So 1.0 owners have to start paying the monthly fee immediately?

[ArkhamNative]

Missing the point entirely. It's not about the people who are fans and have been here a long time and will be around no matter what, it's about convincing those who gave up the original launch to play again.

A 2 week free trial to get these people to come back is weak sauce for a game that's been on hiatus for as long as FFXIV has, this is what normal mmos do to get old accounts to play again, mmos that did NOT shut down for months. FFXIV needs to step it up to make their offer more attractive in comparison.

It's not brain surgery.

"Weak sauce" is your opinion of what you think someone should be entitled to.

My opinion is that SE is making a very generous offer, giving v1 customers a free [digital] copy of the new game, which is literally a new version (as much as Mass Effect 3 is from Mass Effect 2, for example). SE has preserved the customer's previous progress and is letting them resume any existing v1 characters if they choose to do so. SE has invited them automatically into ~3 weeks of Phase 3 Closed Beta (progress doesn't carry forward), and ~2 weeks of Phase 4 Open Beta (progress should carry forward to launch). And on top of that SE will hold a new "Welcome Back" campaign which lets them try the game after launch for a 2-week period.

In my opinion, that is a very strong sauce indeed.

[Abriael]

"Weak sauce" is your opinion of what you think someone should be entitled to.

My opinion is that SE is making a very generous offer, giving v1 customers a free [digital] copy of the new game, which is literally a new version (as much as Mass Effect 3 is from Mass Effect 2, for example). SE has preserved the customer's previous progress and is letting them resume any existing v1 characters if they choose to do so. SE has invited them automatically into ~3 weeks of Phase 3 Closed Beta (progress doesn't carry forward), and ~2 weeks of Phase 4 Open Beta (progress should carry forward to launch). And on top of that SE will hold a new "Welcome Back" campaign which lets them try the game after launch for a 2-week period.

In my opinion, that is a very strong sauce indeed.

There's nothing "generous" in that. They're trying to get back 800,000 people that abandoned their game in dismay and to get rid of an extremely negative stigma that they caused all by themselves completely ignoring the many that were literally screaming to the top of their lungs that FFXIV was not nearly ready.

No matter how good the game is, they have an uphill battle to fight (made even harder by the game's business model), and they know that very well. Popular belief and preconceived judgement is very hard to shake off. If you think they give any free perk out of generosity, you're being extremely naive.

They give those perks because they want our money, and even more so the money of the hundreds of thousands of customers they lost, and because they want to revitalize a brand that they marred with mismanagement.

In this light, two weeks is a very limited period to try a completely new game. For some it will be enough. For some it won't. For some it won't even be enough to actually entice them to try the game, as "one free month" is a psychological barrier past which many perceive they're actually getting a freebie, while two weeks sound pretty much like the welcome back campaigns almost everyone else does.

The problem is that the stigma FFXIV bears requires more than what everyone else does to be counterbalanced.

It's considered by many the worst MMORPG in history, and no matter of it's true or not (it obviously isn't, but not everyone knows every crappy MMO out there), it will influence the performance A Realm Reborn rather radically.

For you two weeks may be enough. For me as well, as I've been hooked for three years, and even more so since when they announced 2.0, but you gotta realize that you and me are inconsequential. We're already in the bag.

Whether two weeks are enough to bring back enough people or not, only time will tell, but this offer has really nothing to do with "generous". Its a business decision made for business reasons fueled by old dear and very legitimate greed (not saying it's bad, mind you. greed is good), no more, no less.

No matter how much we all like Yoshida, and how great the new team is. A lot of those 800k people don't know themand most probably don't care, and will judge the game by entirely different standards. Those standards are what Square Enix needs to prepare for.

I'm ever baffled by how some players here think they need to somehow "defend" square enix's financial health by encouraging them to avoid offering their customers and potential customers additional perks.

Perks for users are always a good thing, they strengthen the community and increase the investment more players have in the game (allowing returning players to play more does exactly that, making them less likely to leave at the end of the free period), but it's always comical to see people go up in flames and cry "stop being entitled!" when someone suggests them.