Cash Shop: Where do you draw the line?

[Ultimatecalibur]

And when it becomes unprofitable for the RMT, the number of buyers will dry up (because far fewer people have 20 mill gil than 5 mill gil) which brings the price down again, which makes it profitable for RMT again.

And then SE introduces a new cash shop item that can be traded and the market spikes again.

All the while, more gil is entering the market, raising prices again.

That sounds true until you realize that the cash shop item sellers are those that would normally be RMT buyers. The system ends up killing RMTs because they end up competing with their own customer base. Every player selling cash shop items is someone who might have purchased gil from an RMT.

[Janhyua]

There many reason for player to quit not just because of the cash shop but due to the direction they are heading, is never too late to quit first and see what the game is heading

[lynyan]

the line will be crossed if we ever see cash shop items like "savage might/aim materia chance boost!" potions or something like that

the gold/platinum bands + metallic dyes situation is definitely an oversight that's most likely going to be patched out soon enough (cuz i can't imagine they're happy with it either).

as it is now a cash shop with vanity items is not a big deal at all and i don't understand why people complain about it so much when there's actual in-game systems that are way more exploitative in their design lol

[Laerune]

For me the line is crossed the moment they introduce:
- Hairstyles for Cash Shop only (depends on how pretty it looks).
- Chest obtained in the game that can only be used by buying a key from Cash Shop.
- Endgame armour.
- Selling Max level characters (I dont mind this if FFXIV was 7-8 years old, but right now its not the time.)
- Endgame content behind paygate
- Jobs and classes behind paygate
- Minigames like chocobo racing behind paygate.

[Alice_89th]

Jobs, classes, dungeons, raid gear would be crossing the line for me.
Mounts and minions I don't really mind, as long as they have no added affects.

I am somewhat disappointed with the paid wedding plans. Eternal Bond was announced way before the cash shop, so I feel somewhat disappointed that (part of) it ended there. I still caved and got a gold one but.... I feel it would have been better to keep thing that were anounced before the cash shop out of it. Things that are announced afterwards are free game, as long as they are open about it.

[Rose-Wild]

For me they totally crossed the line. It's not that i couldn't see it coming after the mount issue. And i see where the game is going and i have seen other games i played follow the same road and i don't like it. The worst is you can't trust the devs anymore because they pull stuff like this teasing us for a whole year and a week before the bonding system is out telling us we have to pay for the real deal.

It's like the mods have been banished from this forums hiding and ignoring all the feedback (i guess they just follow orders tho).

I'm probably staying till the end of 2.5 and if i see that gold saucer is a mess i'll just say good bye.

For all the white knights telling people to just quit:
I don't think you really know what your saying because in the long run the cash shop wont cover the sub of the people that leave and not only that it also makes the game more empty and usually if people play MMO's is to stick with their friends and if one leaves usually more follow. And you will have less people to play with and eventually the game "dies".

[silentwindfr]

i feel the line was passed the moment they have added it, they had no real justification for add it exept get moar cash from us.
do it have allows to devellop more content? do it have make the situation of the server better? do it have make our daily life better? no, no and no.

nothing really was a good reason for add a cash shop at the start outside the greedy marketing team that did notice: "hey guys we have 2.000.000 customer! let's try to get them buy stuff!"
one of my friend did ask something interesting. do they make game for get money or do they get money for make game?
for me recently all i have see of SE is the first, they make game for get money, they are beginning to act like EA, Activision and Ubisoft, taking them customer for idiot and becoming more rude as the time pass.

because that the point, you don't add this sort of controversial content without check what want the community! it was simple to see it, add a poll to the launcher that can be done only one time per account for know what the whole playerbase want to or not. and depending of the result (announced officially) people will have accepted more or less the decision to add it or not.

because i'm sure if you do a poll about do you want to see a cash shop in the game, the winning will have not been yes, but no!
there they ask us do you mind if you want a cash shop into the game? yes, no, don't mind... most of the people don't mind because it's don't affect them. but with the eternal bonding they have gone soo much too far... we can even seen that they did try to calm everybody with the mount, since on the french website on one of the page it was said that the mount was only for the platinum version.

all of that for say.... i think the cash shop is bad in a subs game. the worst is most of the defender only care because in free to play it's normal. but we are not into a free to play.

i will say it clearly, we are in a subs game, no content must be gated behind a cash shop! whatever it is... they have no valid reason to add a cash shop into a subs game that do success! they need to stop to bleed the dev team of the FF14 by taking all the profit for make tons of game that are not sure to work!

ps: do i'm the only one that did notice that no veteran reward was announced recently? more stuff into the cash shop and nothing for the people loyal to the game....
because i'm kinda sure that the minion we did get into the cash shop (if not sleipnir) was planned as veteran reward....

[Bixby]

The line for me was tradable goods in the cash shop. Unsubbed.

ps: do i'm the only one that did notice that no veteran reward was announced recently? more stuff into the cash shop and nothing for the people loyal to the game....

The 630-day rewards were posted the same day as the patch, same place they always are (Optional Services page). Wind-up Nanamo and fat chocobo head.

[NargaHuntress]

The line was crossed for me as soon as the cash shop popped up. But this "Eternal bond" thing, it was was the absolute tipping point for me. Me and a friend has been waiting so long for this to come and been so ready to just throw our gil at it. But alas, we can only go for the free version. Wait. What? Free... version? So basically they took out a aspect, well part of one and put it in a cash shop. Which is "unexceptable" in my book. Yes the blind ones can say "it doesnt effect game play" but oh it does. For me at least. I may love raiding all dam day but I love other things too like glamour, role playing with friends, and being social. My goal is to look sexy and or bad ass while i raid and to just have fun and role play. You blind to it because your goal isnt behind a "pay wall".

[Nalien]

Anything that provides players who pay extra with extra Gil.

That line was crossed back in 2.2, when players could buy two extra Retainers and send them out on daily Ventures and effectively double the number of Allagan Silver Pieces (which are solely there to NPC for Gil) they bring in. Small amount of extra Gil for an added cost on your subscription, but extra Gil for your dollar is still extra Gil.

Actually, I probably just draw the line right at the start. It's lazy. People can claim I'm just "whining" and that I "just want stuff handed to me for free", I don't care. I would have much rather have had Sleipnir be something you work towards in game so when a newb asks me how I got the mount (I haven't gotten it, btw) I can give an answer that isn't pathetic (it is so sad that Sleipnir Barding is more impressive than Sleipnir himself...). I would much rather have seen Delivery Moogle quests for each of the Scions that rewards you with their respective minion. The whole "You just want it handed to you for free" argument just comes off as pathetic I think... I want it in the game as part of my subscription. That is neither free, nor handed to me. Visiting the cash shop and just buying Sleipnir might not be free (though a popular argument I see is that "It isn't that expensive", "Just save up for a week"), but it sure as hell is simply handed to you.