It's time to reevaluate the idea of adding a PLEX/Chronoscroll-like system to FFXIV

[Mugiawara]

Indeed! Good thing a PLEX system wouldn't be!

I think I speak for a lot of us when I say: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it."

[Ceodore]

I think I speak for a lot of us when I say: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it."

It's not even a question of if it isn't broken, it's a fact of don't make the break worse if it is.

I bet you can't prove a single instance of this happening (because it never has).

Guild Wars 2, TERA, AION, just to name a few. All games that have had their economies ripped apart by an in game cash to game currency system and declined because of them. Guild Wars 2 was rumored to bring WoW down, and failed miserably. TERA had the same rumor, and is now also barely heard of. AION doesn't even need to be mentioned. All economies with cash shop items that can be sold between players, where their economies were ruined and now fail to bring in new players. There are also several other smaller titles out there that have never even made it off the ground because they had these systems from their launch, before an economy could even develop. So, burden of proof again, lies on you.

[Intaki]

I played all of those games, and more, and I can say with considerable certainty that they "failed" (quotations because I have a feeling your metric for failure is pretty silly and wrong) on platforms of more than just economy. Wildstar for example had a great economy on its more populated servers, with CREDD cheap enough for the average player to earn, but pricey enough to be worth paying money for. It failed because of poor endgame execution, among other things. Guild Wars 2 (which I would frankly consider a success still, if not a blowout one) also suffered from that. Aion wasn't designed for the western audience it got released to and suffered, and Tera had very little going for it beyond a bunch of slut suits and good combat. To point at all these games and try to finger one facet of one facet of the entire gameplay experience as the culprit of failure is utterly laughable.

[Ceodore]

I played all of those games, and more, and I can say with considerable certainty that they "failed" (quotations because I have a feeling your metric for failure is pretty silly and wrong) on platforms of more than just economy. Wildstar for example had a great economy on its more populated servers, with CREDD cheap enough for the average player to earn, but pricey enough to be worth paying money for. It failed because of poor endgame execution, among other things. Guild Wars 2 (which I would frankly consider a success still, if not a blowout one) also suffered from that. Aion wasn't designed for the western audience it got released to and suffered, and Tera had very little going for it beyond a bunch of slut suits and good combat. To point at all these games and try to finger one facet of one facet of the entire gameplay experience as the culprit of failure is utterly laughable.

However to rule out their economies and the effect a cash shop to in game currency system had on them is idiotic. Guild Wars 2 started out big, but its player base has been steadily declining as the conversion rate of cash shop currency has increased. Tera's economy is the sole reason veteran players (like myself) don't return after a few weeks hiatus. The second they went to cash shop, the economy went straight south. You can't even think of purchasing any of the regular gear from its market because of how high the inflation went up, and this sky rocket happened precisely the same time that they introduced cash shop items that can be sold to other players.