Lightning/Snow Event

[Colorful]

snip

convenience
kənˈviːnɪəns/Submit
noun
1.
the state of being able to proceed with something without difficulty.

I'm starting to believe you're purposely talking your way around things, but there you go, straight from Google. Is purchasing something for a few dollars, hassle free, not considered convenient? Yes it is, there's no talking around facts. Tell me, why would they encounter bugs, you seem to assume the probability is high when this isn't the case unless they've poorly programmed something with a band-fix that may not work at a later date. Have they put FATEs that may overlap the event ones? I'm not sure, but probably not, and if so, they could be disabled during the event FATE. Is old content like dungeons broken after each major patch they perform? Perhaps, if the people working at SE are incompetent, but they aren't. The likelihood of that is lower than 20% I'd bet.

How much copies has FFXIV sold since the last time the event happened, 1 million, 2 million? It's not a handful, I've personally recruited 3 since after that time myself. This would please a large amount of players, while only putting off those who don't want others to have their shinies, and if it's truly not about being a special snowflake, then it doesn't apply to the majority of the posters who've said that it's not about that (the majority). Hairstyles would please less people, I can guarantee you that. Every single time a new one is added, "omg SE this looks identical to this one!" posts image of hair that looks nothing like it - That's unrelated though.

[Noxifer]

How about they add a recolored or dye-able version to the gold saucer so ALL players having something new to work for. Why not create content that everyone can appreciate instead of just rehashing the old rewards?

*cough* The FFXIII event rewards are dyeable already.

[zosia]

I'm starting to believe you're purposely talking your way around things, but there you go, straight from Google. Is purchasing something for a few dollars, hassle free, not considered convenient? Yes it is, there's no talking around facts. Tell me, why would they encounter bugs, you seem to assume the probability is high when this isn't the case unless they've poorly programmed something with aband-fix that may not work at a later date. Have they put FATEs that may overlap the event ones? I'm not sure, but probably not, and if so, they could be disabled during the event FATE. Is old content like dungeons broken after each major patch they perform? Perhaps, if the people working at SE are incompetent, but they aren't. The likelihood of that is lower than 20% I'd bet.

How much copies has FFXIV sold since the last time the event happened, 1 million, 2 million? It's not a handful, I've personally recruited 3 since after that time myself. This would please a large amount of players, while only putting off those who don't want others to have their shinies, and if it's truly not about being a special snowflake, then it doesn't apply to the majority of the posters who've said that it's not about that (the majority). Hairstyles would please less people, I can guarantee you that. Every single time a new one is added, "omg SE this looks identical to this one!" posts image of hair that looks nothing like it - That's unrelated though.

Based off your definition of convenience, anything with difficulty made easier could be "selling convenience." That's why we can't just use the standard dictionary to define what convenience means to the cash shop.

It's an inconvenient to farm gil, but if you want to participate in the game economy, you will at some point farm gil in one way or another. If putting the lightning gear in the SE shop is just selling convenience, then what's to stop someone making the same argument about gil being sold in the mog station?

That's why when you debate, you need to outline the terms, in this case it would be convenience and p2w. I am more than happy to discuss the idea of convenience vs P2W with you, but we have to define what convenience/p2w means within the context of this game, otherwise we just return to semantic arguments that are backed solely by subjective opinions.

How would I describe p2w? Anything that allows you to bypass gameplay for instant gratification.
How would I describe convenience? Anything that allows you do to something faster or more efficiently.

How do you define both of them?

[Colorful]

sni[

You do actually manage to talk around everything, you have an amazing skill there. We can use the standard definition to define it, that's what a dictionary is for, as I said, there's no talking around that fact. Again, let me reiterate, a fact. There is nothing stopping someone from making that argument, and there is no way to counter that argument reasonably and that's why they follow through with a different one entirely, such as that buying generated gil will cause inflation and ruin the economy. This does not apply to glamour items, there is nothing to ruin but people's special snowflake status.

