Mogstation taking another step to the darkside

[Boa-Noah]

If you don't support your fellow consumer, just get out. You're screwing yourselves and everyone else.

So... are you for or against people buying stuff off the mogstation? It kind of seems like you're arguing for both sides honestly, you mention getting more for our money which would imply more items in the game for sub costs but then you mention supporting fellow consumers, so just a little confused?

Personally I fully endorse the cash shop, it's all tertiary stuff and the game does manage to add enough recolors and new items that making a nice glamor set doesn't require spending a single penny like it does in some other games. Heck, the most egregious I'd say is the Fantasia is a little too expensive, it doesn't really seem like it should cost as much as it does considering it just toggles the 'change appearance' option that's just there all the time for every single character. Like, name changes or server transfers cost some effort on the back-end to move things around and change the database but the appearance options seem entirely much easier to change since you can just shotgun fantasia without any hiccups.

Hell, I don't really understand people that get mad at the mogstation... just don't buy off it? Like, yeah, if you want a spriggan mount then sure you'll have to buy one but so what? I want a Faberge Egg but sadly they don't give those out for free either so I don't have one.

[kaynide]

So many people here just REALLY seem to hate other people that want more for their money as consumers. I honestly cannot fathom what they think they're doing by arguing.

That’s just it. I mean this respectfully, but there would simply be no “more for your money”. We can only guess at what the spriggan was originally intended for (originally it was an event reward? made by specific DLC team for DLC?), but if the information we have been given thus far is accurate, the DLC team is fueled by profits made by selling DLC. So, if the cashflow didn’t exist, the mount would very likely just not exist.

That is true - the mount is simply a spriggy with no Hatching Tide decoration to be seen, though to be fair, it's questionable why a spriggan mount was added at the same time as the yearly event themed with spriggans. If the mount in question was literally anything else I doubt this thread would even exist.

I get this can def. rub people the wrong way, but it was good business sense to sell X when X has the biggest chance of returns.

At the very least, I figure people would be happy since it means they have the template(skeleton/skin/rigging) for a spriggan mount done, which means future events could very likely have the event themed one (like the Ahriman)

I don’t think people have thought about it this way... when the DLC store makes X, it is easy to reskin it in the future as opposed to creating something entirely new...so yay for more base parts.

[Halivel]

That is true - the mount is simply a spriggy with no Hatching Tide decoration to be seen, though to be fair, it's questionable why a spriggan mount was added at the same time as the yearly event themed with spriggans. If the mount in question was literally anything else I doubt this thread would even exist.

Because that's what marketing exist for? The mount isn't connected to Event itself (nor it does correspond to current year theme even), but since by doing it in previous years we already developed the correlation "Spriggan - Hatching Tides", using the event period to implement mount is just logical, because it will have highest sales right now.

That's why all the "seasonal products" in real life stores exist - companies choose the best time for selling goods to make the highest profit from them in this exact period of time. That's why all the old event items are added at appropriate event time period too and not somewhere during the preiod of completely diferent events.

It's a business, do we like it or not.

[Tyssyn]

If you compare the cost of fantasia to other gaming companies similar products, fantasias are actually cheaper than most other games. WoW has 2 versions - an appearance change that is $15 that allows you to change the appearance of your character but you can't change the race, a Race change that is $25 dollars and obviously allows you to change your character's looks as well as race, then there is a faction change (thank the Twelve we don't have those) that is $30 and since you're changing factions, you'll be changing races and appearance. Fantasias let you change race and appearance, and is only $10, plus they do have sales.

WoW implemented the game time tokens that people can buy from other players for a fixed amount of in game money off their version of the marketboard - to help stop RMT and from what I have heard it did help a lot. The tokens are $20 which is $5 over the cost of a subscription, and It has been a while but they sold for a good amount of in game gold. I don't want to see game tokens but I think Square could sell a $15 dollar fantasia 'token' that would automatically post on the marketboard for a fixed amount of gil (it would go up or down a certain amount depending on supply and demand) and Square would rake in money from those who would buy gil from the RMT people, them being able to buy this MB fantasia and getting gil from it safely with no risk of them losing their account to the hackers or risking getting caught buying gil... and those who do well in game could buy their fantasias off the MB that way instead of spending real money on a fantasia.

