Island Sanctuaries - End Game Only

[Skivvy]

If they're trying to save server space and avoid causing massive problems, gating behind MSQ is a good way to avoid a Raubahn EX or Pipin Savage moment again. As of the current census, there are 1,054,495 endgame characters, and doesn't include how many are alts. There are a total of 27,286,890 characters across all worlds, and doesn't include how many are alts or F2P. It's going to be much easier on them to make this so you have to be at the current endgame than allow people prior to that to have one, and will make it easier on the servers. From that perspective, this is a pretty good idea on their part to alleviate problems in advance on server space that may arise.

Saw the edit after I posted (my post took too long to type..lol). :X

I suppose that could be a consideration, but again, they could have picked other requirements to help alleviate server stress. I think the purchase of EW should be required as that alone would cut out all the free-trial players (sorry, guys!), a great majority of alts, and others who aren't quite sold on the game yet. On top of that, they could require ARR or even HW completion and maybe some GC ranks for fun. Maybe have it cost a few million gil (like a small house). I imagine that would be a less-favorable option, but that would deter and/or delay people from purchasing right away. I feel there were a lot of options left on the table and they instead went for the most punishing route. :X

[Toukichiful]

Is this a bait thread?

[RyuDragnier]

Saw the edit after I posted (my post took too long to type..lol). :X

I suppose that could be a consideration, but again, they could have picked other requirements to help alleviate server stress. I think the purchase of EW should be required as that alone would cut out all the free-trial players (sorry, guys!), a great majority of alts, and others who aren't quite sold on the game yet. On top of that, they could require ARR or even HW completion and maybe some GC ranks for fun. Maybe have it cost a few million gil (like a small house). I imagine that would be a less-favorable option, but that would deter and/or delay people from purchasing right away. I feel there were a lot of options left on the table and they instead went for the most punishing route. :X

There's also another reason I just thought of. It's something to keep endgame players going during content droughts. We have new raids, the new 4 man dungeons, the new story, the new trial and EX, but we'll eventually have run out of things to do. Island Sanctuary then becomes something to fall back on and waste time doing. Depending on how well they set it up, it may be something that can keep people occupied for a LONG time.

[Cach]

I find the gatekeeping on this rather weird.

Appeals to lore are particularly bizarre, SE can write whatever it wants up to and including nothing at all.
I understand if they want the feature for paying customers only, but other justifications for such high barrier of entry ring hollow.

[Kuroka]

Is this a bait thread?

That doesnt really matter as that mindset is a thing.

[RyuDragnier]

Appeals to lore are particularly bizarre, SE can write whatever it wants up to and including nothing at all.
I understand if they want the feature for paying customers only, but other justifications for such high barrier of entry ring hollow.

You know literally every content they add has lore, right? They never just add anything without giving lore for it.

[Packetdancer]

Yet there are players who get the game solely for the Mahjong Tournament in the Gold Saucer. You can't be certain that there aren't people who would get the game solely for Island Sanctuary - (or at least would if it wasn't locked behind a couple of hundred hours of MSQ).

To be fair, the mahjong angle is largely due to the fact that for years, there were literally no online mahjong games that were not terrible... save for the mahjong in FFXIV, for whatever reason. It wasn't "I want to play FFXIV for mahjong" but rather "I want to play mahjong, and literally all the other implementations are terrible, so I guess we're all going to play FFXIV just to use the only good online mahjong implementation out there."

I would argue that's far less likely with Island Sanctuary; I won't say it's impossible someone would take that same approach, but anyone who wants to play a "rebuild a pastoral area" game has a plethora of fairly solid options. Many of which have considerably more features and depth than Island Sanctuary is likely to have, because that is the entire focus of the game, rather than "hey, a neat side activity". It's not like "well, Animal Crossing is buggy, Harvest Moon has no features, the only one out there that actually works is Island Sanctuary."

Which, weirdly, was the case with Doman Mahjong. As to why SQEX was the only company that could make a non-horrible online mahjong system for a surprisingly long time...?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Misplaced_Marbles]

You know literally every content they add has lore, right? They never just add anything without giving lore for it.

Yeah, like male Viera being "rare" until they made the model for players, and suddenly Sharlayan of all places is filled with them. The "lore" more often than not is just an excuse to do things with the least effort, and since it's all 100% mutable on the writers whim, it means less than nothing.

[RyuDragnier]

Yeah, like male Viera being "rare" until they made the model for players, and suddenly Sharlayan of all places is filled with them. The "lore" more often than not is just an excuse to do things with the least effort, and since it's all 100% mutable on the writers whim, it means less than nothing.

*sighs* Do I have to go over this again, for the Xth thread? Lore wise, male Viera are incredibly rare, and there are only 4 male Viera NPCs in the game you meet. The game world acts as though all the other players do not exist other than you. So in the game world, male Viera are still incredibly rare. In your world, you and the Scions have only seen in the story and sidequests at max 4 male Viera, meaning they're rare. If another player is a male Viera in their world, that means there are only 5 male Viera the Scions ever meet at most. This does not break lore.

[freekyfreezer]

So if you want a Garden Simulator[...]

Stardew Valley has been out since 2016