Mog Station is overpriced.

[Kosmos992k]

It bothers me that they could not afford to get these EU servers with the ~ $126 million in annual subscription revenue they were already receiving. Personally, I'd rather they remove the 12.99 subscription option to generate more revenue, than lock items in game behind a cash shop.

So, increase the prices of the game subscription to satisfy your dislike for optional extras sold at a premium? No thanks. The way it is now, the sub provides all the core elements, and the remaining 0.05% of items in the game (if it's even that much) are optional extras sold at a premium. I honestly don't understand your problem with this.

Inventory Expansion could not be done at Heavensward because of the PS3. It's been said many many times the PS3 was a huge huge factor in expanding the inventories. Stormblood will be dropping the PS3 which will allow the FFXIV team to upgrade their infastructure as needed in order to expand inventories.

No, this isn't the case. The inventory expansion is coming because of server upgrades. Inventory size was not limited by PS3, it was limited by the game architecture and how frequently the game could refresh the backup copy of your player data. Increasing the inventory size would have created problems on the server side. This is why they are phasing in the expansion to ensure that they do not expand inventory so much that the servers cannot keep up.

[Kaurie]

So, increase the prices of the game subscription to satisfy your dislike for optional extras sold at a premium? No thanks. The way it is now, the sub provides all the core elements, and the remaining 0.05% of items in the game (if it's even that much) are optional extras sold at a premium. I honestly don't understand your problem with this.

There are plenty of optional extras that are in game and part of the subscription. Do you support reducing the subscription cost and moving all of them to pay-for items? At what point is there a line drawn?

I do not think the game sub should be upped, they already make a lot of revenue off of it. "increase the prices of the game subscription to satisfy your dislike for optional extras sold at a premium?" makes it sound like a very selfish thing. My point is that this is a double-dipping shady business practice. Square, obviously, can do what they want. I am expressing my discontent on their forums, so that they are aware that they are creating discontent with this business practice.

Unfortunately that's not the fault of the FFXIV but rather SE as a company.

You make it sound like "FFXIV" is a company. While, I understand that maybe Yoshi is not the person to blame, that doesn't mean I am not unhappy about it. When you are unhappy with something at a store and you talk to the manager, it's not necessarily their fault either (maybe it was an employee, maybe it was the corporate policy). That's the life of being the boss.

My issue is undoubtedly with Square Enix, though.

[Kosmos992k]

There are plenty of optional extras that are in game and part of the subscription. Do you support reducing the subscription cost and moving all of them to pay-for items? At what point is there a line drawn?

I do not think the game sub should be upped, they already make a lot of revenue off of it. "increase the prices of the game subscription to satisfy your dislike for optional extras sold at a premium?" makes it sound like a very selfish thing. My point is that this is a double-dipping shady business practice. Square, obviously, can do what they want. I am expressing my discontent on their forums, so that they are aware that they are creating discontent with this business practice.

No, I do not support that at all.

For me the 'line' is a combination of the % of game items sold through the store, and the type of items sold through the store. The % must remain trivial compared to the number of in-game items that exist, and the items for sale should never affect game play. Further, Glamour is a core element of the game, so items in the shop should only be exceptional, premium items.

As I said before I would like to see the Chinese Dress (for example) obtainable in game, but have it not be dyable, for example. So the garment is still available to anyone in game, but the premium version is in the shop.

I do not like the way that past event items have been added to the shop either. I don't think they should be there. I see this as more of an issue than things like the Chinese Dress.

Where I got my information may have been wrong then. While I was aware that the issue was with the infrastructure and archiecture of the game, the resources I had found when looking into said the issue was compounded by the PS3 support and the fact that such sever upgrades wouldn't be possible with it still being supported. My apologies for the misinformation then.

There was always a lot of talk about the HUD/UI restrictions on the PS3, and it probably comes from that because if you expand inventory, that impacts the HUD/UI. However PS3 supports the extended inventory view, and I'm certain the devs could have simply implemented paging in that view to handle the increase without impacting the HUD significantly.

[Kaurie]

That's kinda how it works for big companies. It's essentially a single entity that branches out into various markets. Where one department/branch makes money for their product, the funds are moved to the pot.

Think of it like you would Apple. Do you really think that a single big sale product like the iPhone keeps every single penny of sale exclusive to that division? That it doesn't get distributed among other products, services, stores, etc that cost the company money (likewise for other products and their profits potentially going to the iPhone).

SE decides how the money is used. SE is not only about FFXIV. They're not only about Final Fantasy. Hell, they're not even only about developing video games (as mind blowing as that might be to some). It's all just one big pot and everyone, including the XIV devs, want their part of it.

