SE consider a free to play option

[Preypacer]

I'll help you on this
Not only that it's F2P for PSO2 it's not really an MMO IMO since there's no open world exploration to it just point and click on what dungeon(kind of like Vindictus) you want to go through and mostly grind in that one dungeon for hrs on end on quests to be able to access to higher dungeons, plus you'll have to be a certain level to enter the newly unlocked dungeons. The game cash shop items are extremely expensive. Some of the items I wanted to buy from the shop ranged from $20 - $30 like costumes : Wedding Dresses, Tuxedos, etc etc. To get a housing in the game it's like $7 - $10 a month for you to pay for a 3 bed room apartment. Not only that, to get the good furniture for decorations it costs roughly about $2 - $10 to get nice looking couches. Not only that some people abuse the function of the action house on where they jacked up the prices to get people to buy those said cashed shop items, which in foremost, you're most likely getting ripped off from them. Since people tend to get lazy I remember wanting to buy a wedding dress for my character for xx amount of mesata(PSO2 Ingame money) while some of them you can buy rl cash cards so you can buy the wedding dress a lot less. Some of the stat attribute menus iirc require you to have a premium account to access them(Can't be sure about this now because I haven't played for quite some time) So depending on which type of player you are, you'll spend around $30 a month at most if you're really picky about what you want to buy. If not most likely you'll pay $10 a month if you don't buy that often. I became the latter and was a $0 a month player for the game, but I was extremely limited on the enjoyment factor I could get from not buying any of the cash shopped items.

Nice. Thanks for that! I'd heard people talk about the game a lot (and its predecessor), but never got around to playing it myself.

That deal with the monthly fee to rent a house in the game got a chuckle from me, though. People won't pay $13-$15 a month for access to an entire game, but they'll spend almost that much just to "rent" a house in it, not including the expense of furnishing and such.

Amazing.

[Preypacer]

If your money is so tight that you can't afford a $9.99 a month subscription or even a $14.99 a month subscription to a video game, then chances are you really have bigger problems than not being able to afford to play FFXIV. I'm usually dirt-broke myself, and yet I still was able to get the cash together to play SWTOR every month. Really, it is a very cheap sub model. And the game is awesome sauce. There is absolutely no need whatsoever for the game to go FTP.

On another note, this thread is kind of pointless. Not trying to be mean, but there's like two other threads like this already.

Hell, I was unemployed for about 3-4 months at one point (contract was ended prematurely due to "revision of company priorities" at the top level, and the project I was working on being cut -yay), and there wasn't much of a market for what I did in that area at the time... so finding work was tough.

With what money I'd saved up, I allowed myself the sub fee each month to play FFXI. It was, by far, the cheapest and most worthwhile entertainment expense I could have possibly hoped for at that time. It was also my sanity for a while there lol.

[syntaxlies]

$10.00 a month is the same as buying 2 regular games a year. Its a perfectly reasonable amount of money to expect to pay for a game you can play everyday.

[Galliano]

I am asking you SE to consider a free to play option in addition to subscription model. In today's PC market the majority of MMOs and other action RPG type games are free to play. Take a look at Guild Wars 2, Star Wars the Old Republic, Aion, Everquest 2, Lotro, Diablo 3, League Of Legends, Phantasy Star Online 2, DC Univerise online, the list goes on.

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?

With free to play + micro transaction model some people will be inclined to buy funny hats, unique looking armor, weapons, mounts, exp boosts they will actually end up spending more money then like 10 subscribers.

A much larger playerbase will be attracted due to not having such a high barrier to entry which would be the monthly fee which in today's economy many people would not even consider paying.

A majority of games who may be Final Fantasy fans would skip FFXIV:ARR just because there is a monthly fee tided to it. However if they feel like they are not being forced to pay monthly and only buy stuff on the game store if they feel like it you can actually get more people to try the game and buy stuff. If you check out comments on gaming sites like Gamestop, IGN, Kotaku the biggest complaint you see about FFXIV when it comes up is that there is a monthly fee.

I keep a lot of F2P games installed on my hard drive and play them every so often. Same can't be said for MMOs that require a fee.

I would consider at least taking a look into the free to play model and what it can do for you.

[Preypacer]

... Zumi's self-serving free-loader logic goes here ...

Whether you realize it or not, you have just, in your post, basically revealed the real reason many people want MMOs to be F2P.

Others will usually try to find some other reasons to attach to it, removing their own personal interests from it as much as possible so as to not appear self-serving in their logic.

You, however, have just come out and served up the self-serving, ego-centric mindset of many F2P advocates beautifully.

I don't think you could have summed it up better than you did in this bit:

Would it be more economic for me to have a free to play option yes it would. Let the people who are really obsessed about the game buy all the stuff from the cash shop so I can log in on a more casual once or twice a month basis.

And this bit:

...if people want to buy relic weapons for $50 a pop instead of doing a long tedious quest more power to them, they are helping me play for free after all. I myself have a no cash shop rule in any mmo I play. I am not willing to spend any money on the cash shop, however I don't mind if others do and have better or unique looking gear that I don't have.

Basically... make the game F2P so others can foot the bill for you to play for free, on an extremely casual basis. I love that bit about you having a "no cash shop rule" for yourself, but are more than happy to let others spend as much as they can so you never have to. Brilliant. The hypocrisy of that bit is almost sublime.

