly. THAT's why PLEX beats RMT.

This is explained in more detail in this post (follow quoted post)

[Tiggy]

I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what "inflation" means as an economics term.

I'm afraid I don't have that problem. In the example I was referring to no new money was added to the system, but the buying power for the items in that example was no longer the same. Their prices inflated. There is more than one way to create inflation. It's not solely through minting new money. It's about how much buying power a dollar/gold has. In the above example the buying power clearly decreased for the items presented.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation

An excerpt from the above article.

Economists generally believe that high rates of inflation and hyperinflation are caused by an excessive growth of the money supply.[6] However, money supply growth does not necessarily cause inflation. Some economists maintain that under the conditions of a liquidity trap, large monetary injections are like "pushing on a string".[7][8] Views on which factors determine low to moderate rates of inflation are more varied. Low or moderate inflation may be attributed to fluctuations in real demand for goods and services, or changes in available supplies such as during scarcities.[9] However, the consensus view is that a long sustained period of inflation is caused by money supply growing faster than the rate of economic growth

So while clearly adding money is the primary and definitely accepted general form of inflation it is however not the only form of inflation. If you're going to continue to try and "school" me on inflation then please try to understand it yourself first. The example above is absolutely an example of low/moderate inflation as referenced in that wiki article. Everything you just described is just explaining WHY the inflation happened. It was in no way an explanation of why it isn't inflation.

You guys need to accept that some inflation happens in these types of systems. By ignoring the obvious you aren't building a solid case for yourselves.

it would have a complex impact on the economy in which low level basic goods like shards and fleece would increase in price and extreme luxury items would decrease in price as a result of natural redistribution of wealth through "normal" commerce.

This is only partially true. Yes, the low level items they bot farm would jump in price due to a decreased demand.

However, in FFXI when they cracked down on RMT the price of luxury goods got higher because it turned out those RMT were gather those items as well so now the supply was considerably lower thus raising prices. The scorpion harness was a prime example of this problem in action.

It's not as simple as you think.

[silentwindfr]

SE gets the same amount of money. A months subscription time always comes from SE and always requires real money to be created, just under the proposed system you can buy more months than you need and then sell them on the market board in-game.

this systeme often come from free to play, indeed wildstar have try to do this, but let's face it, the game will soon go in free to play then...
this systeme have only work with one game Eve online. by the way, do you really think they need to do this actually? i doubt it. people simply want to play for free and forget that a mmorpg need cash for be developped, like have said yoshida the advantage of the monthly fee allow them to be able to predict them budget for the developpement, where the free to play or freemium can't know how many cash will enter for the month. then it's harder to devellop content or even maintain a team dedicated to that.

no the free to play, freemium or creed/plex system is a very bad choice and must be used only when the game will die. if you can't afford the price of the sub from FF14, you must'nt play it first. because let's face it, the price of the subs is really low. (one of the lowest ever see for a mmorpg of this quality)

ps: and if you only want an easy way to grabs gils by using your real cash, maybe you must reconsider how you play to a mmorpg....