The better that the net income is for XIV, the more money that SE will probably be willing to give them (as seen with Stormblood's budget). Revenue doesn't mean much if expenses are so high that actual profit is minimal, which thankfully doesn't seem to be a dark cloud for XIV, though it pales in comparison to the mobile market. FFRK, for example, seems to have done more for the company in short time than XIV did lol.

The cash shop in XIV simply serves as a means to prove profitability to the company, rather than a tool to simply make people hate on the devs lol. Just a bit of reality checking in there. The more likely that money can be made, the more likely they'll get a better budget to make the game that we play better, though obviously some cash shop or merchandising is inevitable.

Obviously, I understand this. However, thank you for the business lesson.

I should note, that I also think Apple has incredibly poor business practices, and do not support their products. So, it is kind of funny you used them as a comparison.

No, I do not support that at all.

For me the 'line' is a combination of the % of game items sold through the store, and the type of items sold through the store. The % must remain trivial compared to the number of in-game items that exist, and the items for sale should never affect game play. Further, Glamour is a core element of the game, so items in the shop should only be exceptional, premium items.

As I said before I would like to see the Chinese Dress (for example) obtainable in game, but have it not be dyable, for example. So the garment is still available to anyone in game, but the premium version is in the shop.

I do not like the way that past event items have been added to the shop either. I don't think they should be there. I see this as more of an issue than things like the Chinese Dress.

OK, so your line is "trivial" which is undefined and means something different to everyone. What is trivial? 1% of glamours? 0.1%? 0%? 5%? For me, the line is at 0%, and obviously you have a higher threshold, but what if someone else has a higher threshold than you? What if someone has a 50% threshold?

[Kasathar]

..., so items in the shop should only be exceptional, premium items.

All that mentality does, is create or further promote the notion that there are second class citizens within our community that either decide not to obtain those items or cannot afford them for whatever reason. This is the kind of stuff that makes "Free to play games" the dumps they are. That goes for their communities and also their cash shops.

[Kosmos992k]

All that mentality does, is create or further promote the notion that there are second class citizens within our community that either decide not to obtain those items or cannot afford them for whatever reason. This is the kind of stuff that makes "Free to play games" the dumps they are. That goes for their communities and also the cash shops.

How?

For months the cost of the Thavinarian bustier was out of reach for most average players. Most players will never acquire the raid gear or all the EX mounts and minions or weapons. There re already plenty of examples of 'second class' citizens in the game. Making a drama out of a tiny number of items in the cash shop doesn't serve your argument - IMHO.

[Kasathar]

How?

For months the cost of the Thavinarian bustier was out of reach for most average players. Most players will never acquire the raid gear or all the EX mounts and minions or weapons. There re already plenty of examples of 'second class' citizens in the game. Making a drama out of a tiny number of items in the cash shop doesn't serve your argument - IMHO.

No drama here, just bringing some light to an ongoing issue most feel "ok" with. The intention behind my argument is to deter the (already existent) increase of items in the Cash Shop.

[Kosmos992k]

No drama here, just bringing some light to an ongoing issue most feel "ok" with. The intention behind my argument is to deter the (already existent) increase of items in the Cash Shop.

As I said in one of my replies somewhere above, I'm not of with the inclusion of past event items which has seriously inflated the number of items on the Mogstation. I think if those items specifically were excluded from the MogStation, then all that would remain is truly a trivial number of items, which is how I feel it should remain. The inclusion of past event items is a mistake IMHO.

[Clover_Blake]

I do not like the way that past event items have been added to the shop either. I don't think they should be there.

Why not? People who attend the events get them for free, and people who didn't can pay for them and support SE, which in turn means that SE gives us more things. It's a win-win situation for everyone.

For the record, my lalafell didn't exist back when the cute Valentione dress was released. However, thanks to the dress being added to the cash shop later on, she could get it. I for one support adding those items there, as I tend to make new alts that missed the past events *laughs*.

[LillithCale]

No, this isn't the case. The inventory expansion is coming because of server upgrades. Inventory size was not limited by PS3, it was limited by the game architecture and how frequently the game could refresh the backup copy of your player data. Increasing the inventory size would have created problems on the server side. This is why they are phasing in the expansion to ensure that they do not expand inventory so much that the servers cannot keep up.

Where I got my information may have been wrong then. While I was aware that the issue was with the infrastructure and archiecture of the game, the resources I had found when looking into said the issue was compounded by the PS3 support and the fact that such sever upgrades wouldn't be possible with it still being supported. My apologies for the misinformation then.