Stop Making Should-Be Achievement Gear.."Optional Gear"

[Alleo]

No. It doesn't necessary mean anything, but it somewhat implies that FFXIV's model makes them more money than Wildstar's does. While I don't think it's entirely fair to draw that conclusion, I have no idea how one would draw the opposite conclusion. Can you explain?

Well Wildstars is not that successful as FF14 thus they have less people playing it. But at the same time they are able to have no sub, you can earn the currency to buy things from their cash shop and yet somehow they can still survive and create new content. (I dont play the game so I cant say how good or bad the content is but that is subjective anyway)

So what I am saying is: Somehow people say that FF14 needs the cash shop to survive because the costs are so high (which we dont know) and are otherwise not able to buy these things like the EU and NA servers, yet we have to pay a sub, buy each new expansion at a high price and on top of that the cash shop is priced quite high too. If wildstar somehow manages to survive on their model with less people playing their game, shouldnt FF14 do so too with their subscription model alone?

For me they dont truly need the cash shop to produce content for the game but are using it to make even more money. I know that they are a company and that the main goal is to earn more money...but as a customer its kinda getting more and more greedy, especially since the prices are quite high too imo. I am just kinda surprised how many people look at this with eyes of a business, like being part of SE and not as a customer.

In the end its true that none of us knows why they do the things they do and if its necessary or just for milking. I just find it interesting that other MMOs with less numbers can still survive with a way much nicer cash shop. If we were F2P I would not complain about it because I know that the company needs the money from the items to manage the game. I just find it a little sad that we somehow now ended with a F2P cash shop while having to pay sub + buy the games.

Maybe people will not quit now (which we dont know since not everyone goes to the forum when they plan to leave the game and say why) but I just fear what the future will bring. And if SE will cross the line for too many people..well it will be too late to change it. Its probably already hard to get new players in a marked that has so many other games as a competition and on top of that has a subscription model (which was something that kept me from playing Wow as an example). And if they put more and more things into the cash shop with such prices they might just scare away interested players that are already not sure if they want to start it thanks to the sub. At the same time some cash shop and other decisions might chase away some of your veteran players. This could lead to a very bad situation. This might be doomsday talk for some and I really hope that it will never happen.

[Also I dont hate anyone that are buying from it. I mean I own some of the items too. But the development of the shop over the last few months is really not that comfortable for me thats why I am discussing this so intensely. Because in the end, only those that still at least care a bit about the game will take their time to write in the forum.]

[ErikMynhier]

OMG this thread again? Look you have a few options here.

1. Go to school, join a company and build your own MMO and show them how its done because you obviously know the ins and outs better then they do.

2. Boycott the game and convince at least 1/4 of your fellow players to do so as well and publish a well circulated manifesto explaining your reasons clearly.

3. Stop making these threads, thereby making me search all the anti-cashshop players on Lodestone to see how many minions and mounts they bought. I can only call hypocrisy so much.

4. Don't buy the items?

IDK man, #4 seems to be the easiest, although there is less outrage in that option and therfore less attention to be had.

[Talraen]

Well Wildstars is not that successful as FF14 thus they have less people playing it. But at the same time they are able to have no sub, you can earn the currency to buy things from their cash shop and yet somehow they can still survive and create new content. (I dont play the game so I cant say how good or bad the content is but that is subjective anyway)

So what I am saying is: Somehow people say that FF14 needs the cash shop to survive because the costs are so high (which we dont know) and are otherwise not able to buy these things like the EU and NA servers, yet we have to pay a sub, buy each new expansion at a high price and on top of that the cash shop is priced quite high too. If wildstar somehow manages to survive on their model with less people playing their game, shouldnt FF14 do so too with their subscription model alone?

I'm confused. Wildstar is free-to-play, which means it's entirely supported by cash shop purchases and premium subscription plans. How does that imply that FFXIV could work on a subscription without a cash shop? That's exactly the opposite model.

[JunseiKei]

I just keeping reading this thread and then keep hearing the comment made by Yoshida fairly recently running around inside my head.

The one where he has someone above him that oversees the Mogstation. How they have to take development away to work on items and if they don't think the items will go over too well, they simply don't work on them.

However, if the Overseer of the Mogstation (may she make our wallets tremble) sees demand for something, it will be developed and placed into the Mogstation. However, only if they see demand for it.

Then I see how outcry against the Scion Adventurer's jacket hasn't gone over well, how that was time taken to make it... yeah. SE, you do what you do.

/ramble

EDIT:

I'm confused. Wildstar is free-to-play, which means it's entirely supported by cash shop purchases and premium subscription plans. How does that imply that FFXIV could work on a subscription without a cash shop? That's exactly the opposite model.

