Isn`t just vanity. Is 2 diferent experiences and thats why is bad.

[FateAudax]

Well if you didn't notice there is a "might" in there, as I know nothing is set in stone yet.

However, according to your post, your might was referring to -- you might have to pay to receive the full experience.

...and now to find out that I might have to pay to get the full experience... snip-

What I am stating is people assuming the paid plan is the full experience, when the paid plan can very well be an extra experience while the standard plan is the full experience.

[Serdapi]

No, enjoyment is the purpose of the game.

Enjoyment is the effect of the game. Not the purpose.

Story, gear, vanity content, raids, quests the items cause enjoyment.

By design the game's purpose is telling a story in a progressional way. As I said if you can't see that you are delusional.

[Cyrus-Wallace]

Just because they take one or two [awesome] looking, functionally useless mounts out of the game and throw it in the cash shop doesn't mean it's useless content. It CLEARLY has a purpose, or they wouldn't be sticking it behind a goddamn pay wall.

Yeah, their purpose is to earn extra money.

The game is mostly advertised by its PvE. The game never hints you to collect all the minions/mounts and it doesn't give you a reward or anything about it. You're being rewarded with minions by clearing the content. It's optional content, not useless. As I said it before and some others have said already, it's your personal goal. Gotta be a bit objective with that, I understand you people love minions and would give your life to have them all, but they're not the core of this game. Based on your logic, guys, like... putting the things you like behind a paywall... why don't you rage at SE when they included two minions in their OSTs, a couple of them for attending the Fan Fest or... getting the CE/pre-buying the game, which adds nothing to the game but minions and mounts? They wanted to earn extra money, so they thought what items would be the best to add to their cash-shop. IN THEIR VISION, (You know, the vision of the people who created the game... like the owners of it? The same guys who planned on all this and set its objectives?) minions/mounts are not something that would neither break the game's balance or give an unfair advantage over other players.

So, get over it. They're not going to remove the cash shop, these minions will still be there and if you want them, you pretty much gotta buy them. We know nothing about the marriage's costs and stuff so that wouldn't be a nice conversation topic to have right now until the moment comes.

[craig_meredith2003]

Just curious if one of the options was with gil would people be ok with that? even if it was pricey like housing?
I have a feeling like i have posted before that the two "paid" options are one with gil and one with irl money.
Which makes me believe that the one that cost gil will be expensive.

[Kaeda_Valentyne]

Enjoyment is the effect of the game. Not the purpose.

Story, gear, vanity content, raids, quests the items cause enjoyment.

By design the game's purpose is telling a story in a progressional way. As I said if you can't see that you are delusional.

No, if that is what you truly believe than you are delusional.

The sole purpose of this game is to make SE money.
How they go about doing that is by making sure people will enjoy it enough to buy and play it. So in effect enjoyment is the sole factor in the purpose of the game. All of the things you listed play an important role in whether the game is enjoyable or not. If the game wasn't enjoyable people wouldn't pay for it, SE wouldn't make money and the game wouldn't be up and running.

All SE is doing now is seeing how much more money they can make, and how far they can push it with the cash shop before they start losing money.
When your sub doesn't buy you what you find enjoyable and you don't have extra money to spend on the "extras" that would make it enjoyable for you all you are left with is unsubing. SE wont care until the amount of money they lose from subs is more than they make from the cash shop purchases.

[Jacost]

It's very different, lets not throw every situation into a black and white analogy. The concept of a cash shop is not at all synonymous with CE/OST/Limited Edition release and promotional events. To answer your question, yes, yes, YES i would have preferred they do that, or maybe in a veteran reward with my subscription. Because then it would have been established from the moment i bought the game that the content wasn't for me.

But being teased in updates with in-game content i have to pay to use and then pay to acquire? Sorry, that's a completely different scenario. You don't ever see people complaining about expansions or day-1 bonuses or attendance awards for this very reason.