Pay to win: Paying for an item that would put you above other players in terms of stats, gaining an advantage over everyone who does not have that item. Paying for a boost to obtain said item would also be considered pay to win in my book, and almost everyone else's (see ArcheAge).

Pay for convenience: This is the stuff you see in many MMOs, WildStar included. You can pay for boosts to speed up your leveling. Leveling is a minor part in any MMO thus you do not have any meaningful advantage. This is given to us for free in the form of an armoury bonus. Pay for convenience equates to paying for anything to bypass a time wall, while remaining fair to everyone and not impacting the game in any major way. As I said, xp boosts, cosmetics, etc.

[zosia]

You do actually manage to talk around everything, you have an amazing skill there. We can use the standard definition to define it, that's what adictionary is for, as I said, there's no talking around that fact. Again, let me reiterate, a fact. There is nothing stopping someone from making that argument, and there is no way to counter that argument reasonably and that's why they follow through with a different one entirely, such as that buying generated gil will cause inflation and ruin the economy. This does not apply to glamour items, there is nothing to ruin but people's special snowflake status.

https://debate.uvm.edu/dcpdf/wsdcdefiningandcases.pdf

I really wanted to have a discussion with you in the most elegant sense, but I can work with your clunky definition of convenience. If you asked me on any day of the week in any month of the year: Paying to skip an entire series of fates and quest is not convenience, you're paying for the rewards and skipping the content. This recommendation of putting the gear on the cash shop is not an xp boost or a currency boost to help you through the content, it's buying your way out of doing the content completely.

Can I just pay for my alex savage mount with cash? There is no game benefits tied to it. Could I buy all the primal mounts with cash? They have no meaningful effect on gameplay, Its just for convenience sake. What about the high allagan casting gear? That has no impact on the end game now, I am just buying the convenience. Gil is not the only argument to be made, I can pick any vanity item and make the same argument. Lesser panda? Furniture? Chocobo dye feed? Anything can fall on that flimsy definition of convenience, with the exception of alex savage gear.

Pay to win: Paying for an item that would put you above other players in terms of stats, gaining an advantage over everyone who does not have that item. Paying for a boost to obtain said item would also be considered pay to win in my book, and almost everyone else's (see ArcheAge).

Since meaning and satisfaction are subjective in an mmo (the whole reason I wanted to get to a definition we both agree on), people who value vanity gear and items above all else would see buying glamour as an advantage over someone who earns it. Without an objective definition within the context of this game, I am free to place the goal posts where ever I like and start the discussion from there, such as saying some people consider glamour end game content. So, you could be selling a person's end game content on the mog station. Who are you to tell another player that their end game was not infringed upon by the mog station? How is that not selling an advantage if a player really loves glamour but are strapped for cash? Are only privileged players with extra income allowed to get another opportunity at the gear? What about younger players who don't have a credit card? If their parents say no, they are disadvantaged in contrast to people who can pay in cash.

Pay for convenience: This is the stuff you see in many MMOs, WildStar included. You can pay for boosts to speed up your leveling. Leveling is a minor part in any MMO thus you do not have any meaningful advantage. This is given to us for free in the form of an armoury bonus. Pay for convenience equates to paying for anything to bypass a time wall, while remaining fair to everyone and not impacting the game in any major way. As I said, xp boosts, cosmetics, etc.

So, the promo event is a time wall? Are all quest chains a time wall? How does a quest chain equate to xp boost or pve/pvp currency boosts? You examples of convenience, such as a karma booster from GW2, is not even comparable to glamour. How is it fair to the people who put in the time and were subbed during that month? They were around and did the work. How does slipping the visa out of your wallet equate to the effort put in by the loyal player who participated back then? You're not interested in fairness, if you want it to be fair, then the entire outfit should cost close to $40 bucks: 2 hrs at federal minimum wage + the price of a subscription. But, my guess is that you're not really interested in fairness. Fairness to you is everyone gets a trophy or ribbon and anything else, anything distinct or something that highlights individualistic endeavor are just being a "special snow flake." It's a straw man argument made to completely ignore any real concept of fairness.

