Emotes in the cash shop..

[Adire]

snip

Nope, they weren't. We were paying an ongoing sub during that time, and being that SE is reliant on consistent income, it was in their best interest to not charge extra for every single patch because that would be crazy and they need to keep people subbing to keep the game profitable. Whether or not people keep playing TW3 consistently doesn't matter because once bought, they have their money, everything they make for the game for free after that is a raw cost with no return.

Also, yes. It's single player. However, the free DLC also took money to make and they did not charge anyways, when they could have. Besides the EU datacenters, we see SE expanding methods of getting money from us without expanding benefits we see in game proportionally. So server upkeep, unless the costs for the same hardware have increased dramatically, is not the issue. Many other single player games also charge higher for less, and use microtransactions for small DLC, it's accepted now in the gaming world. People spend their money more loosely than they used to.

CdProjektRed enhances our game experience without nickle and diming us along the way. They stand out as one of the few companies left who value their customers as considerably more than wallets full of cash to be taken.

Edit: The fact that other MMOs do more for customers with less money than SE has also says a lot. It's not just server upkeep, it's also a degree of customer contempt. TSW is more customer friendly than FFXIV and is on much more of a budget. Their servers are even of higher quality. Haven't ever played an MMO, even a F2P MMO, where there's been such a messy housing system. I don't recall seeing "data limitations" as an excuse for everything so much on other MMOs. RMT is worse in here than any MMO I've played. The NA/EU servers are always encountering issues that rarely afflict the JP servers.

All of these take costs to improve, SE has consistent income from subscriptions, extra retainers. SE has extra income from the cash shop and from the base cost of the game and expansion. Other MMOs I've played don't have all of these sources of income yet still manage to do a better job at things. Makes you wonder where the money is going.

We have too many problems in this game that even most F2P games don't have to such degrees for me to think all, or even perhaps most of the money SE gets out of us goes back into game development. And an expanding cash shop makes me think even more that SE has looser morals and isn't like CdProjektRed in that they don't feel they absolutely have to profit off everything just because they can.

Everything that goes into the game is an instance of already paying customers being appreciated and that subbing and playing is rewarded. Everything that goes into the cash shop is a instance displaying that we can be appreciated, for an extra fee. Oh yeah, and you still have to pay a sub too to even have the possibility to be appreciated.

[Felis]

Every item in the cash shop is already in the game. The money you spend on it simply "unlocks" the item for your use. Meaning: your subscription fee already paid for the creation of the item, it's already been bought and paid for with the sub fee.

Paying a dollar here, a dollar there to unlock something already in the game is the very definition of "nickel and dimed".

Just make the events, if you want them. Your subscription fee only paid for the creation before the creation. And therefore it should be no problem to participate in the event.

So every patch and everthing inbetween ARR and HW was not free? Well, except the monthly subscription ofc. But on that regard we can take that the Witcher series is a Single Player game and don't need servers running to keep the game online.

the launcher don't start to load the patch if your account is not active.

[Evergrey]

Except your subscription fee has already purchased that chocolate; the "little extra" isn't paying for the chocolate, it's paying to unlock the cookie jar so you can have one.

Paying for a cookie jar implies that there are several cookies (items) inside. So that would be "pay once get several."

-snip-

Sure there are MMOs that do more then FFXIV, but there are also those that do less.

the launcher don't start to load the patch if your account is not active.

Well I did mention the subscription, it kinda comes with the package in a subscription based MMO.


There will always be those that vote "Yay" and those that vote "Nay". It's a good thing that you are able to get past items that would otherwise be lost forever. But the system they had before let you purchase them from an Ingame vendor that would be placed during events and during that time others complained about that system.
But we also have to remember that people kind of asked for a cash shop since alot wanted to be able to buy Fantasia Potions. I guess they wanted more to place in the store than just Fantasias and saw past items that had nothing to do with the current event as a good idea.

[WingsOfAzrael]

just be happy its only one emote for now

[Lyaha]

Sure there are MMOs that do more then FFXIV, but there are also those that do less.

I'd say that MMO's that do even less.. are not worth paying attention to.

Look to do better, not worse.

[Terribad]

This question has been answered a dozen times. We want both the new event items and the old event items available on the event vendor like it used to work for over a year.

Welp, they aren't doing it that way. It's $2 either buy it or don't. *Shrugs*

[Akselier]

Why not? If not vendor the items should be atainable within the game by you know playing the game.

Gold saucer rewards, acheivment prizes, raid drops, gathered, crafted, farmed. These are all great ways to include these items in the game without putting them behind a pay wall and making the game have more content within it instead of outside of it. Paying for items in the cash shop does not encourage them to release new content every year, it encourages them to place more items in the cash shop.

They ARE obtainable by playing the game. It's called "when they're released during the event". It's not SE's fault that I missed the event when it's released and it sure as hell wouldn't be fair to players like you who have played through the event and got it fairly by paying less than 100 gil to get everything.

[Adire]

Sure there are MMOs that do more then FFXIV, but there are also those that do less.

Very true. I'm using my experiences as an example though because I've only played F2P and B2P MMOs prior to this. It's hard for me to excuse so many of the issues this game has when the others did not have nearly as many serious, glaring issues. Especially when this game has a guaranteed profit via subscriptions, and those did not. I really don't want to see a flavor of the month, or even at times unpopular F2P game outdo a highly successful subscription MMO in too many ways.

After seeing cash shops destroy the fun in those games (Yes, I'm referring to vanity too. Not being able to look as cool by playing the game and achieving things vs people who spent on the cash shop and instantly looked cooler then you really got old....result of cash shop vanity), coming to FFXIV was really amazing. No cash shop, everything obtainable in game, an almost completely even playing field in every aspect....it was a beautiful sight for me. Then the cash shop debuted with its exclusive mount and minions. Then EB. Then exclusive dyes. I see an all too familiar MMO pattern/trend being taking root in the game and it's irked me more and more every time something else is added, especially something exclusive.

[Akselier]

Then the cash shop debuted with its exclusive mount and minions. Then EB. Then exclusive dyes. I see an all too familiar MMO pattern/trend being taking root in the game and it's irked me more and more every time something else is added, especially something exclusive.

Yeah, not having a particular shade of color to your armor or a minion following you around can really ruin your FFXIV gaming experience.

[Evergrey]

-snip-

About half of the stuff on the shop were obtainable ingame during the related events.
So the only things that was trule non-ingame are the Paints, Minions (some were event minions tho), Sleipnir mount, Fantasia Potions, the Moonlet earring (if I recall it's from 1.0) and the Wedding bands (basic one is free tho). The rest was free during events.