SE consider a free to play option

[indira]

if F2P does pop up i hope they screw you guys over asking for it with overpriced timed junk.

The market today really won't support a paid only MMO. With so many free to play MMOs out there some where devs spent millions on like Star Wars. Why would someone pick up FFXIV when they have to buy it and pay a sub fee?

someone has to pay the bill and the company wont if no money is coming in they pull the plug

[Becken]

Some of these F2P games has cash shops that sells items thats used in game, in some cases the game ends up being a pay to win game...
Another down side to a F2P game you'll have more RMTs and spam bots

[Endigiont]

All those games stopped being worth playing once they went free to play... Free to play is anything but free to play, it's free to stay online but it's pay to progress...

I'd still play LOTRO if it was a sub same for Everquest 2.

Yes SE would get more money from micro-transactions but it'd destroy the soul of FFXIV. I dunno I don't want to get into it but it's just such a bad idea.

The market today really won't support a paid only MMO.

Tell that to Blizzard.

[Warlock]

WTF is this thread doing here shoot it and burn it's corpse to ashes!

[Mihana]

Trial, only trial. No unlimited free-to-play option, ever. One primary reason:

RMT will abuse it.

Farm up a bunch of gil, transfer it to a main account. And don't say "restricting trade and mail options" could prevent it. Easy way to bypass it. Just put up a junk item on a retainer's bazaar for an obscene amount, have the free-to-play character buy it for said amount. Only method would be to prevent all trade, bazaar purchasing/selling options, and mail on free accounts. And even then there probably could be a loophole people would find.

Currently having to buy the game and pay access means that even if they do abuse the system to make gil if the account is banned they lose all that gil and have to now pay an additional price to get a new copy of the game and pay for access. Free accounts mean they don't waste any money save for the account that got hit with the ban-hammer. But it's still a lesser cost compared to having a free account each and every time. They're disposable.

Free accounts may also open up things like cash shops. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against these... However if they allow free accounts (With limitations.) there may be less incentives for people to actually buy the game. Ultimately it depends on just what a free VS paid account would offer. The biggest concern period to me is just that RMT can and will abuse it. Expect disposable characters to show up more frequently since it's less money from their pockets, and more RMT "ads" to pop up. You'll get a tell from Asdfadasf Sadfsafs promoting a gil-buying website daily.

The other thing to consider is a bigger chance of hacking to occur. There's no fear of wasting their money because they didn't spend any. With a trial account the same thing can happen, however if they're not caught and/or banned by the end of their trial period the person is at least gone. With a free account they can stay as long as they like, rack up more and more gil if it's RMT, or keep using the same account whenever they feel like being a troll, all up until they're finally banned which could take upwards of a month or longer depending on how long the investigation or whatever they do takes.

[Esk]

Again mr Troll, No...

F2p is a valid game model and I do play 2 F2P mmos, your right people will pay more to get anything done, but (and this is my issue) also you get beggars, free loaders, spam bots, grifers as I would presume most people who are asking over and over again are.

EvE for all it's harshness has a great community, it's smaller then a lot of other P2P MMO's but has been going and growing for many years, WoW is still alive, FFXI? lots of P2P games are still around.

A comment a friend made some time ago that i could just about support :

"Give me a P2P and F2P game, where P2P get access to a lot more zones, items, dungeons, can mute all F2P players, and access lots of city areas and a AH that the F2P cant, and we can talk, until then keep the riff-raff in the other games. "

[Nakiamiie]

*sigh*
Another one...
Well, my opinion hasn't changed, so here it is:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post901340

[Phe]

yea s.o. close this.
no need to have 2 F2P threads at a time.

[Akira_Tenshi]

I do think FF XIV could be successful as a free to play game. I feel bad for the FF fans that will have to pass on this game due to not being able to pay a subscription fee.

I think there is a danger of really confusing things going with both P2P and F2P. I tried playing Everquest 2 and I found it really confusing with its gold and silver subscriptions and the free option was far to restricting. It is very difficult to balance a game when it is like that.

FF XIV needs to stick with one subscription model and I believe either could work for the game. I think going with pay to play though will provide us with a higher quality experience. If it doesn't work out they can always move to free to play.

[inrainbows]

No thanks.

I'd rather SE focus on adding content that justifies my subscription than spend development time working on a terrible cash shop.

An unlimited time free-trial would be good though. Up to level 30 so they can unlock their job but leave them wanting more and restrict armoury access to 1 battle class, 1 DoH and 1 DoL.