Who is Optional – A Question of Consumer Value

[MeiUshu]

People that they are not going to sell anything that gives any advantage in game, you sound like a politician, where words have a meaning only at the time they were said. What is important here is what is happening tomorrow, next month, week, year....which we cannot speak of as a certainty only as a perhaps or maybe but potentially possible

Let me argue with you

Sell gears that are not found in-game : through dungeons that require a pass to enter which will cost money and in turn they offer exclusive gears that would drop from there (double gain) and there you have gears that are only available to those that can afford

Gils : easy to sell those, have the subs available in-game via gils how ? you buy for real money a monthly sub and sell it in the market in-game for gils for those that dont have real life money but have gils.....yeah? you have never seen this ? believe me it exists, there you have allowed RMT

Acces to exclusive dungeons : easy sell passes for those that unlock unlimited entry for a day for example, maybe these passes can be sold in-game as well, see what I mean

and so forth...you tihnk is not going to happen ? who allows you to say is NOT going to happen? so many times this has been heard and it has happens still how can you still believe that because you dont want to see it happening is not going to ?

Being naive is good but with a touch of realism it would be better.

what you believe today is only valide today, tomorrow this may change totally, so really the only answer to this non sense...wait and see and analyze your situation based on your own wishes and desire if you dont like then leave, simpel as that nobody forces you to accept anything that you dont want to, complaining wont change what has been decided already, it will only make you sad and angry over something that is not worth all this.

Mei

[Teryaani]

Wrong usage of pay to win. Those words have been losing the meaning for some years. Paying to win means buying something that it's exclusive and gives adventage, weapons with higher stats than those you can get in-game for example.

No, they haven't. Pay to win refers to games that allow you to purchase weapons, armor, buffs that give you an edge over a player in end game content (the "win" portion of pay to win). You're trying to change the definition to fit your argument. Minions, mounts, and glamours give no advantage in end game, therefore they are not pay to win.

[Felis]

Three End game gears and a lvl 5 materia does NOT warrant a rant this long.

Have I missed something?

[Razzle]

I agree with this, only part is that leaving would be easy if this was a single player. I have friends since the start of 1.0 and they are one of the main reason I'm staying (I do enjoy the game itself too honestly but the cash shop floating above my head is taunting and in a way insulting lol)

To the poster above me - Did you read the OP? lol you kind of missed the point. He was talking about 'optional' - being individually different for each player and their goals in game. Which he is right in.

I'd love to have all raid items in cash shop (optional XP) and all cute bunny minions drop from coil loool

[Magis]

This was basically my point in this post:

I have no idea what the deal is with the Odin mount...I mean..well..
Did they expect it was going to be a drop from the new Odin Primal Battle that was shown in Las Vegas? If so...I guess I could understand but, it's totally optional ;___________;.......
Hell, I got it cause I like to look big :x.

I was talking about WoW, but to your reply... yes everyone I talked to expected this. If every primal has a mount drop why wouldn't Odin? "Totally Optional" is different to who you talk to. Some people don't care about raiding, is that "totally optional"? How about crafting? Gear? Housing? The only thing in this game that isn't "optional" is the main scenario since you need it to unlock everything. So while you may not care (and heck I don't either) about mounts, there are others who are angry that their slice of content is now being thrown behind a paywall. Now with EB also getting sliced up, players will have to ask every content trailer:

"So what exactly here comes with my sub, and what is behind a paywall?"

Optional is only optional to those who do not care about that content. Coil is optional by every means of the word since you get similar items for Poetics. So should SE start selling paywalled raids too? Heck even GEAR is optional, hey some people don't care about BIS, let's make a "optional" item as well!

[Riepah]

Good OP. It was nice to see a reasonable person who actually tries to look at it from a more or less objective view. Too bad the first response demonstrated wonderfully that reason is wasted on too many. Or maybe they just didn't read.

[Jacost]

SE provides what they'll say they'll provide for the price they set. What's optional and what isn't, at the end of the day, is solely at SE's discretion. Like it or not, they're holding all the cards here. If you disagree with them, then don't do business with them.

Seriously though, if there's something in the cash shop that will ruin the game for you if you can't have it, then paying extra for it shouldn't be an issue. There's nothing in there atm that interests me in the slightest, and I've never paid SE anything beyond my sub, but nothing in there is particularly expensive unless you're either a kid (just ask mummy and daddy for some more pocket money) or seriously strapped for cash (you probably have more important things to buy than your sub anyway).


That said, hyping up the two-person mount (the ONLY THING in the game that's strictly behind a paywall, there's plenty of other mounts and minions out there) for months before announcing that it'll only be available to those who pay extra was a dick move. And even then we don't know FOR SURE that there will be no mount with the free wedding; perhaps there are two versions of it. We won't know until the patch notes come out.

[RaquelleAvarosa]

In my honest opinion, when I was being sold Final Fantasy XIV, I see it as a game, that is the product I was sold, whether I play it only to get all the vanity items or not is irrelevant as the game wasn't sold or marketed to you that way so anything else other than access to the game and its content released in periodic patches are what I'd consider as optional.

If a player claims that he/she only plays the game for vanity and therefore being a customer, he/she should have it all, then what happens to a player who can never clear FCoB but yet yearns for a piece of armor from FCoB (for the looks) and as a paying customer with vanity as my core gameplay style, I should be able to have the item too! and as you can see, there will be no end to such an argument.

[Magis]

In my honest opinion, when I was being sold Final Fantasy XIV, I see it as a game, that is the product I was sold, whether I play it only to get all the vanity items or not is secondary as the game wasn't sold or marketed to you that way so anything else other than access to the game and its content released in periodic patches are what I'd consider as optional.

If a player claims that he/she only plays the game for vanity and therefore being a customer, he/she should have it all, then what happens to a player who can never clear FCoB but yet yearns for a piece of armor from FCoB (for the looks) and as a paying customer with vanity as my core gameplay style, I should be able to have the item too! and as you can see, there will be no end to such an argument.

That player has every chance of getting into FCoB as every other player though. That $15 a month puts all players on equal footing and the same chance as everyone else to get that content. Have we forgot that the point of a game is the journey to get to the end as well as the items? Your argument is saying that a minion collector expects to be able to get every minion immediately or with no work. No, they know they will have to do some grinding for things like the Bluebird or Opopo minions. However they are given the same chance of getting that as every other player.... well until the cash shop which now not only means you got to pay more, but it doesn't even give a meaningful activity to get that item, it just plops it into your inventory. Grats you know how to use a credit card!

[Jacost]

However they are given the same chance of getting that as every other player.... well until the cash shop...

Everyone still has an equal chance. It's the same price for everyone, and nothing in the cash shop is available by some other means. If it's trophies you're interested in, then nothing in the cash shop should be interesting because you can't pretend you got it the "hard" way (because there isn't one).