You were able to upgrade your game to CE status at the mogstation anyway, and some hypothetical GOTY extras would probably also have been available as an upgrade in the same way. You still pay more money and get mounts & minions that you can't get another way, and you even do it on the same Mogstation, so I fail to see the difference. There was already stuff behind a paywall is my point; the bait-and-switch was indeed dickish of SE, but that's not the point of the thread. Someone could probably start a different thread over the transparency issue, and I would support that argument.

[Serdapi]

No, if that is what you truly believe than you are delusional.

The sole purpose of this game is to make SE money.

I am talking from a design and dev aspect. You are talking from a business aspect. We are both right.

Content and Vanity Content come from the design and dev part. Making it a cash option comes from the business part.

The reason Vanity content can be made a cash option because it doesn't break the game and make it Pay 2 win. This is why you don't see actual content of Story or gear in the cash shop. The dev and design teams main structure of the game is around a story and gear progression. Add-ons like Weddings and Housing is vanity content that does not impact the core development of the game. Business people decided that Housing wasn't worth putting in the cash shop but an extra bonus things for weddings were.

You have the option not to purchase this extra which is up to the player. If no-one buys it, it will not hurt SE one bit because the content is already designed and everyone that does buy is just a plus. Win win for SE. If people unsub because they can't get extra items in the game where there is a free option then that's the players choice but I feel the will have a better time playing a different game because there expectations were completely wrong. The items in the cash shop is no different that skins in LoL.

[KodiHivaer]

You were able to upgrade your game to CE status at the mogstation anyway, and some hypothetical GOTY extras would probably also have been available as an upgrade in the same way. You still pay more money and get mounts & minions that you can't get another way, and you even do it on the same Mogstation, so I fail to see the difference. There was already stuff behind a paywall is my point; the bait-and-switch was indeed dickish of SE, but that's not the point of the thread. Someone could probably start a different thread over the transparency issue, and I would support that argument.

You forgot the OST minions too and legacy peeps pretty much bought their chocobos and snazzy perks.

[Roris]

Extra retainers put a greater load on the server since it now has to store more data, so it makes sense to charge players for them. Of course allowing alts to be more easily used as "mules" would be the better option, but that's a different discussion.

Your entire argument about the expansion boiled down to "it's actually worth the price". You don't even know what the price is yet, so how can you judge that? For that matter, we don't know what the cost is for the gold wedding. Would you say that it's "actually worth the price" if it was $1? We don't even have total confirmation on what is in the paid plan. Like I said, I disagree with that bait-and-switch that SE pulled, but I suspect that the higher-ups gave Yoshi an order on the matter sometime in the last month or so. Yoshi has been shown to genuinely care about the game, but he doesn't run the company. What I'd like to see from SE is more transparency, rather than pointlessly bashing a business for wanting to make money.

Extra Retainers put as much load on storage on a server as alts and new characters do, seeing how there are accounts that can have a max of 40 players across all servers both with 2 free retainers and a full character's data takes far more space than 2 additional retainers, the servers already account for this extra data in the database and more. System wise only one retainer can be fully accessed at a time, so even the extra processing load is equal for everyone, venture completion messages are handled client side and item searches are optimized enough so that those two extra retainers being searched also doesn't cause bigger stress.

My entire argument is yes, if the content to price ratio is good, go ahead. Since ARR's price is $30 it's safe to deduce the expansion will be priced accordingly, either at that exact price, possible lower or maybe even higher. Even if it's twice ARR's price at $60 it's arguably ok but not really, if only because "that's the price of a WoW expansion so it's ok when others do it". More than that? Yeah no thanks. The same can be done to weddings, simply adding what the Draught Chocobo costs for one/two players to obtain + a minion + costume + extra fees. Though yes, we still don't have concrete prices so it is all well founded speculation right now. Though I'd honestly be surprised if it was less than $10 for just the second tier wedding, or even costed gil like some people are hopefully thinking. Now yeah, no one can really decide what's actually worth spending money for anyone else, so if paying $25 for a mount is worth it for a loyal fan because they're showing support to their favorite company and franchise, go ahead too, no qualms about it.

