Stop Making Should-Be Achievement Gear.."Optional Gear"

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

To be fair, 90% of the cash shop is reskins or event items that people already had the opportunity to acquire. the other 10% is exclusive items, 50% of which is npc gear that had to be retooled to fit all of the races.

This is an important distinction. While some insist things in the shop should be available in game, what they often fail to realize is that it wouldn't have existed at all (for player use) if it wasn't in the shop. Retooling npc gear to fit all player races take time and resources. To recoup the investment of time and resources (and to hopefully make a small profit to boot) those items are put in the store. If there wasn't going to be a cash shop, those items would never exist for player use. Anything in the cash shop is either extra work beyond the budget of a given xpac, or made available after an event that used to award them changed.

If they couldn't put those items in the shop SE wouldnt bother investing the time and money to make them at all. So its a choice of available in the shop or not available anywhere ever.

Now that's not to say SE doesn't cheat here and there by putting old event items up that already exist and function, or recolored armor sets that already drop in game, but generally speaking, much of whats in the shop wouldn't have been made in the first place if they couldnt sell it.

[Owl_Hawk]

On the issue of cost to make these items...thats why we need to pay more for them

I totally understand your point and the effort needed to make these items...but isnt that the point of items? You are paying a sub for content of all sorts...if people have to grind these out...they will continue to sub as they need TIME to get these things ontop of the other things such as relics or whatever. I am just saying they are making enough money as it is...and will CONTINUE to make money if people are re-subbing that next month in order to get a certain item they really like....Almeric is part of Heavensward...so are the Knights of the Round...it just seems wrong that they would put this behind a cash barrier instead of making an event or achievement out of it like they did for FF13 Lightning...and ya..if you miss a limited time only item...put it on sale for those who joined game late...Cash for that is acceptable..but not new content...that is just allowing them to rip us off...we are paying them for new stuff not paying them to make stuff which we need to then pay more for ontop of our sub..this is wrong on their part...and I hope many support this thread in order to grab their attention. Or else the next thing is...Pay for raids...Pay for Optional Dungeons...Pay for Blitzball...It won't stop

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

I totally understand your point and the effort needed to make these items...but isnt that the point of items? You are paying a sub for content of all sorts...if people have to grind these out...they will continue to sub as they need TIME to get these things ontop of the other things such as relics or whatever. I am just saying they are making enough money as it is...and will CONTINUE to make money if people are re-subbing that next month in order to get a certain item they really like....Almeric is part of Heavensward...so are the Knights of the Round...it just seems wrong that they would put this behind a cash barrier instead of making an event or achievement out of it like they did for FF13 Lightning...and ya..if you miss a limited time only item...put it on sale for those who joined game late...Cash for that is acceptable..but not new content...that is just allowing them to rip us off...we are paying them for new stuff not paying them to make stuff which we need to then pay more for ontop of our sub..this is wrong on their part...and I hope many support this thread in order to grab their attention. Or else the next thing is...Pay for raids...Pay for Optional Dungeons...Pay for Blitzball...It won't stop

Our subs pay for only so much. Server hosting and maintenance, employee salaries, expansion development, voice actor salaries, model artists, music writers, music performers, and the list goes on. That stuff in the Mogstation? That's EXTRA. That's stuff that costs SE above and beyond our subs which is why it would never be made in the first place if it couldn't be sold in the Mogstation. Also keep in mind that SE is a business. They aren't looking to "break even" they are looking to make a profit. If a business is not profitable investors pull out. Profit is necessary to the survival of a business. Just look what happened to a game like City of Heroes. It was profitable... but not profitable enough to stop NC Soft from shutting it down and investing those resources elsewhere.

And not for nothing, who are you to say "they are making enough money"? You don't know anything about the finances and costs of things relating to the development of this MMO. Don't make assumptions about something when you have little to no information regarding the details.

The Aymeric outfit would never have been available AT ALL if it couldn't be sold. I don't know how many ways to say that. It took time and resources to make it wearable by the various player races and yes selling a few will recoup that investment and anything beyond that is profit... but so what? SE making more from our game just proves to SE and to investors that FFXIV is a valuable property and worth maintaining and continuing to invest in for development. No one is getting ripped off. You aren't losing something because it was put in the shop, because if it wasn't in the shop it wouldn't be available at all.

Unless you have experience running an MMO, you likely have no idea what the MONTHLY expenses for maintaining our servers are. I can tell you this from personal experience... hosting a small game server (maybe 200-400 players) for development project costs us over 1,200$ a month. This isn't top tier service, but its also not trying to rely on cloud servers (which might work for bootleg private servers but won't for any real project). FFXIV monthly costs are probably hundreds of times that.

Now my project is microscopic compared to an MMO like FFXIV. The amount of players they have to be able to accommodate, the amount of employees they have to pay to keep things maintained, the scope is staggering in comparison. And that's just monthly maintenance costs. Development costs are a whole other ball of wax. As I said before, unless you have experience in MMO development of a scope similar to FFXIV or WOW, you almost certainly don't have any idea of the costs involved.

[BigRed5392]

snip

Explain older MMO, or even free to play donation only MuD?

cash shops didn't always exist yet mmo came out with plenty of extra content.

It's not complicated to explain. Older MMO's and MUDs didn't cost anywhere near what a AAA+ MMO costs today and the expected return on investment wasn't as high. Graphics were cruder and simpler. Modeling and texturing took less time and thus less money to create. Voice acting and cinematics were used sparringly if at all. Investors expected less return (but still a profit) from their investment. That's part of the reason why you don't see many MMO's pop up anymore. It's incredibly expensive now compared to back in the day. Especially now that voice acting is often expected, which can astronomically increase the costs of making a game.