Yours is precisely the kind of self-serving, "I want it all for free" attitude plaguing MMOs these days.

But hey, thanks for being honest and not attaching your "logic" to some canned strawman argument.

But, if you haven't noticed, most people in this thread (and in others) are more than happy to continue support SE in creating and maintaining a MMORPG with an on-going sub fee from their own pockets. Those are the true fans and supporters of FFXIV and SE. Free-loaders with attitudes like your own would only bring down the quality of the game, not improve it.

[syntaxlies]

Whether you realize it or not, you have just, in your post, basically revealed the real reason many people want MMOs to be F2P.

Others will usually try to find some other reasons to attach to it, removing their own personal interests from it as much as possible so as to not appear self-serving in their logic.

You, however, have just come out and served up the self-service for all to see.

I don't think you could have summed it up better than you did in this bit:
And this bit:
Basically... make the game F2P so others can foot the bill for you to play for free. I love that bit about you having a "no cash shop rule" for yourself, but are more than happy to let others spend as much as they can so you never have to. Brilliant.

Yours is precisely the kind of self-serving, "I want it all for free" attitude plaguing MMOs these days.

But hey, thanks for being honest and not attaching your "logic" to some canned strawman argument.

But, if you haven't noticed, most people in this thread (and in others) are more than happy to continue support SE in creating and maintaining a MMORPG with an on-going sub fee from their own pockets. Those are the true fans and supporters of FFXIV and SE. Free-loaders with attitudes like your own would only bring down the quality of the game, not improve it.

op should play pirates 101

[Zumi]

So SE already has different levels of subscriptions it would be very easy to add a F2P level

Legacy 9.99 - 8 character per world 40 total
Entry 12.99 - 1 character per world 8 total
Standard 14.99 - 8 character per world 40 total

Here is an example of what they could have.
All paid subs have everything unlocked.
Free to play - 1 character 1 world (extra character slots can be bought $10 per slot)
50,000 gil cap limit.
Can not use the market wards or bazaar system AH, or trade players. White level gear and items can
be bought from NPCs only.
Half exp rate ($10 gains you a double exp rate for 2 hours)
Can not use the mail system.
Can not make parties, but may accept invites to parties.
Can not send players tells, unless they have received a tell from a player first.
Can not equip epics purple items.
Limited inventory 30 slots only (additional bag space can be unlocked for $20)
Max level a F2P player can be is always 10 levels below the subscription players (can be lifted if you pay $30, must pay $30 every time cap goes up)
Only 8 guild leves per week (extra guild leves may be bought on the store for $5 for another set of 8)
No duties, primals or raids (8 or 24 man raid credits can be bought for $5 for 1 on the store)
Zones Free to play players can only visit half the zones a sub player can (each new zone can be unlocked for $5 each)
Story quests can be done up to level 30 (each new story quest pack consisting of 10 levels worth of story missions costs $20 each)

In addition vanity gear, vanity mounts, pets, and some blue level gear may be bought on the store, but no epics.

Currently I have Legacy but if there was a F2P model like the one I listed above I would go for F2P. Having a free to play model like the one I listed above will get a lot more people to try out the game, while having 0 impact on the economy of the game. If they like it enough they could become a subscriber or unlock individual aspects of the game, try out raids at $5 a pop. Although everything is more expensive if you choose to unlock stuff individually.

[SodRansom]

I think I'm missing something. What makes free two play so great? From my understanding (and I could be wrong, I haven't played any f2p games), but you still have to pay for in game items right? And if you don't, why are you expecting a quality game? Even if the money is coming from regular expansions, does a f2p model bring in as much money as a pay 2 play model? I don't know about you, but I'd rather pay more money because in return I can expect a better product.

The f2p concept seems so inherently selfish to me. "I demand perfection but I'm not going to pay for it." Doesn't the old axiom of "you get what you pay for" still apply here? I'd much rather pay a measly 13 dollars a month knowing that I can hold the game's developers accountable for delivering a top of the line product. Besides, how much do games cost nowadays? 50-60 bucks right? And if you're going through a game every few months or so, how is this different? I don't understand why people are so hung up on this issue..

[syntaxlies]

I think I'm missing something. What makes free two play so great? From my understanding (and I could be wrong, I haven't played any f2p games), but you still have to pay for in game items right? And if you don't, why are you expecting a quality game? Even if the money is coming from regular expansions, does a f2p model bring in as much money as a pay 2 play model? I don't know about you, but I'd rather pay more money because in return I can expect a better product.

The f2p concept seems so inherently selfish to me. "I demand perfection but I'm not going to pay for it." Doesn't the old axiom of "you get what you pay for" still apply here? I'd much rather pay a measly 13 dollars a month knowing that I can hold the game's developers accountable for delivering a top of the line product. Besides, how much do games cost nowadays? 50-60 bucks right? And if you're going through a game every few months or so, how is this different? I don't understand why people are so hung up on this issue..

as stated in the op, op wants players to use an overpriced cash shop to buy items so he/she can play for free...

[SodRansom]

as stated in the op, op wants players to use an overpriced cash shop to buy items so he/she can play for free...

Yeah, that seems weird to me. SO, basically, people that have lots of money to burn in RL can have the best characters? So in game rewards are based on your RL status rather than on time, patience, and dedication? No thanks..