The FFXIV Cash Shop is greedy

[Melichoir]

In terms of micro-transactions, ..... I believe I can safely claim that the FFXIV Cash Shop is indeed greedy and unnecessarily expansive.

Ok...

First, it overall doesnt matter how many items are on the cash shop. This would be like saying Costco is Greedier than Target cause Costco sells more items. The size of the store isnt really indicative of greed. But here youre making the distinction that it does matter

Then youre incorrectly comparing the availability of items themselves. Meaning, just because its on mogstation doesnt mean that would be bad. For example, A lot of these items are from previous events (which you point out) or are items you can buy in game (Dyes as an example). Which you should know as you were in that 45 page thread a month back where I had broken down the mogstation listings. You hand wave some of this by stating that WoW doesnt put previous event items on the mogstation cause 'exclusivity'. Now theres a toxic mindset if Ive ever seen one. I guess if people werent part of a previous event they shouldnt have ANY method of getting those items should they want them.
But lets look at minions real quick: If we ignore the 'exclusivity' factor and find out exactly how many only exist for Mogstation, you get 11, not 33.

Minion: Panda Cub
Minion: Doman Magpie
Minion: Wind-up Y'shtola
Minion: Wind-up Yda
Minion: Wind-up Papalymo
Minion: Wind-up Tataru
Minion: Wind-up Urianger
Minion: Wind-up Alisaie
Minion: Wind-up Yuna Account-wide)
Minion: Wind-up Lulu (Account-wide)
Minion: Wind-up Rikku (Account-wide)


This gets even funner cause some of these items are cross promotional items. An example of this is the Fenris - an item that was made for Fanfest, and then sold on the mogstation if anyone wanted it. But I guess we shouldnt take that into account cause "Exclusivity". Lets make sure people who want it cant have it if they didnt get a ticket that year.

This is also the same case that some of the glamour items, as some of them were independently commissioned for other markets and then brought to the Mogstation to allow anyone to purchase them.

Then lets talk about inventory space.... Out the gate, you get the following:

WoW:
Inventory - 5 Slots with a bag size of 32 Items...so 160 Space. You have to craft/buy these bags. Keep in mind 32 is what I could find on a google search, so if theres a larger bag, let me know.
Bank - 28 Starter Slots + 7 Bags (32 items a pop) so....252 Slots.

Total of 412 Items in a standard inventory

FFXIV
Immediate Inventory - 140
Chocobo Saddle bag - 70
Retainers - 175 x 2

Total of 560 items in standard inventory.

Now, there is an obvious caveat to all this. WoW has a better glamour system. I would very much like FFXIV to have a similar system as the current one does eat up inventory space. Now they bandaged this a little bit with the glamour dressing holding an 400 items (I think, I cant remember off the top of my head.) But you still get overflow. But looking directly at inventory space comparisons, currently FFXIV has better raw inventory space than WoW.

As for making more money, more retainers doesnt inherently mean more money. You need things to sell too. More ventures does increase that chance of rare high value items but Id have to see how that translates, cause half the time Im not sending my retainers out for Quick Explore or whatever, Im having them collect mats cause Im lazy, and your retainers arent bringing in 500k items every time. Hell, half the time I get fish.

Then lets consider those extra services, cause why not.

FFXIV's class system allows you to level only one character and get every job. The advantage of this is easier gear management, dungeon access, and increased speed between classes and flexibility in play over xpacs. Leveling isnt extremely arduous once you got a max level class because PotD, HoH, and other levelign opportunites become available. I am not aware if WoW intentionally has similar power leveling structures in its game.

WoW does not have this. Every class is an independent character. So if you want to play a new class, you level a new character from scratch without the benefit of dungeon access, gear, and the like. This is somewhat offset by Heirloom gear if you got it. Youll level faster but youll still need to go through it. Then according you to you, they charge you more for level boosts. Wonder why....Could it be they know that if you want to play another class, youll have to roll again and go through the game again to get it up to speed, so people who want to not deal with that will pay for the jump? You have less flexibility than you do in FFXIV regarding this.


But despite this all, the conclusion is SE is Greedy and Mogstation is bad!