Feeling really down about no mog gifts for Christmas

[Renalt]

We have traditionally run a Secret Santa Christmas event every year. It was my absolute favourite community event. Everyone gets dressed up, we dress the house up and give sit around Santa to give our gifts.

By far the most popular gifts were mounts and minions. I cannot think of one incident in all the years we've been doing this that someone bought something for someone that already had it. You simply check your recipients lodestone or those collectors sites to see what people already have before you buy.

The reason Mog gifts were so popular is because we have a large community of casual players who just have not got enough gil to buy what they'd like. Working professionals who'd rather spend money.

We also had our community split in half with players leaving for OCE while the rest of us stayed on NA for various raid committments. Mogstation gifts would have let us still run our event cross region (if people chose to use Mog, I would have organised an "either or" for cross region.)

Now it's like, we've split up, we can't give gifts other than fantasia or dye... do we bother? It just feels like the FU icing on top of the crap cake that is being an OCE player this year.

Just a rant. I know SE will change nothing.

Christmas isn't about gifts. It's about hanging out with friends, family, and loved ones. Actually Christmas isn't even in the equation...it should always be about the people...365 days of the year.

I understand what you said perfectly fine. And I actually don't disagree that much.

I'm asking you to elaborate on why you feel the need to give a grandstanding statement when someone simply expressing their desire to celebrate.

Because of the bold. If not able to receive gifts is ruining your event...maybe you're not that tight knit of a group if that's all you want from your event.

Did I Barney that explanation enough? An event is about the people and hanging with them. Gifts are nice but shouldn't be the sole focus. If you want to cancel because of no gifts...the event and the people must not matter to you.

[Rockette]

Because of the bold. If not able to receive gifts is ruining your event...maybe you're not that tight knit of a group if that's all you want from your event.

Did I Barney that explanation enough? An event is about the people and hanging with them. Gifts are nice but shouldn't be the sole focus. If you want to cancel because of no gifts...the event and the people must not matter to you.

Traditionally we gave gifts. Now our tradition has been extremely limited, almost removed. I don't think its egrecious to be sad about it.

[Renalt]

Traditionally we gave gifts. Now our tradition has been extremely limited, almost removed. I don't think its egrecious to be sad about it.

I'd understand that. Being upset about that part being gone is fine...

But outright debating on canceling because of lack of gifts is just...selfish. Yeah it sucks their group split on servers but who cares if it's 30 people or 3. Hang with your friends/FC. Who knows if the FC is the closet to family they have.

[Rockette]

I'd understand that. Being upset about that part being gone is fine...

But outright debating on canceling because of lack of gifts is just...selfish. Yeah it sucks their group split on servers but who cares if it's 30 people or 3. Hang with your friends/FC. Who knows if the FC is the closet to family they have.

We hang out every day.

Christmas is a traditional holiday that was a bit special because you give gifts and reflect on the year together as an online family. Since we are now cross region, the ability to give gifts via mog cross region would have been really nice. But now we can't do it, hence my thread. Telling people how you think we should celebrate our holiday is just...selfish, and completely missing the point. Why dress up on Halloween when you can dress up everyday. Why do an easter egg hunt on easter when you can do that any day, etc. Your argument is just apathetic, posting for the sake of arguing on the internet.


SE could have used this new friend system they implemented, with the ability to track which item gets sent from who to who but have decided not to. The quickest and easiest solution was "sorry, now no one gets nice things".

Do you really think scammers are thinking, oh damn. SE has stopped gift giving boy, that super affects us. Now we're just going to have to stick with phishing accounts and purchasing timecards with stolen CC. Woe is us. They're not going to care.

Who gets affected by this the most? Us. The players that -did- build community in this game. We're the one's who miss out.

It's disappointing and people are allowed to think so. I believe this system of just taking the gift giving away is lazy. They could have done better but chose not to. White knight it all you like, but I believe SE should have handled this better and should be held to a higher standard. Small indie company, and all.

Edit: I think the solution for us will just be to send money in the form of intent for something from Mog. Or, if we are on the same region, gil gifts. Ironically, I guess buying gil is now also to be considered.

[Raven2014]

Because of the bold. If not able to receive gifts is ruining your event...maybe you're not that tight knit of a group if that's all you want from your event.

Or have you consider an event is an event because it has something ... more special than usual? When I was a students I met my classmates everyday, we all chat and had fun. But the special gatherings we always had is when we kicked it up a knot. Samething now that as a working adult, I meet my coworkers everyday. We chat, talk, exchange pleasantry. But an "event" is when we do something we don't normally do. Like, get together for a few drinks and nice food after work? And if on that day the bars we go to close ... we just gonna split and go home. You don't expect us to just ... hang around a couple hours just to chat in that scenario right? And neither you can say that's because we don't "care enough" about each others company, it's simply pointless to spend the extra time doing the samething we can do in the lunchroom during our break.


Like ... the way you frame your statement, it's like you're trying to give a life lecture to some belligerent distant relatives who don't exactly care and just trying to find excuse to weasel the once a year family gathering. It's actually ironic that you didn't take into the context of what community building events is. If everyone follow your "advise" and already live 100% for each others, that what would make an event "different" and "meaningful"? Even in close knit communities, you can still see organizers try to hold special celebrations to bring people even closer together, and people dont simply just gather and chat during those events.

And believe it or not, your grand statement aside, it is a fact that gift giving is kinda ... the signature tradition when people celebrate Christmas. I'm not Catholic or Christian, and even I appreciate it, holiday spirit and all that you know.

[RobynDaBank]

I'd understand that. Being upset about that part being gone is fine...

But outright debating on canceling because of lack of gifts is just...selfish. Yeah it sucks their group split on servers but who cares if it's 30 people or 3. Hang with your friends/FC. Who knows if the FC is the closet to family they have.

I don't think it's your call to decide if they're doing this just for the gifts and care only about that, since you don't know any of them personally. Presenting your personal beliefs on gift-giving as superior comes off a little holier-than-thou. SE's decision is BS, they've taken a lot of the cheaper gifts out of the pool so it affects more people than just those who're in it for the gifts. Think it's just peculiar to fight against fellow players on that.

[Deveryn]

Either way, it's still been 3 months. People have come up with alternatives. It's time to accept the situation and move on.

[Arzalis]

Square Enix as a whole being threatened with being DE-LISTED by major credit providers is a weak reason?

That was the assumed reason given for the friendslist change (SE never actually said this, btw. Someone on twitter theorized about it.) Conflating the two changes is meant to make it difficult to talk about and people like you are happy to oblige.

The reason given for completely disabling some items is that they couldn't tell if someone had the item already and they are one-time use. With the subtext being they don't care enough to make a way to do it.

It's just totally coincidental on their part those items you can no longer gift at all are the ones that are least expensive, I'm sure. Kinda funny how you can absolutely still gift the story/level skips and those are also one-time use despite those having the exact same issue as the items they disabled. The difference is they're more expensive. Again, it's extremely flimsy logic.



TL;DR: Only the least expensive items and account wide items (which they hate) are the things that were disabled for gifting permanently. These items have nothing to do with credit cards. It's extremely transparent why they did it.

[Duskane]

Just buy them somthing on steam or with gil in game
most the stuff on the online store is tacky anyway

[SassyAssassin]

Just buy them somthing on steam or with gil in game
most the stuff on the online store is tacky anyway

Exactly there are plenty of options, I can understand being frustrated but they wont change this in a few days. Time to find alternatives and make do with what is possible at least for the time being.