In 2004, WoW cost 63 million to launch and over 200 MILLION over its first 4 years to maintain and develop. In 2011, SWTOR cost over 200 MILLION DOLLARS just to launch. Compare that to the 6 million it cost to develop Ultima Online or the 3 million it cost to make Everquest. That's an incredibly high financial risk to make with no guarantee of success and a return on investment. Making expansions is obviously cheaper but still very expensive. Even moreso today than in MMO's of the past because of the voice acting alone. Add in professional orchestras and vocalists to perform your epic soundtrack and you're talking about a great deal more money needed today than 10-20 years ago.

Here's an example from 1998's Baldur's Gate. One of the earlier pc games I saw with any sort of cinematic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYoRmGHIxA4

Compare THAT primitive thing to the cinematics we see today and tell me how much of a difference in cost it was to make them.

if you go to a money app that maths out inflation it is about the same. As in the 90s the doller was worth more.

they used all that stuff in gaming since a long time, it just came out 8bit for sound quality so no that isn't even a recent thing.

ff11 isn't that old of a game either and still running, had a smaller player base and never did a cash shop.

cash shop is used to supply the cash shop, sub fee is used on the game and cash shop. Adding too much to the cash shop, and not in game isn't good for business, as it can drive people away.


you sound like the "silly" person who works as ubisoft who told players when they found out it takes 2 years or 700 to do/get everything, that they not suppose to. It is a dumb move.

That's not how the development process works.



That's not your decision to make.

They could have never added a cash shop, and you would never have gotten things like Minfilia's Outfit. The content patches might have been smaller or have less voice acting or shorter cinematics due to not having the extra income generated by the cash shop as well.

People need to stop trying to be armchair developers. While you have every right to give feedback and share your opinions with the developers, if you haven't even worked in the MMO business to any degree, you aren't really qualified to tell those who are developing a highly successful MMO what they are "doing wrong" in how they generate and manage revenue.

you clearly have no idea how stuff works....

at any point they could have a side quest for minfilias outfit. The only armchair dev I see is you, as you clearly have no basis in how stuff works.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

Explain older MMO, or even free to play donation only MuD?

cash shops didn't always exist yet mmo came out with plenty of extra content.

It's not complicated to explain. Older MMO's and MUDs didn't cost anywhere near what a AAA+ MMO costs today and the expected return on investment wasn't as high. Graphics were cruder and simpler. Modeling and texturing took less time and thus less money to create. Voice acting and cinematics were used sparringly if at all. Investors expected less return (but still a profit) from their investment. That's part of the reason why you don't see many MMO's pop up anymore. It's incredibly expensive now compared to back in the day. Especially now that voice acting is often expected, which can astronomically increase the costs of making a game.

In 2004, WoW cost 63 million to launch and over 200 MILLION over its first 4 years to maintain and develop. In 2011, SWTOR cost over 200 MILLION DOLLARS just to launch. Compare that to the 6 million it cost to develop Ultima Online or the 3 million it cost to make Everquest. That's an incredibly high financial risk to make with no guarantee of success and a return on investment. Making expansions is obviously cheaper but still very expensive. Even moreso today than in MMO's of the past because of the voice acting alone. Add in professional orchestras and vocalists to perform your epic soundtrack and you're talking about a great deal more money needed today than 10-20 years ago.

Here's an example from 1998's Baldur's Gate. One of the earlier pc games I saw with any sort of cinematic:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYoRmGHIxA4

Compare THAT primitive thing to the cinematics we see today and tell me how much of a difference in cost it was to make them.

[Arkune]

ff11 isn't that old of a game either and still running, had a smaller player base and never did a cash shop.

Are you serious? You mentioned XI, hell no please dont ... do that...

how many years, the Level cap of XI remained the same (75)? how many YEARS People farmed 1 damn Pieces of Gear couze it never droped? How many Years just a handfull of People was able to Clear Chains of Promathia pre Nerf? Back in XI less PPL took breaks. I came back 2 Weeks ago after a 2 Years Break. In XI you better never missed a Dynamis Run for your Gear, so you barely unsubbed.

Ah and btw. didnt they start adding Server Transfers and Character Name for MoneyZ?

I guess we both played different Games.

[Ririta]

Are you serious? You mentioned XI, hell no please dont ... do that...

how many years, the Level cap of XI remained the same (75)?

Isn't that a good thing?

[Arkune]

Isn't that a good thing?

For me, it was the best Thing ever. Back in the Years no Ilevel Shit, just Wear whats the BiS for different Spells as a RDM :P

[Valkyrie_Lenneth]

Cash for that is acceptable..but not new content...that is just allowing them to rip us off...we are paying them for new stuff not paying them to make stuff which we need to then pay more for ontop of our sub..this is wrong on their part...and I hope many support this thread in order to grab their attention. Or else the next thing is...Pay for raids...Pay for Optional Dungeons...Pay for Blitzball...It won't stop

Except here you are going from small items that dont take away from the game to hey, if you want to raid, you owe us money. This is where these arguments fall apart, because they go from 5 to 10000 instantly, when people disagree with them. Oh, you think its ok to have npc outfits be in the cash shop? well i bet you wont feel that way when they put raids and dungeons in there! That makes no sense...