Compromise: Just Charge $5 For Now. Once 2.0 is Out, Then Charge $12

[AmyRae]

Now i'm not hating on FFXIV, i play the game, i think is going in the right direction overall, but is it in the same league as current MMO in the market ? Not even Close! Now i understand SE needs money, if they say "Hey we need money, bail us out, atleast they are being honest, but to say that the game is nearing 100% to compete with other MMO's ? thats just dilusional.

I think the comparison isn't fair.

Blizzard doesn't have to redevelop two versions of WoW from scratch (one for the failed version which is still kept running, one for the new version) at the same time during that year. WoW had a huge lead out of the gate from day one, and that mountain of subscriber money which comes out to roughly 24X whatever FFXI made makes it real easy to pump out content.

What you get with your half-finished FFXIV subscription is a chance to see the world end, and gather a few (perhaps handy) souvenirs of the experience. If you don't care about that, then you don't have to stick around to pay to watch it. But I'm sure there are people who are just dying to see what will happen and experience it just to say they were there, and we'll all meet up again for 2.0 when it's all over.