White Raven earring given out at The Rising event 2018

[Kurando]

In this particular case, yes, it's just an earring, but it was a special item that was allowed to be carried over from their failed 1.0 game. In my mind, it was a token of "Hey, thanks for sticking with us through the bad here's a cool memento to bring with you on your new adventures". So if they start passing this out, where do they stop? What is next exclusive/rare item to be casually doled out to the greater mass?

Would you genuinely believe that most players continued on to 2.0 just because of free items? Definitely not, but one thing that did entice players was the reduction of their subscription which effects people much more greatly than that of something digital in-game that has literally no monetary value.

For something to be rare/exclusive, a customer needs to be able to have access to it to begin with, such as with the Collector's Editions of ARR/Expacs, or rare items in game that everyone can unlock through completing certain requirements etc. The earrings are currently impossible to obtain the only thing that you could claim is exclusive about them is SE giving legacy players a 5yr head start on having them before everyone else.

As stated in an earlier post, there is clear interest from players for SE to bring certain things of 1.0 back and they are actually open to the idea. In the end, despite legacy players sticking it out for so long, it's the 2.0 players onwards that are more in numbers for seeing old stuff, not to mention the money SE makes from the subs (as they do not get legacy discount) is much more profitable. The greater masses will get more treatment, that's how business works.

[Istaru]

There are plenty of real reasons to lose trust in the company. Your reasoning behind it, however, just appears flawed due to standards that dont make pragmatic sense. If you want to take a literal position of "Everything said must be honored to the T", youre going to have a lot more disappointment in SE, or any business for that matter.

There is a difference between being upset of a 'promise broken' from 5 years ago about things no longer viable from a different game (almost) that has little to no impact on anything, and being upset from promises made a year or two ago that still have direct on the game.

My blunt honest opinion: Your position seems unreasonable. Unfortunate.

I did not say “Again things change, I agree. I feel it would go a long way if they acknowledged that they stated those things and they are undoing them. Respect people enough to tell them what you are changing and why.” in Post 682 of this thread and reaffirm with “I really hope that most people think that honoring your promises, obligations and such might be a good place to start. If you can’t do that, at least try to work things out before blowing it up and ignoring those obligations.” in post 686? Both are on page 69, just one page back.

I really wish I had said that I understand that sometimes things do happen and agreements, even minor ones, have to change.

[MomomiMomi]

Legacy isn’t all about the reduced sub, or the “tattoo”, it’s not a tattoo per se, or the chocobo, or the goobbue, or the earring or the horn, or any of those items. It’s about putting your faith in a company and a team and having that faith rewarded. That is what legacy is really all about. Every time they undo part of the tangible items, such as the earrings or other things, they are undoing that faith. They are saying “You were wrong to put faith in us, we aren’t any better.”

Your faith was rewarded. They gave you A Realm Reborn.

[Ghoulheart]

To make a quick note here the Terms of Service and End User License Agreement while giving Yoshida and the development team free reign do whatever they want they are not a shield that can be used to deflect any and all criticisms from the consumer. And Consumers are allowed and should be encouraged to voice concerns and criticisms when a service they are paying regularly for depreciates. While Yoshida is under no obligation to keep any items exclusive, going back on his word does damage his integrity as director to a portion of his playerbase regardless of individual feelings on the matter.

Regarding "digital items have no value" the digital cosmetics in games industry has grown to multi-million dollars in profits and companies do encourage sales through the idea of artificial scarcity through exclusive windows of opportunity or limited quantity distribution. Yoshida is the one who set the value of these items by marketing them as being exclusive to 1.0 players to drive subscriptions and encourage player growth and is now devaluing them by giving them away because he didn't want to allocate resources to creating new rising themed assets and is deserving of any negative or positive feedback he gets from his decisions.

[Nixxe]

To make a quick note here the Terms of Service and End User License Agreement while giving Yoshida and the development team free reign do whatever they want they are not a shield that can be used to deflect any and all criticisms from the consumer. And Consumers are allowed and should be encouraged to voice concerns and criticisms when a service they are paying regularly for depreciates. While Yoshida is under no obligation to keep any items exclusive, going back on his word does damage his integrity as director to a portion of his playerbase regardless of individual feelings on the matter.

Regarding "digital items have no value" the digital cosmetics in games industry has grown to multi-million dollars in profits and companies do encourage sales through the idea of artificial scarcity through exclusive windows of opportunity or limited quantity distribution. Yoshida is the one who set the value of these items by marketing them as being exclusive to 1.0 players to drive subscriptions and encourage player growth and is now devaluing them by giving them away because he didn't want to allocate resources to creating new rising themed assets and is deserving of any negative or positive feedback he gets from his decisions.

