Voting with my wallet

[Fyrebrand]

Vanity was a privileged thing almost from the start, many of vanity/rare minions are completely outside of mass-market affordability, And from this point it's no better than having them in a cash shop, at least people will pay SE directly and not RMT to get gil to obtain rare fancy item.
I think that having a luxury market is a very good for ff14, but it's really are the same as cash shop - it's make some items inaccessible if you just play casually and don't invest heavily in game, be it whether additional real money or excessive time/efforts for ingame moneymaking.

In other words, whenever there is a failing in the game, the solution is not to make the game better but to expect the players to pay extra money to attain their in-game goals. You are asking for gindy gameplay to remain grindy, unaffordable items to remain unaffordable, and an endgame market you call "the same as cash shop" to simply remain the status quo. So, the only people who can flourish in FFXIV are the top minority of hardcore players, and those who blow extra cash in the shop. That is what you are advocating?

I would rather SE had an actual motivation to improve the game, not just sell us the cure to a disease they created.

[Dwill]

Yup the alarmists are sill here.

Yep. For a lot of these people, nothing that will be said or done will be good enough until Square Enix scraps the entire cash shop based on their ignorant preconceived notions that are devoid of logic.

In other words, whenever there is a failing in the game, the solution is not to make the game better but to expect the players to pay extra money to attain their in-game goals. You are asking for gindy gameplay to remain grindy, unaffordable items to remain unaffordable, and an endgame market you call "the same as cash shop" to simply remain the status quo. So, the only people who can flourish in FFXIV are the top minority of hardcore players, and those who blow extra cash in the shop. That is what you are advocating?

I would rather SE had an actual motivation to improve the game, not just sell us the cure to a disease they created.

Not that I am for an everything must be a grind kind of game but removing too many grinds is a dangerous thing to do in MMOs. Remove the carrot from the stick and people have no motivation to keep playing. And the rest of your points, still based on appealing to emotions with a side of strawman and hyperbole.

[Felessan]

That can be said on P2W kind of shop too. Invest more money instead of time/efforts for ingame power. That way power is accesible for those investing time in game and the casuals "investing time working irl(?)" lol

Not really, because P2W allows to buy a direct product of efforts and thus allow real-life rich to skip player tiers and attains statuses for which they do not qualify in-game. Vanity shop only allow to buy byproducts - you can't really buy wealth for real money (officially) and thus you are limited in choices.
If you can buy stats - it's directly translates into power and thus affecting the whole part of gameplay that depends on power. Buying vanity for real money does not gives you "buying power" in game - you can't change 3 minions for a new in-game mount and 7 minion for a house.

In other words, whenever there is a failing in the game, the solution is not to make the game better but to expect the players to pay extra money to attain their in-game goals. You are asking for gindy gameplay to remain grindy, unaffordable items to remain unaffordable, and an endgame market you call "the same as cash shop" to simply remain the status quo.

Its not a failing. It keeps economy active and running, provides some downflow of money from rich to mainstream crowd, puts a motivation goals for many who wants to obtain this rare items and it put some light into the life of hardcore crafters/gatherers/merchants/enterpreneurs who like to earn money and want something fancy to spend on those tens of millions they have.

So, the only people who can flourish in FFXIV are the top minority of hardcore players, and those who blow extra cash in the shop. That is what you are advocating?

The whole idea that everything should be presented to you on a silver plate is just beyond my reach. In-game luxury is similar for real-world concepts - they cultivates talent.
And cash shop is just an ability to get a missed opportunity and some of fancy items for those who wants fashion but not able to do it in-game due to various reasons. It doesn't provide a power of wealth as "real-money fancy items" are not the same as usual items used for displaying your wealth status (bluebird and nutkin are not on the list for cash shop)

[Felessan]

It is clear there are many that post here that either want P2W or F2P and are supportive of a cash shop, because they know - and everyone reading their comments knows they want to use the cash shop and see it expand.

Not all people that support cash shop supports P2W.
I am against P2W, but I want cash shop, as I want more variety in mounts/vanity, preferably *a lot* more variety. And i wouldn't mind to pay extra for them if I'll like them.
And having a separate cash shop for vanity gives me hope that there will be at least a little bit more resources allocated in this particular direction.

(WoW's "Buy Level 90" for example?)

Who really cares about this? Lvl cap means nothing in wow-style MMO and personally i would like to have an option to pay some $$$ instead of necessity of mindlessly grinding another class to 50th through the same old content of leves/roulette/fates.