*cough* The FFXIII event rewards are dyeable already.

then modify the new set to glow or something.

[Colorful]

snip

It may not be convenient to you, but it sure would be for many others. Let's start with an example, the moogle quests. The majority opinion is that these were unpleasant to do, while also holding very little story value. If we had a huge button that said "skip me" that would boost your level to the amount you'd be after having done the said moogle quests, that would be convenience. Of course this would be a poor implementation, the proper way to do it would be to boost the amount of EXP gained from the MSQ so you didn't have to put yourself through the tedious moogle quests, again "the state of being able to proceed with something without difficulty" - putting myself through those quests was difficult to bare through due to tedium in my experience, so being able to skip those would have been, you guessed it, convenient.

Now let's talk player expectations, locking this convenient option behind a paywall is a big no-no, a standard has been set for pay to play MMOs and developers must follow these standards or otherwise suffer through the rather large hit in PR, and potentially losing many, many subscribers which of course is not the desired result. With less players you'd be making less money, and with no players you'd have no one to sell these options to. You're right, you could pull through a variety of pre existing items, but that is not something that has been accepted by the playerbase, nor is it something SE wishes to toy with as of yet. They did try it with Odin's steed, but as you may know there was heavy backlash. Tell me, have we gotten any other cash shop exclusive mounts since then? No, all the nicer ones were obtainable within game. Lesser panda? We already have minions in the cash shop, and if it had been in the cash shop to begin with it would have been accepted because again, this is a standard that they've found out they can get away with, with very minimal negative effects at that.

Tell me, if someone's endgame was focused so heavily on glamour, would they not want the return of the event or the gear? Even if it was buyable only, would that not provide that with satisfaction knowing that they have not only a new set, but pieces they can mix and match? I say this because you seem to be against not only the return of the items on the cash shop, but the return of the items in the event. You're both against people paying for the items, and yet against them obtaining in the method you deem fair. I am not someone who can tell that their endgame wasn't infringed upon (but if your endgame relies solely on events then that's another subject. If it's glamours then it's but a small part of the whole), but you know who is? Square Enix, they have set the precedent of selling these items on the cash shop, time and time again. Go take a look at the cash shop, all of those items were once in the game and required time and effort (only a tad bit of both) to obtain, and yet what do you know? They're in the cash shop. This isn't something I'm deciding, it's something the developers are.

In the case of people unable to purchase the items due to being strapped for cash or unable to access a credit card, there's always the option of bringing the event back that once again, you are opposed to. You would rather have they didn't take that one day reimplementing that event and worked on something else, even though that other thing might take 30 days. You are the one withholding this glamour from people who's endgame is glamour, you are the one opposed to putting these back up for free.
You know full well I'm referring to fair in other matters, not in terms of price but in terms of gameplay impact. If the Lightning set had 1 million of every stat, that wouldn't be fair, that is how pay to win is defined, and please, you know full well that time spent playing a game is not equivalent to time spend working so I don't know why you're attempting to throw that out there.

It's become quite clear that you do care for the special snowflake status associated with having items other people do not, no matter you're saying otherwise. You do not want to give players the ability to purchase the items, nor do you want to give them the ability to earn them through the event. That's ignoring the fact that you derailed conversation from an ingame item that is useless being pay to win, to going into the details of what can be considered pay for convenience. I felt it was a more appropriate title and so I gave it just that, a more appropriate title. Pay for glamour, does that make you happy? I sure hope so.

[zosia]

It may not be convenient to you, but it sure would be for many others. Let's start with an example, the moogle quests. The majority opinion isthat these were unpleasant to do, while also holding very little story value. If we had a huge button that said "skip me" that would boost your level to the amount you'd be after having done the said moogle quests, that would be convenience. Of course this would be a poor implementation, the proper way to do it would be to boost the amount of EXP gained from the MSQ so you didn't have to put yourself through the tedious moogle quests, again "the state of being able to proceed with something without difficulty" - putting myself through those quests was difficult to bare through due to tedium in my experience, so being able to skip those would have been, you guessed it, convenient.

