Your looking at it the wrong way.

[TheVedis]

so that begs the question...why charge? It only would make sense to keep it free so everyone keeps playing and keeps up interest. You make them pay, people leave and try other games, or forget about the game. Why risk those potential players sticking around after 2.0? Why charge and get more negative press? I just dont understand what they are thinking.

people who are gonna leave to play other games will do it regardless of wether or not this one charges

thats already been a proven fact

it doesnt matter how good ytour game is, people will still try others who want to do so and people eventualy move on

[Hayden]

@Zanfire

there thinking they want to get paid for their hard work is all. They have put a lot of effort into the game thus far and feel it is at a point where the free ride is over. I don't blame them. Personally I think they should shut the whole thing down and complete 2.0 THEN re open it. But the way they are doing it now? I'm ok with that too.

Personally if I was a dev and read the sort of crap people posted here I'd want to wash my hands of the game too. Just saying.

[Zanfire]

I would like to see these statistics claiming how player base is dwindling. From what I understand, populations have been up from normal on many servers. Even on my own server, I've noticed an increase in player activity. However, as this is just an eyeball account, I will not present it as an absolute statistic.

Your statistics are coming from...where again?

It wouldn't surprise me if you're the same kind of person that claims so adamantly that "50%" of the player base is going to leave when subscription fees hit.

You need to see statistics that this game has a tiny playerbase that quickly dwindles after a week or 2 of each patch....most of us see that every time one pops up. Do you think the populations is just going to shoot up when charging starts?

[Zeref]

Honestly, I think it's about time for a change in how most of us are looking at this. There are so many entitled and whiny posts on this forum, that sifting through them to find the honest feedback must be a never ending and daunting task for our poor Dev team.

I think we are missing the point of these forums, and the dev tracker system all together.

We have an honest chance to effect the development of this mmo and how it is molded as 2.0 approaches.

So the game sucks. Well sure if you are looking at it as a finished product. Or even through the same glasses you would look at a normal MMO after launch.

What we have here is not a finished product, or even a standard MMO. We have a shell of a previous game being slowly morphed into a completely different game. So troll translation? Somebody messed up BIG and now a new team is putting the pieces back together.

This is our chance to look at it with constructive criticism and tell them what IS and IS NOT working. As they progress we see the results in Patches. Small pieces of a bigger picture. Now because each patch does not give us what we like, or changes some small aspect we did like, we get pissed off, throw our hands in the air and swear vengeance on Sqeenix and its house for generations to come! When in reality each patch is simply a piece of the puzzle, in some cases it may not make sense until a few more pieces are put on. Sometimes what they are doing is just laying the ground work for future patches and changes. It'd going to be messy, it's going to be ugly. But what is the alternative? Leave the game in its original state a state which we all disliked? We wanted change! Programming is not fun nor is it EASY! Line after line of code each making sure it does not counter-dict some other line, a line most likely written by somebody ELSE who no longer WORKS on this product. It's amazing they've not just scrapped this whole thing and started over! It may have been easier!

We don't have to blindly back them up and white knight everything! If we see something we don't like, some aspect of game play we don't want in this MMO that is what the forum's are for. Giving constructive feedback! Not griping about everything and tearing the game down before it's launched.

Somebody screwed up. We know that, we've known that for over a year now. Let's move past that and start helping this dev team put the pieces back together. Because honestly if you don't want to see that done, now that the "free trial" is over. Why are you still here?

This is why I'm a jackass to most of the people on the boards bro, I'm an ass a lot of the time, but if you look at my posts you'll see that i'm only like that towards people who's best idea is "OMG THIS GAME SUCK LETS MAKE WOW2.0DURR" I like your post bro, I agree with it, and i sincerely wish more people on the forums start acting like you, maybe it'll give me the chance to be a little nicer all around.

[Tenshi]

"poopy doopy moogle whipons" = most entertaining phrase of the day

[Mireille]

the reason everyone is saying SE ruined this game is because.....they ruined this game...just because I choose to voice my opinion differently than you does not make my point less valid. [death].

Honestly the way you, and many others, are putting it makes it sounds like the game is dead and buried and all you can accomplish now is to make others see the light. The thing is not everyone is saying 'SE ruined the game.' In fact there are far more positives than negatives in the forums these days. A friend of mine who has a capped character on every pay to play MMO ever made, and who has always been down on this game due to his experiences watching many other P2P MMO fail at launch, has turned around when I thought he never would.

Then there is the recent post by a person with 1700+ forum posts and everything at 50 who insists 'the game sucks has only gotten worse and will never get better.' You have to wonder why they bother so much with a game they claim isn't worth playing? All someone like that can come off as is just being negative because they really get off on being negative. Even when their criticism is legit their words are countered completely by their actions. I had plenty of good friends in XI who talked the same way about XI and SE, but never quit and played 20 hours a day. You just can't take those complaints seriously when they act completely the opposite of the way their words lead you to think they would act.

I think what the OP is saying is for those who want the game to succeed it makes more sense for them to say 'Content X is a problem here is how it could be made better.' It's not a complete product its a beta at best, and SE acknowledges it. They've moved on with their lives in a constructive way, so why can't the haters?