[Freyar]

Who really cares about this? Lvl cap means nothing in wow-style MMO and personally i would like to have an option to pay some $$$ instead of necessity of mindlessly grinding another class to 50th through the same old content of leves/roulette/fates.

If you're paying to bypass content, then your content isn't interesting. It also means people are paying $60 to get past learning how to play a class putting a massive strain on post-level-cap dungeons. You can argue the the effectiveness of this purchase all you want, but it does change the strength/power of a character in exchange for real-world money. This is a buy-power-with-money scenario.

[Felessan]

If you're paying to bypass content, then your content isn't interesting. It also means people are paying $60 to get past learning how to play a class putting a massive strain on post-level-cap dungeons.

As with my experience on 50 level - a lot of people learn nothing about how to play properly during their "run to 50" stage. No real correlation, because pre-50 content is either too easy or completely skippable. And most people just use a basic class guide "how to play at 50 level", that can be used regardless of whether you exped there by yourself, or you abused the system and just spammed fates, leves or whatever "go easy to 50 without learning anything" route you might choose. I exped some classes to 50 in about lvl30 gear without even acquiring job - it might really helped me to play properly in those classes.
I saw another day a SMN in ~105ilvl (!!!) gear that was a completely disaster in expert roulette and the whole party have a hard time because of it. He just failed at every corner, and this shows that even rather high ilvl obtainable at zero skill, so there is no point in blaming cash shop for it.

And when you do the same route in fifth time - it's understandable that it's not interesting. There are not much variety in low level content and there is no real plan for expanding it for obvious reasons.

You can argue the the effectiveness of this purchase all you want, but it does change the strength/power of a character in exchange for real-world money. This is a buy-power-with-money scenario.

Yes, it is bypassing content, But this content is not even a midcore ground, it's straight in the casual territory, and I really don't think they there should be so much anger and hussle about content lying in the casual crowd territory.

[Freyar]

Look at Guild Wars 2 cash shop, from the beginning they said that the shop was cosmetic only, and after two years it still is, the only thing close to p2w are the resource tools

I'd disagree here. You have boosters you can buy (though admittedly they are available in-game too), and the tools still break that tenant of "Cosmetic Only". The severity is irrelevant.

[Snugglebutt]

Actually selling vanity items is like selling lvl 50 cap or twintania win in 2.4. yes, it can be considered as P2W, but it is content nobody really care about and it's not touch current relevant content, even those that are old but not yet very old, like T9.
And quite a lot of people cheat the proper way of attaining win anyway by buying Twintania run.

Yes, it is bypassing content, But this content is not even a midcore ground, it's straight in the casual territory, and I really don't think they there should be so much anger and hussle about content lying in the casual crowd territory.

Buying a level capped character through real life money transaction even from the developer is very much a P2W and not vanity which is damaging to the community and the game.

The point of leveling other classes to level cap is you help both the economy through gathering and crafting lower level items while leveling it (DoL/DoH) which benefits other players who did not cheat their way to level cap. Leveling a new class helps new players by also having someone to play with and do lower level dungeons and such when in the sense of DoW/DoM classes instead of lacking in people to play with or help along the way for those who didn't buy their max level characters. Those who buy their way to max level tend to avoid low level content and focus only on the endgame they cheated their way to with real life money.

So buying a max capped character is damaging to the entire game in many ways and especially damaging to the new players who do not P2W in buying their characters at cap level with real money.

WoW has had a steady decrease in subscribers for a long time but the exodus was only hastened with P2W options such as buying level skip to 90. If SE added such an option to FF14 I would quit too, if they keep it pure vanity only items such as pets, mounts and such then I am fine with it. WoW is not an example that should be followed these days unless you to wish to do more damage than good upon this MMO, it is still hemorrhaging players at a very high rate. Do not repeat the same mistakes WoW made.

[Asierid]

If you're paying to bypass content, then your content isn't interesting. It also means people are paying $60 to get past learning how to play a class putting a massive strain on post-level-cap dungeons. You can argue the the effectiveness of this purchase all you want, but it does change the strength/power of a character in exchange for real-world money. This is a buy-power-with-money scenario.

Do you say this while you make another PB&J sandwich for the 100th time?

Look at this bread. That is some interesting bread. The way the jelly spreads...Mmm.

It gets old.