Funny you mention transparency because that's exactly what I said the first time seasonal items were introduced on it. Had the cash shop plans been announced well in advance, even as far back as 2.0's announcement, most people would have been more accepting of it. Yet it's always 2 weeks or just a week before a patch and always announced out of nowhere, especially after teasing items and features for a whole year. It's that exact same change of plans at the last minute that makes people weary on where the game is heading. No one here is against a company making money or else they wouldn't be subscribing and wouldn't have subscribed since 1.0 in the first place. People do indeed want more transparency, it's where this issue comes from in the first place. Yoshida is the producer so yes, it does fall on him even if his hands are tied and he's forced not to say anything or hold back on announcing cash shop plans as much as he can. He was much more open during 1.0 so all this just makes him look more disingenuous now, regardless if he wants it to be like that or not.

Jacost gets it. It is functionally the same thing. Just because it comes on a dvd in a box doesn't matter. You are buying the content on the dvd. And most games are digital dl anyway now. If you want an example of a cheap little story paid add on I'll point to not one but 3 from SE in their last mmo. Ffxi had 3 tiny add ons that had a side storylines, a few story battles, and a special piece of combat gear at the end (very good, generally bis gear at at the time).

Your argument basically boiled down to expand being larger scale so it's ok. That's weak, and there are examples by this very company doing smaller scale tack ons. Those 3 story pack were 10 bucks each at release for a story you do in an afternoon while an expansion was 20 bucks and expanded the world for years. Either your ok buying content beyond your sub or you arent. The scale and being worth the money are just cop outs by letting you decide on a case by case basis if you are OK with it. If that is the case then I can just say a minion for 3$, or a fancy wedding for 30 is 'worth it' and now I'm no more right than you. You can't be against buying content on principle then turn around and say expansions, add ons, CEs, and digital give aways at paid live events are ok. If you pick a side you gotta stay there, not jump ship just because it's a good deal.

Your argument basically boils down to "it's okay when my favorite company does it regardless of how it does it" which is fine but it's also the weakest argument anyone can present. Lots of people had and still have qualms about Abyssea and the addons, even then story content will always outweigh vanity according to the common definition of progression. No one here is against buying content at all, in any way shape and form, especially since the main pro cash shop argument is "no one's cutting content yet, you can still get the same content for free you just don't get the extra vanity". The principle is about a company telling people well in advanced about their monetization plans. So if they're going to monetize Golden Saucer, Airships, etc. they might as well announce it clearly in advance especially since the Japan Fanfest is coming, instead of always being vague about new content and then announcing the cash shop side of it at the last second.

[Edellis]

Enjoyment is the effect of the game. Not the purpose.

Story, gear, vanity content, raids, quests the items cause enjoyment.

By design the game's purpose is telling a story in a progressional way. As I said if you can't see that you are delusional.

.....what?

You were able to upgrade your game to CE status at the mogstation anyway, and some hypothetical GOTY extras would probably also have been available as an upgrade in the same way. You still pay more money and get mounts & minions that you can't get another way, and you even do it on the same Mogstation, so I fail to see the difference. There was already stuff behind a paywall is my point; the bait-and-switch was indeed dickish of SE, but that's not the point of the thread. Someone could probably start a different thread over the transparency issue, and I would support that argument.

Nobody bought the CE for the in-game items, they bought it for that AND tons of other awesome tangible loot they got with the package. Getting CE without all that stuff is mostly pointless, but allowing us to get it anyway isn't an issue, because it has its purpose. Anything else though loses that armor, because it's surpassed the point of being there for promotional reasons, and is now simply a cash grab.


It's like buying a ticket at six flags, valid of course for every ride. You can buy your little thing that lets you skip lines, but that's cool because it has a practical reason for existing and you dont NEED it to get on the ride. Food is overpriced yeah, but whatever. I can still ride.

But then you come up to this super special side ride, that's not as cool as the super DUPER special awesome ride, but you still wanna ride it. NOPE, wasn't included in your ticket, but you can buy this $4 ticket to get on this one....wait, what the fuck, but that's not fair, what was the first goddamn ticket for then?!

That's cash shop. The super special side ride ticket isn't as useful as that other stuff, and it doesn't even cost much, you can still ride the super duper special awesome rides, but, what the fuck man, i already paid. Douche move, six flags.