As we agree that would be a poor implementation, we need not discuss this paragraph.

Now let's talk player expectations, locking this convenient option behind a paywall is a big no-no, a standard has been set for pay to play MMOs and developers must follow these standards or otherwise suffer through the rather large hit in PR, and potentially losing many, many subscribers which of course is not the desired result. With less players you'd be making less money, and with no players you'd have no one to sell these options to. You're right, you could pull through a variety of pre existing items, but that is not something that has been accepted by the playerbase, nor is it something SE wishes to toy with as of yet. They did try it with Odin's steed, but as you may know there was heavy backlash. Tell me, have we gotten any other cash shop exclusive mounts since then? No, all the nicer ones were obtainable within game. Lesser panda? We already have minions in the cash shop, and if it had been in the cash shop to begin with it would have been accepted because again, this is a standard that they've found out they can get away with, with very minimal negative effects at that.

Fair point

Tell me, if someone's endgame was focused so heavily on glamour, would they not want the return of the event or the gear? Even if it was buyable only, would that not provide that with satisfaction knowing that they have not only a new set, but pieces they can mix and match? I say this because you seem to be against not only the return of the items on the cash shop, but the return of the items in the event. You're both against people paying for the items, and yet against them obtaining in the method you deem fair. I am not someone who can tell that their endgame wasn't infringed upon (but if your endgame relies solely on events then that's another subject. If it's glamours then it's but a small part of the whole), but you know who is? Square Enix,

they have set the precedent of selling these items on the cash shop

, time and time again. Go take a look at the cash shop, all of those items were once in the game and required time and effort (only a tad bit of both) to obtain, and yet what do you know? They're in the cash shop. This isn't something I'm deciding, it's something the developers are.

I disagree. This precedent is not so clear after the last rising event. There does seem to be some line, one that we are unclear on (since it's really SE who drew it), where things are either retired or put on the mog station. Where does that line fall? Is it only for holiday events? Do events with a certain amount of quests become exempt, who knows. Either way, it's not as cut and dry as you make it seem.

In the case of people unable to purchase the items due to being strapped for cash or unable to access a credit card, there's always the option of bringing the event back that once again, you are opposed to. You would rather have they didn't take that one day reimplementing that event and worked on something else, even though that other thing might take 30 days. You are the one withholding this glamour from people who's endgame is glamour, you are the one opposed to putting these back up for free.
You know full well I'm referring to fair in other matters, not in terms of price but in terms of gameplay impact. If the Lightning set had 1 million of every stat, that wouldn't be fair, that is how pay to win is defined, and please, you know full well that time spent playing a game is not equivalent to time spend working so I don't know why you're attempting to throw that out there.

Which is why I recommended that the set be put into gold saucer and freshened up in a way that all players would have a reason to revisit getting the set. Both new players and old players alike could appreciate the updated, and perhaps even better, version. I did not know the set was already dyeable, since I never used it, but we could make it glow or have some animation. I just want there to be new content for everyone, not just new players.

It's become quite clear that you do care for the special snowflake status associated with having items other people do not, no matter you're saying otherwise. You do not want to give players the ability to purchase the items, nor do you want to give them the ability to earn them through the event. That's ignoring the fact that you derailed conversation from an ingame item that is useless being pay to win, to going into the details of what can be considered pay for convenience. I felt it was a more appropriate title and so I gave it just that, a more appropriate title. Pay for glamour, does that make you happy? I sure hope so.

I don't use the items in question. I don't really care about the items in question. I never cared when they re-released the event, go check my posting history. What I do care about is the principle of the matter. SE should be working on new content for existing and new players, not retrofitting old content into the game for anyone that decided to join later. Also, once again, the "special snowflake" argument is a straw man. You use that to avoid actually addressing what is fair. I don't mind missing out on stuff, but you seem to think that everyone should get anything and everything anytime they want. See how productive it is to make exaggerated strawman arguments?