"His words" in this case seem to be more about what players read into a vague list of things than anything that was actually said. Nothing anyone has posted in this thread has unequivocally shown otherwise.

[Canadane]

For something to be rare/exclusive, a customer needs to be able to have access to it to begin with, such as with the Collector's Editions of ARR/Expacs, or rare items in game that everyone can unlock through completing certain requirements etc. The earrings are currently impossible to obtain the only thing that you could claim is exclusive about them is SE giving legacy players a 5yr head start on having them before everyone else.

How's a CE purchase any different than a timed exclusive event item?
Or perhaps a better example would be preorder bonus items. Should those all be given out too?

[Kurando]

Yoshida is the one who set the value of these items by marketing them as being exclusive to 1.0 players to drive subscriptions and encourage player growth and is now devaluing them by giving them away because he didn't want to allocate resources to creating new rising themed assets and is deserving of any negative or positive feedback he gets from his decisions.

This isn't completely true. As with previous events, the items obtained from them are released on to the Mog Station a year later to purchase for real cash, therefore they are given a value. No doubt this will happen to the earrings, so in the long term there is actually something to gain in terms of profit.

[Stormfur]

They probably will be at some point in the future.

I tried the ARR beta when it first came out, but I had mixed impressions about the game back then and didn't buy the Collector's Edition (and obviously didn't get the things that came with it). But I can go into my account this very day, pay a little bit and get that edition right now if I wanted to. I did get the HW and SB Collector's Editions though (although not for the shinies) so I don't know if you can upgrade to those now or not. I'm betting you can.

[Amiral_Benson]

But it may not be just "handed out". If it is, then yeah, I can agree with you, that would be in poor taste. But we don't know until the actual event occurs. IF we got to do the fight, as close as technically feasible, with the same item and character level, and we completed it successfully, would that not be close enough to the same thing?

I mean.. would that be okay? Or is it the combination of "a very hard fight" + "servers shutting down and we won't get to experience this as it was"? (I'm legitimately asking, not trying to stir up drama).

What would be totally okay, is something of the same overall difficulty.

I'm comparing difficulties with the % of people who would manage to clear it. Since in 1.0 the % of 1.0 players winning the White Ravens was ridiculously minuscule, I would expect something similar.

The closest I can think of is what Kharlan said, UCoB Milestone, not clearing entirely UCoB, but clearing Twintania and then Nael in UCoB, meaning the 6 first minutes of UCoB out of the 19 min.

Not only % wise it's really close, as it should be a % way lower than Savage, but not as low as Ultimate, but where it makes all sense, is that these earrings are based on Nael 1.0 head piece armour.

With this, story wise, lore wise it would make totally sense, plus anniversary wise and current content wise, it would also make totally sense, as UCoB got released recently and is still completely relevant.

This would answer the legitimate demand of players who just asked to have a chance to get them as a real trophy as well, to earn it.

But Stormfur, this upcoming Rising 2018, it's a level 15 event, that don't happens in STORMBLOOD, but that is available to people that just own ARR.

If I was the developer, I would have addressed all this the following way, to make the 3 parties entirely happy, without needing to spend any game resources on it:

• I would have put the original White Ravens as a reward for clearing Nael in Unending Coil of Bahamut (Ultimate), which means clearing those 6 first minutes of the fight.
  The % of players capable of doing that is close enough to the % of players who managed to win the White Ravens in 1.0.
  This would pleased the players who are just asking to get a fair chance of getting them as a real earned trophy (as well as putting more incentive to get into that fight).
• I would have also made Replicas, that I would have handed during the event, for people asking them for Glamour.

1.0 players, ARR HW SB players asking a way to earn them as a real similar trophy, and people wanting them for glamour, would all be happy, they would not feel cheated, they would feel understood and supported, making the developer fairly enough trustworthy.

[Kurando]

How's a CE purchase any different than a timed exclusive event item?
Or perhaps a better example would be preorder bonus items. Should those all be given out too?

Collectors editions are still available to purchase (whether officially or not) they are not limited like time events, so there is a difference between these two. Considering there could be editions with pre-order bonuses somewhere online being sold, it's still another thing that's not impossible to obtain. However as some codes do have expiry dates, that can complicate it, but it still isn't completely out of reach. And honestly I really wouldn't be surprised if such things are released in the future, because if players ask enough, it might just happen.