The thing people don't pick up on is that most MMOs can't survive on a subscription based income. The only MMOs alive I can think of that are subscription based still are WoW, FFXI (free now that its life has been drawn out, but no cash shop), FFXIV. Some start out as subscription based and quickly devolve into freemiums (TERA, Aion, Rift, The Elder Scrolls Online, Black Desert apparently).

[AsukaHamano]

I buy from MS simply because i like the stuff they put up there. I pay Sub because i like and want to play the game. the balance of items through achievements or in game in comparison to MS is still huge so its not like EVERYTHING is now MS only. if you want to buy stuff, do it. If you dont, then dont.
I do understand the OP's arguement but this is like shouting at a brick wall. MS works, it makes money and makes players happy so why would SE change anything with a working cash flow?

[Moonlite]

OMG this thread again?

All the extra threads about cash shop are a bit much. But the company has had plenty of time to see the complaints discuss in a live letter and post in the forums. If they came out and explained we are budgeted for four emotes anything extra has to be paid for elsewhere. People would still be mad that songbird emote was the emote they got instead of play dead. But it seems more reasonable and people could side with SE easier. I only see (notice?) one thread for Jump potions. Cash shop is clearly a polarizing issue. I also checked and did not see a sub forum for Mog Station.

I am more upset about game design and how it plays into current subs and future cash shop. But clearly people are passionate about clothes/hair/mounts. The boycotting would probably not work that well at this point in time. They would be better off gathering and spamming social media. As some companies do seem afraid of the bad publicity snowballing.

After talking to a few guys who play WoW and some f2p games. What feels reasonable to me and probably very unpopular with the forums. Is that you can earn cash shop items in game. That this reduces in game money sellers. Since you just get tokens in cash shop and sell through vendors in game.

[JunseiKei]

~snip~

The issue was addressed as recently as Frankfurt or PAX- I don't recall which. Also, can read my post above for the person of the Mogstation going over Yoshida to make items specifically for it. Spamming social media won't do anything about it other than show that they are whiny- they'll probably get laughed off by the industry as a whole.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

But doesnt that mean that the game itself is not running that well if it needs cash shop on top of the sub to get a bigger budget or to get new servers? I mean isnt that kinda scary? What if people will stop buying things from the cash shop? Will we never ever get an server upgrade again? Will we get less content in the expansion after SB if the cash shop is worse than now? A subscription MMO needing the cash shop to survive would imo mean that they dont have enough sub numbers..which would mean that it would be not profitable if they will stop putting things in the cash shop..more and more things in the cash shop could also at the same time mean that sub numbers will drop -> need more items in the cash shop to make up for this.

SE is a really big company and FF14 1.0 really went bad thus I can imagine that SE itself did not want to give the devs a really nice budget to work with..just in case that ARR and HW would be a failure too. I just believe that they finally are believing that this game will do good and are reinvesting the money into it. I also cant see how a budget can be tripled just by cash shop. That would be one hell of sold items.

The cash shop isn't necessary, it simply allows for another profitable avenue the game can take advantage of. I suspect they utilize it as a guaranteed source of income while sub fees are allocated throughout the company as project priority dictates. This is why we hear of things like it paying for the EU datacenter.

You later mention increasing our sub by a $1 to offset abandoning the cash shop model entirely. If we only include non-event mounts (so omitting the Witch Broom), the total cost for every mount currently is $102. A single dollar addition per month wouldn't come close to making up the difference. You're looking at closer to the $5 example. This is why publishers adopted micro-transactions over raising prices. Most people are willing to accept optional purchases. I wager the backlash to suddenly being charged $18-20 would be significantly larger than any ire towards the cash shop.

[Xlantaa]

I will laugh the day a Relic weapon will be a optional item on the shop. "Save the grind paying 9,99"

I agree with OP, sub-based game shouldn't have a cash shop.

Only the character name and the trasnfer server should be in the cash (To avoid abuse). Nothing more.

[Naunet]

Eso would have been a better comparison then Wildstar i would think, no?
It has done far better then WS, lol

It's a good game. Just because you don't think so doesn't mean it's not enjoyed by plenty of people. PLUS, that isn't even the point. Its cash shop model is FAR better than SE's, and that is the ONLY comparison I was making. You can't tell me that it's better for customers to be charged $15 for a single-character outfit when I can play WildStar for a few hours a day and earn enough Omnibits to buy whatever outfit I want after a couple days - an outfit that I can unlock for my entire account. (Or I can spend ~$6-8 for the account-wide costume, which is ALSO a better deal than FFXIV.)

But people just can't wait to take potshots at WildStar, despite having never played it (or only played it for a month at launch).