Final Fantasy XIV article in MCV

[Hyrist]

I love how people say that and you have 666 posts now :P (Run, Away)

Diddn't you know, Starlord?

I'm ALWAYS the Devil's Advocate.

You guys haven't asked me whether or not I want FFXIV to come free to play yet. (Hint: It begins with "Fu", and ends with "ck NO!")

[Starlord]

Diddn't you know, Starlord?

I'm ALWAYS the Devil's Advocate.

You guys haven't asked me whether or not I want FFXIV to come free to play yet. (Hint: It begins with "Fu", and ends with "ck NO!")

Well, that's good to hear, and FFXIV: ARR doesn't need over a million subs to be A Successful MMO. if it can get to 250k subs or even 200k subs this game will be consider " Successful" in its own way. Just like FFXI was, and I wouldn't mind that FFXI was the best MMO I have ever played ( better than Wow to me) and it had less subs but still 1 of the best MMOs out there and still is ( I just moved on from it, because of FFXIV =)). Uniqueness my friends Uniqueness!

[Hyrist]

Not at the time I played (earlier this year), it was either "In-game currency for an inflated price" or "Our Cashshop currency for a very cheap price."

A critisim I share, but a moot point. Whether you buy it with cash or with game currency dosen't make the champion any more or less superior.

Imagine if you could buy DLC packs for your favorite Single Player RPGs off of in game Gold, but the amount of gold was exorbitantly high. Some would still do it the slow way and save money, others, would pay for it the old fashioned way. Neither way is superior to another, neither have an advantage over another.

Free weeks further offset this for LoL.

They didn't fail due to the subscription fee -- they failed by showing the lack of capacity to back it up --

Well I guess the players didn't get what they paid for now, did they?

a capacity that SE has proven with FFXI despite popular belief seeing as it's a successful FF time and financially successful.

FFXI was also dirt cheap to make and maintain, comparatively. They also intentionally drew out content from expansions to the point they were making 3 to 4 times the amount they would have if the content was simply DLC.

If sub numbers is the only mark for success in your opinion, no it won't survive -- however a game that's fun to play and makes the company money? It will survive just like FFXI, did you happen to catch the recent report about how it made them a very large amount of money even with "low sub" numbers?

Yes, but you neglected the part where it was an inexpensive game to maintain to begin with. WoW had a similar budget, maintained and grew its superscription numbers to a factor of twenty over FFXI's peak numbers. If you were a business person, which path would you chose?

Showing ignorance would be stating that P2P doesn't work and F2P is the real key to success, wouldn't it? You're only looking at one side when I can look at both sides and see that F2P isn't the magical fix you're making it out to be.

Don't put words in my mouth. I stated that it was an option that should not be removed off the table given the market trends, and that time would be the ultimate judge on whether or not FFXIV can maintain a subscription model. NOT that it would be a magical fix to the game's financial troubles.

Hell, SE might even swallow the fact that this game will be in the red for the majority of its lifetime, that is not our call to make nor our values to work with. I'm merely stating that the knee-jerk hatred reaction to Free to Play is a bad bias to have. (Free to Play =| Buy to Win) and that subscription models are a prohibitive barrier for entry to many.

Sure, you can afford 1-2 subscriptions a month, but that's about it. You tack on a third and you're talking $30-$45 a month going out the window. Someone is going to drop in that situation.

Meanwhile, SWTOR, Diablo III, Aion, - they're still installed in my computer, still active account (Well, SWTOR will be when it goes free).

Can't say that about FFXI.

I'm not the only one that thinks that way - its a trend that developers have been considering for a while now.

I don't mind the subscription fee. I like the idea that I can clearly budget for what I'm getting. But I cannot shake the doubt that FFXIV's cost is going to push it out of the subscription model unless it can pull and hold a large subscription base. Larger than FFXI's.

Well, that's good to hear, and FFXIV: ARR doesn't need over a million subs to be A Successful MMO. if it can get to 250k subs or even 200k subs this game will be consider " Successful" in its own way. Just like FFXI was, and I wouldn't mind that FFXI was the best MMO I have ever played ( better than Wow to me) and it had less subs but still 1 of the best MMOs out there and still is ( I just moved on from it, because of FFXIV =)). Uniqueness my friends Uniqueness!

I loves me a unique game, I won't lie.

But I have a feeling it's going to take a lot more than 250k subs to keep FFXIV on its feet given how much effort has been put into it.

China Subscriptions might help out a bit with that, but given so many different games are pulling away from the Subscription model now, even that might not be enough in the long haul.

We'll see. I'm really hoping A Realm Reborn becomes a triumphant story about a company realizing it's mistake and producing a product worthy of redeeming the company's souring reputation.

- still preparing myself emotionally for that not happening, however.