[Fland]

Nobody will deny people are going to buy it. It'll absolutely sell. Near anything will sell.
There just should be someone out there willing to fight for better terms. And by fight I mean type angry words into the void that is the Internet.

Just curious, but..
What exactly is the "better terms" here?
What is "worse terms" here that they need to fight for "better terms"?

[Ranaku]

It's strange how greedy some people are, for a mmo that old the cash shop is really tiny if you compare it to other mmos which are not that old and have gamechanging stuff in their cash shops.

And yeah i think players who cry here for better terms are really greedy people which are 100% ungrateful. SE treats us customers actually good, when you look at other mmos especially from asia they don't care much about the customers and treat their games as cashcows. Look at BDO for example, if they sell you almost all dyes via shop, lootboxes and the only glam in the game for 50 bucks then you can fight for better terms, supporting a company we love with a few bucks so they can grow and put more effort in the game i think that is not a bad thing at all.

[Skivvy]

It's strange how greedy some people are, for a mmo that old the cash shop is really tiny if you compare it to other mmos which are not that old and have gamechanging stuff in their cash shops.

And yeah i think players who cry here for better terms are really greedy people which are 100% ungrateful. SE treats us customers actually good, when you look at other mmos especially from asia they don't care much about the customers and treat their games as cashcows. Look at BDO for example, if they sell you almost all dyes via shop, lootboxes and the only glam in the game for 50 bucks then you can fight for better terms, supporting a company we love with a few bucks so they can grow and put more effort in the game i think that is not a bad thing at all.

Buy-to-play / free-to-play games are expected to have a cash shop and they would have very little (or no) income at all. BDO is a B2P game, so not exactly comparing apples to apples here.

To your latter point about supporting a company we love so they can put more effort into the game - not everyone feels the same about SE/XIV as you might. I personally feel that this game has A LOT of shortcomings spread throughout the game - I'm not seeing where exactly those cash shop funds have greatly improved things. Can't even begin to count the times they've said they can't implement or improve an existing system due to server limitations or some other excuse. And then a more glaring example - Viera & Hrothgar. I can only imagine they're pulling in a decent amount from the cash shop, yet they seemingly can't spend more on development time to ensure we get a full race? I still can't wrap my mind around that one after all these months.

As an aside, I am perfectly fine buying things from B2P/F2P games. It's a completely different business model, and they're not double-dipping their customers by making people pay a monthly sub and then also having a massive shop. I've also bought far too much from XIV, but those purchases tend to leave me a bit annoyed at myself and at SE.

FOR BETTER OR WORSE, people have accepted DLC/microtransactions/cash shops into games and so they are here to stay - but it doesn't mean people are just being greedy because they take issue with how it's handled.

[Awha]

I wish SE took more risks with the cash shop. Allow us to buy and sell crystal or even add a subscription token to the game. At the very least it would give people with large amount of gil something to use it on. I personally do not care for houses, mainly have them as a means to make money so decorations matter little to me.

Either way would be cool if SE let us buy cash shop items from players, added sub tokens, crystal, or at the very least added extremely expensive mounts into the game every so often. Start small at like 100 mil.

[Kuroka]

I can only ask again, with all the supposed cash shop money, the cut back content, my removed dungeon... what do i exactly get for it? On top of all I am allowed to buy another retainer if i pay for a premium app - whichs basic funtions should be ingame anyways...

[Anarnee]

I can only ask again, with all the supposed cash shop money, the cut back content, my removed dungeon... what do i exactly get for it? On top of all I am allowed to buy another retainer if i pay for a premium app - whichs basic funtions should be ingame anyways...

This is how I feel on the matter.

They split the gathering beast tribe from the crafting one, so we're only getting one battle beast tribe this expansion. I don't think that three classes warrant their own beast tribe quests... but it would be fine... Cept they cut out a dungeon, and we'll be getting no deep dungeon. They recycled diadem for the third time and this time they cut out a significant portion of the stuff and made the achievements unavailable...

I was fine with random glamour being put in the shop, I was fine with them bringing back old glamour...

but putting the spriggan in the shop does feel a little bad when they do it at the same time as the Hatching tide...

and in game we get... Rabbit fur suits... which... Well even the npc says it doesn't make sense... (Which also make fun of Easter) But Spriggans have always been involved in hatching tide, so I can't help but be really disappointed.