[Tenshi]

A mere Like button does not suffice--I am speechless with the number of valid points in that post.

[LicontAshontear]

Honestly the way you, and many others, are putting it makes it sounds like the game is dead and buried and all you can accomplish now is to make others see the light. The thing is not everyone is saying 'SE ruined the game.' In fact there are far more positives than negatives in the forums these days. A friend of mine who has a capped character on every pay to play MMO ever made, and who has always been down on this game due to his experiences watching many other P2P MMO fail at launch, has turned around when I thought he never would.

Then there is the recent post by a person with 1700+ forum posts and everything at 50 who insists 'the game sucks has only gotten worse and will never get better.' You have to wonder why they bother so much with a game they claim isn't worth playing? All someone like that can come off as is just being negative because they really get off on being negative. Even when their criticism is legit their words are countered completely by their actions. I had plenty of good friends in XI who talked the same way about XI and SE, but never quit and played 20 hours a day. You just can't take those complaints seriously when they act completely the opposite of the way their words lead you to think they would act.

I think what the OP is saying is for those who want the game to succeed it makes more sense for them to say 'Content X is a problem here is how it could be made better.' It's not a complete product its a beta at best, and SE acknowledges it. They've moved on with their lives in a constructive way, so why can't the haters?

I love how all the whiteknights always focus on the first bad thing I say and ignore everything else I say. +1 to you sir ^^

[SirOleas]

Oh...I'm sure people will pay 9.99 a month to troll these forums. It makes them feel important.

[OMEGA_HACK]

I would just like to point out that this only one the first half of the class reforms. We are getting the second half in 1.21, so while it might seem like a "nerf" or "destroying to rebuild" instead of just building up, its really not. So consider that we are only 50% complete in terms of the class reforms not the game itself.

That being said, I actually had, what I feel was an enlightening conversation with a cousin (we've been playing MUDs and MMOs since Neverwinter Nights, but I digress...) the gist of the conversation was what was so different from what makes modern MMOs so different from the older ones. By no means is this a direct analysis of fact, everything I am about to say is merely the pondering of two people.

Older MMOs tended to be great because:
+the nostalgia effect
+they aimed to be better than all other games (not just other MMOs)
+it was a new and original concept

This is what we came up with, why does this matter, might you ask? Well just look around the forums and the answer you seek will reveal itself. But for the less adventurous readers I will provide you with the answer you won't seek. New MMOs and this MMO (just like the new Star Wars MMO and ALL new MMOs) are looking at beating other MMOs 1st and all other games 2nd. Plain proof of this is in the players, look at how many times people make claims that this MMO will "kill" that MMO. Not to mention developers when making the game make claims to out do which ever current MMO looks the most threatening.

That being said its not like trying to out do the competition is a bad thing, but I feel like we (both consumers and developers alike) fixate too much on that aspect, why not try to crush the entire gaming industry? Why not kick the MMO world up a notch? Why not make MMOs the triumph of all gaming types like RTSs, RPGs, FPSs, MMOs? Why can't a MMO be all these things an more all at once? Why not destroy all other types of gaming available?

Personally I feel that if this isn't done the world of subscription based MMOs will fade away in time to be nothing more than a fading fad. Of course MMOs won't completely disappear, but I feel they might become an even smaller niche in the gaming world as a whole. Sadly with most of the general atmosphere in these forums this game will more than likely run itself into the ground (not that this is something I wish, in fact its completely the opposite, I want this MMO to be better than any game ever created/will be created!)

Also I feel that some people try to compare "their first MMO experience" to the current MMO they are playing (this is the nostalgia effect), pulling from their memory they can't count on their hands how many memorable experiences and good times they had, then they look at the current MMO they've just picked up and say "why am I not having a similar experience?" Well one factor that I personally feel (myself included) that most people forget is the amount of time all those memories developed. Its not like it all happened in one sitting of playing that MMO, in fact it was more than likely years upon years of playing.

Now we all know its not fair to judge a book by its cover, but could you not say the same thing about MMOs? To create a fair analysis of the two MMOs you would need to have at least an equal amount of play time, would you not agree? Who knows maybe something spectacular will happen in the game (you meet another player who making the game enjoyable, you find a soul mate (it has happened!), you get into an active linkshell that really kick starts the game for you, the scenarios are endless.)

Finally, and I promise I am wrapping up this lengthy post, is the mere simple fact that we should progressively suggest ideas and refinements (on the forums in particular) instead of the current regressive suggestions a majority of the posters make (myself included, I do like a little trolling here and there I will not lie...but I try to keep it in the "joke" threads :s)

What I mean by this is instead of just flat out saying "it sucks" (in gist) why not add a comment on a way to improve the suggestion? And before anyone says that its not their job to provide suggestions, it is your right as a decent human being to be civil and polite to your fellow race. Best put by all the mothers and fathers of the world, if you have nothing nice to say don't say anything at all.

And with that I end this post, thank you for reading, I hope this relates to many people in this forum, as well as to the topic in hand. (although I might have gone off on a tangent...) I hope this post has enlightened some and given hope to others.