$35, really SE?

[Shougun]

i feel like people forget that the cash shop team is separate from the developers and that this mount wouldn't have existed otherwise lol

Yes and no.

There is already a chocobo carriage (not the same wagon mind you, as they had to simplify it so it didn't break things, but veeery similar) in game that people had reference to wanting this, and people wanting something that's from in game isn't that unreasonable to expect that if there was no cash shop that someone on the dev team would be like 'you know what mount my audience has been clamoring for?".

"Yeah my audience wants this but I'm never going to implement it because I've no cash shop, it's not like when I design new content and expansions I make mounts sometimes- it's just simply impossible to get any other way" I think sounds far more unreasonable lol .

For example while I don't believe SE is rubbing their hands together and laughing manically at the sale of retainers I do believe having them as an option allows people to solve their own problem which therefore means the team is less pressured to come up with in game solutions.

Why make a crafting item bag like some other MMOs have when we can just sell them retainers? Now of course like I said I'm not saying this is Yoshida's exact line of thought, but that because players CAN solve their problem (via retainer purchases) that SE is less pressured by the players to actually solve it via in game methods.

Time + both indirect, direct interactions. So yes and no. If they couldn't sell it like they could here then obviously, or at least likely, there would be less content since they 'could' give players the wagon say in MSQ but then they'd not be giving the players something else. Obviously with the cash shop it's likely for more things to be made, because SE is a company that needs to make money and these will do that and can help them make other content in game too. Yet still my bias is they try to avoid anything that seems like it was extracted from the game and then resold, at least as much as possible. I don't count seasonals in that since I think it's nice to get new items every year, so the 'extraction' is a direct justification (easy to see and 'feel' and also feels like a 'deal' if you were there for the event itself), and also is a kind of clever way to encourage people to stay subbed (or resub) so they can get them free.

Like the below quote, to a very on the nose / more extreme example (since many items in the shop are actually fresh designs, even if in game inspired, or were free from seasonals).

(Just to be clear not extremely salty or incredibly shocked over the price- in context of the other mounts on the shop at least, lol, but just want to say that I don't agree that the mogshop hasn't potentially poached something from the game before. Because if the cash shop didn't do it then it's very possible the normal dev team would consider it when an occasion allows, with particular emphasis on things that already existed in game. This isn't an argument to burn the shop down, just that I don't agree it can't poach concepts whether intentionally or accidentally.).

Okay I need to get this off my chest: Sleipnir REALLY should not be a cash shop mount.

It should be in the game.

As a rare drop.

From Odin.

I still kind of wish they upgraded the mount, making it bigger and more extreme Sleipnir (like six legs when it flys or something super mythological and hype from history, especially since when they made him they weren't making as crazy mounts but these days they've a lot of creative and scale power like the Red Hare), and then bring normal Sleipnir into the game through an unreal trial or something.