So...about that white magitek mount

[MilesSaintboroguh]

This is a game, literally everything in it and the game itself is optional

Is there a better counter argument than that or is everyone just going to go "No u"?

[Colorful]

Is there a better counter argument than that or is everyone just going to go "No u"?

An argument to people screaming that it's optional? Yep, citing other MMOs that have went down the same route, the same group of people claimed it was only optional stuff and that the majority was still in the game, and that changed fast. Of course when you say they retort with "But that's a slippery slope, you have no evidence of that", of course I don't, that doesn't invalidate the argument. There's a difference between a reasonable slippery slope and an absurd one, which would be on the lines of:

FFXIV IS GOING TO MAKE RAIDS NOTHING BUT A WHITE ROOM AND YOU HAVE TO BUY THE MODELS AND TEXTURES FROM THE MOGSTATION

Businesses are out to make money, they're going to keep pushing it until they keep making money and the community will adapt and be fine with it. Level boost first introduced to WoW it was an outrage, now? It's fine. Mounts? It was fine, only a few mounts right? Now, most mounts in game are a literal reskin (not even adding extra armour in some cases). Hell, this slippery slope is already in effect with FFXIV. First it was Fantasias, "every MMO does it, there's no problem, it's cheaper than other MMOs" (I agree there), then old event items "Hey, it's better than them never coming back", even though they have come back before, then Sleipnir. No one was happy with that, even the Japanese players, some of them got salty to the point that stating someone important on the development team resembled a frog's testicle sack. The English players though? "It's only optional", let's move forward a few months, now we have NPC clothing and then even a patch later, two mounts. The icing on the cake is that they're not even account wide, like WoW would do it. Mog Station updates are becoming more and more frequent.

[whiskeybravo]

Businesses are out to make money, they're going to keep pushing it until they keep making money and the community will adapt and be fine with it. Level boost first introduced to WoW it was an outrage, now? It's fine. Mounts? It was fine, only a few mounts right? Now, most mounts in game are a literal reskin (not even adding extra armour in some cases). Hell, this slippery slope is already in effect with FFXIV. First it was Fantasias, "every MMO does it, there's no problem, it's cheaper than other MMOs" (I agree there), then old event items

Fear-mongering: the action of deliberately arousing public fear or alarm about a particular issue.

SE has stated quite specifically their desire to keep Mogstation items limited to glamour and things that won't affect gameplay. Until they actually put something on there that affects gameplay, this is all just hot air, trying to make a bad guy when there aren't actually any present.

[Colorful]

Fear-mongering: the action of deliberately arousing public fear or alarm about a particular issue.

SE has stated quite specifically their desire to keep Mogstation items limited to glamour and things that won't affect gameplay. Until they actually put something on there that affects gameplay, this is all just hot air, trying to make a bad guy when there aren't actually any present.

I'm well aware that they don't intend to do that, it would be intentionally offing their own game. Maybe when it's dying and they want to milk it for all its worth, but they'd have gone F2P by then regardless. The point is, glamour is a very big deal in this game. What does this game have going for it, interesting fights? Right, 5-6 fights every 8 months. Why do people run Void Ark 20 times a day? For the gear, what value does the Void Ark gear have? Glamour, that's it, it's entirely worthless due to uncapped Diadem now. A huge part of why quite a lot of people I play is glamour, mount collecting, minion collecting, and so on. As it stands, the cash shop doesn't cut into that too badly, my argument is that they very well might pull a Blizzard and do that, they've gotten more and more frequent with cash shop updates and that's what leads me to believe that.

PS. Could any form of petition of a very real issue not be considering fear mongering? I hate to compare it to real world issues, but I'll do so anyway. Net Neutrality is a big thing was/is a rather large issue, people were spreading the potential issues ("fearmongering", as you put it) of it changing to a more closed system, and that caused hundreds of thousands to voice their dislike for the system and get it stopped even though it seems to be pop up again every few months. Should we shut up and accept it because we're creating fear? No, it's reasonable to fear such a system because of it's potential, previously proven examples.

If the item was part of the story mode and it REQUIRES YOU to buy in order to finish the game will you still say it's an optional thing? Clearly not. You already paying for the sub why will you need to pay again?

The magitek is just a cosmetic thing as well as everything else in the cash shop making it OPTIONAL. In other words , no needed.

This should be locked as this cash shop business has been talked about over and over again.

Okay, sure it's optional, but how is that an argument against it? If they decided "You know what, no more craftable glamour sets or Gold Saucer rewards, we'll throw them on the Mog Station instead" would you be fine with that, because it's "optional" in the end, isn't it? I know they won't do something as stupid as that (or I'd hope not anyway), but according to your argument it's optional and we should shut up and accept it.

[Berethos]

An argument to people screaming that it's optional? Yep, citing other MMOs that have went down the same route, the same group of people claimed it was only optional stuff and that the majority was still in the game, and that changed fast.

The few subscription-required MMOs that I know that have gone down the same route with a cash shop (it's not a long list after all) haven't changed from having the majority still be in-game.

Those that shifted the lion's share of stuff to optional purchases via cash shop are pretty much all games that also shifted to a F2P model, wherein the cash shop becomes the main source of revenue instead of subscriptions.

Now, most mounts in game are a literal reskin (not even adding extra armour in some cases).

That's not exactly a new thing. Even as far back as The Burning Crusade most mounts added were reskins of a select set. Netherwings were just reskinned drake models and most options were simple recolors. On occasion they have made greater variations and the occasional unique model (usually attached to a raid boss - something they are still doing with the current one for killing Heroic or Mythic Archimonde), but since 2004 most in-game available mounts have been reskins of a specific set of the already available mounts. The only store-bought mount that I can think of that doesn't already have an equivalent version in the game (with reskins of it also available from various sources in the game) is the armored bat mount.

So yeah...WoW doing more reskins than new mounts is almost a decade old at this point.

[Colorful]

snip

I'm aware that WoW is very reskin happy (along with FFXIV and its recolours of the unicorn mount), the majority were reskins yes, but there were a few new models here and there which would eventually be re skinned. Now just about every unique mount that isn't a boar or a wolf is placed in the cash shop, the Siege of Orgrimmar raid mount is a Kor'kron Annihilator. The moose mount from Mythic Archimonde was also intended to be a cash shop mount, but it was changed after much outburst (at least they listen). If you don't mind me asking, what are the equivalents of the Winged Guardian, Enchanted Fey Dragon, Swift Windsteed, Grinning Reaver, and the Warforged Nightmare?

[Berethos]

If you don't mind me asking, what are the equivalents of the Winged Guardian, Enchanted Fey Dragon, Swift Windsteed, Grinning Reaver, and the Warforged Nightmare?

Grinning Reaver is a reskin of the bug mount from the Scepter of Azj'Aqir, Winged Guardian is saber mount with wings and a different face and bits of armor, Enchanted Fey Dragon is a reskinned drake (the same way the various drake mounts have been since the Netherwing mounts), the Swift Windsteed is a reskinned Talbuk, and the Warforrged Nightmare is simply a horse reskinned with different armor.

Now they may not have an equivalent that is nothing more than recolor, but all of them are reskins of existing personal mounts available in the game...save the bat mount (and even that one has long been a flight path mount type).

[Colorful]

snip

Incredibly smart rekins then (other than the Talbuk, don't know how I missed that), but I wouldn't consider a Drake mount to be an alternative to the Enchanted Fey Dragon, nor would I consider a horse as an alternative to the Warforged Nightmare. Would be in similar fashion to calling Kirin an alternative Sleipnir, their base skeleton is the same but otherwise it has a different model and textures too.