Mog Station is overpriced.

[Kaurie]

Considering the relatively tiny number of items in the cash shop, I can't see why this is an issue to so many people. Also the metallic dyes show something a bit different. They were extremely rare in game, they were added to the shop, people purchased some. And then they became easier to obtain in game as well as sellable on the MB. I bet they still sell pretty well on the Mogstation though.

Personally, I find the existence of the cash shop to be bothersome.

Before subscribing and getting hooked on FFXIV, I examined the three different options of games:

1. F2P: Money is obtained via selling fluff items in the cash shop
2. P2W: F2P but Money is used to purchase game-changing buffs
3. B2P: Buy the game, following that no sub, but cash shop is present
4. P2P: Buy the game, pay a sub

When I examined the options, I decided on a sub, because I wanted to have a neutral price that gives me everything the game has to offer.

The cash has become more and more prevalent, costs have risen, that I fail to see the difference between this and a B2P or a F2P game. The quality of the game isn't even necessarily better (Guild Wars 2 is updated frequently, and a very good game - albeit I don't play it do the playstyle preferences). With this continued trend, I have increasing desires to just unsub and go play a F2P game.

[LillithCale]

Personally, I find the existence of the cash shop to be bothersome.

May I ask if you still find the existence of the cash shop to be a bother knowing that the cash shop was the reason that EU players recieved actual EU servers? I would also like the point at the rising costs have been, mostly (looking at you Moogle Mount), on outfits that have been brought over to us from another region, converted into our currency and then sold for near similar prices that the original audience paid for.

[Kaurie]

May I ask if you still find the existence of the cash shop to be a bother knowing that the cash shop was the reason that EU players recieved actual EU servers? I would also like the point at the rising costs have been, mostly (looking at you Moogle Mount), on outfits that have been brought over to us from another region, converted into our currency and then sold for near similar prices that the original audience paid for.

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.

[Colorful]

May I ask if you still find the existence of the cash shop to be a bother knowing that the cash shop was the reason that EU players recieved actual EU servers? I would also like the point at the rising costs have been, mostly (looking at you Moogle Mount), on outfits that have been brought over to us from another region, converted into our currency and then sold for near similar prices that the original audience paid for.

I think it would bother players knowing SE wasn't willing to shell out enough money to provide European servers without cash shop profits, doesn't almost every FotM MMORPG launch with NA and EU servers?

If cash shop profits are going back into the game with things other than expansion inventory which should have been done with Heavesnward's launch, then it's fine as long as they don't ramp up the amount cash shop exclusive items. I'm expecting to see huge things with Stormblood with its reportedly massive budget according to these forums. NPC clothing and events are expected at this point, but exclusive clothing that weren't regional exclusives, events or NPC clothing is a no-go for me personally and one unique cash shop mount every (or every other) patch isn't too bad as long as they aren't priced higher than Sleipnir for no good reason.

[LillithCale]

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.

Unfortunately that's not the fault of the FFXIV but rather SE as a company. FFXIV 1.0 was a failure and though they had great succes with 2.0 there were still many times in which YoshiP would cite "not enough resources' as a reason why they couldn't provide something which is -usually- developer talk for not enough funding. There was even an interview where he spoke about needing to hire on more battle content developers because they were so short staffed. Now, one would think they should just be able to take from with SE itself, but SE is, unfortunately, notorious for taking people off of one succesful project and dumping them onto another project they hope to bring succes to (Rumor speculation in this case is FFXV but there has been NO OFFICIAL confirmation of staff or funds from FFXIV being reallocated to FFXV)

It's frustrating, because through various sources, things you can read in interviews with YoshiP and even googling for information involving SEs earnings and the like, it should be clear that this game does not need a cash shop, yet the proceducer himself up and said when it was created that it was being done so to fund other projects they wanted to do for FFXIV, with the EU servers being the first ones names. Yes, SE as a company should be providing the FFXIV staff with the funding to do this, but, for whatever reason, shielded behind doors we can not see through and conversations we know nothing of, it's clear that this is not happening but why it's not happening is what we don't know.

The Cash Shop is, whether one likes or not, a feature that YoshiP felt the game needed for him to provide certain aspects to community that they wanted. Yes, it sucks but that is the reality of the situation.

Thankfully, at Fanfest 2016 in Vegas, it was said that Stormblood has triple the budget of Heavensward (Source: Me, I was there), so hopefully that means the unqiue cash shop only items we've been seeing (such as Selpnir and the Mog mount, I don't count regional exlusives as unique cash shop content because those aren't done by complete choice on the FFXIV Developers side, those are part of a contract negoation to allow the game to run in closed markets), will start to die down and it'll go back to mostly one off items and seasonal items of days past.

I think it would bother players knowing SE wasn't willing to shell out enough money to provide European servers without cash shop profits, doesn't almost every FotM MMORPG launch with NA and EU servers?

If cash shop profits are going back into the game with things other than expansion inventory which should have been done with Heavesnward's launch, then it's fine as long as they don't ramp up the amount cash shop exclusive items. I'm expecting to see huge things with Stormblood with its reportedly massive budget according to these forums. NPC clothing and events are expected at this point, but exclusive clothing that weren't regional exclusives, events or NPC clothing is a no-go for me personally and one unique cash shop mount every (or every other) patch isn't too bad as long as they aren't priced higher than Sleipnir for no good reason.

Two quick things I want to touch on here, since my reply above does cover some of this but:

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.

I'm guessing, and apologies if I am wrong, that the mount you are talking about is the Moogle Mount. Now, I do not disagree that the price is OUTRAGEOUS. However, it has been stated that the reasons for the price tag is because it is a flying, two seater mount that is account wide.

[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.

[Colorful]

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.

I'm guessing, and apologies if I am wrong, that the mount you are talking about is the Moogle Mount. Now, I do not disagree that the price is OUTRAGEOUS. However, it has been stated that the reasons for the price tag is because it is a flying, two seater mount that is account wide.

Doesn't the PS3 work around inventory limitations by splitting the inventory into separate pages? In the case that even then it was limited, fair enough, but I don't see a reason to not give us an extra retainer while they sold a few extra. It's clear they knew we wanted more inventory space, but they opted to sell it in the form of retainers instead. I'm glad we're finally getting the expansion though, I do hope it's a substantial increase but I figure we'll learn more during the JP or EU Fanfests.

As for the mount, yep, it's the moogle mount. Have staff members ever stated the reason the price increase was due to it being a two seater mount? I don't see flying warranting an increase in price as that's also going to be applied to Sleipnir, and the price reasoning could because it's an entirely new model. Either way, a two seater mount isn't more than a slight bump into animation work but the price is significantly higher, as you said, it's "outrageous" to charge half the price of an AAA game for a mount. As for future two seater mounts, I'd like the option to purchase a single seater version if that's the excuse they'll roll with, I already have two 2 seater chocobo mounts and they're used maybe once every 2-3 months. :s

Oh well, as long as they don't slap on +30% EXP gain on future NPC clothing and use that as an excuse to charge more... It's clear they don't plan on changing their payment model anytime soon, better to ask for them to be more reasonable when it comes to future items, at least there's a chance they'll listen.

[Welsper59]

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.

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.

[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.