Let me tell you a story. I had almost every mini pet in wow, from the vanilla collector's edition to mini tyrael. There were two missing from my collection: the vampiric batling and the spirit of competition. I literally had every pet in warcraft, up to some absurd number around 514/516. You know what? I was ok with that. I was proud of the collection I had and did not begrudge the players who took the time to earn those two minipets. They had short run times and were never re-released. It would have been crappy of me to go whine on the official forums and screw the die hard collectors over to get my way. It sucks that my collection will forever be incomplete, but it's fair. I did not raid to get the vampiric batling, I did not pvp for the spirit of competition. By not being around for the events, I missed out on having a world class collection, tough luck I suppose. but it was fair.

Those pets were a nod to the players who stuck around and played the game. I did not want to take that away from them. That's what was fair, not this participation ribbon collectivist BS where everyone should get everything at any time during the games life. The lightning event might be SE's nod to the players who were around for parts of ARR. Why do you want to cheapen and devalue that?

[Colorful]

I disagree. This precedent is not so clear after the last rising event. There does seem to be some line, one that we are unclear on (since it's really SE who drew it), where things are either retired or put on the mog station. Where does that line fall? Is it only for holiday events? Do events with a certain amount of quests become exempt, who knows. Either way, it's not as cut and dry as you make it seem.

Could you clarify on this? The only thing that wasn't added was the Huzzah emote and for good reason, people get pissy when you add things like that for real money. This was made obvious when they added the bomb dance to the store, I'd say it's rightfully so, who would pay for an emote, just put it in the newer event. The two minions were added to the cash shop. This year's event minions will not be added until next year, as it is with these events.

Which is why I recommended that the set be put into gold saucer and freshened up in a way that all players would have a reason to revisit getting the set. Both new players and old players alike could appreciate the updated, and perhaps even better, version. I did not know the set was already dyeable, since I never used it, but we could make it glow or have some animation. I just want there to be new content for everyone, not just new players.

The point of the sets is to be the outfits from the Final Fantasy 13 series. Tampering with them would null that, as another option, why not? But to make it glow seems rather pointless, and ugly to be honest. I do not care for the set either, it looks incredibly awful and the game left me with a sour taste. As to why anyone would want to pay money for it is beyond me, but that goes for people who want it restricted too.

You use that to avoid actually addressing what is fair.

I did address what I believed to be fair several times, your disagreeing with my own opinion does not mean I didn't.

Let me tell you a story.

No point in discussing this as it's your own personal opinion, and at the point I've stopped caring. I do not even know why I'm arguing about these items I don't care for, but I guess I'm trying to find a reason other than exclusivity and there isn't a reason. This is cross promotional event, I do not believe it should be a "valued" thing. Veteran rewards fill that hole, pre order bonus items fill that hole, legacy rewards fill that hole, that's what I'll say on that. I believe I was around for one of the times the event happened, but I didn't do it due to not caring about the rewards, the same applies to the Shantotto event. I did the DQ event and I do have those items, and I believe they should be reimplemented for all to have one way or another. That's all I'll say on that.

[Samcaesar]

Snip

Yeah, and I'm in agreement with the "Let's not rehash the exact same event every year" part too, but why on earth can't they just do what they did with this previous Moonfire faire is beyond me. Implementing a vendor with previous years items and this years items for tokens/gil/whatever takes a whole lot less work, and I'm sure it's no where near the difficulty of making a new event.. So if they do the latter, why not do the former as well? If you're worried about adding it in again undermining the hard work of previous people, you might as well remove any previous content like Coil, because they're all loads easier with the massive jump in ilvl and the option to go in unlevel synced.

And.. Entitlement arguments are dumb. The word gets thrown around too much. Folks are entitled for wanting things, this includes wanting SE to allow old event items to be achievable in game.

[Nektulos-Tuor]

I want new events honestly..