Quote Originally Posted by KokonoeAiyoko View Post
I think what they're wanting to say is that part of the appeal of Pay to Play MMO's for so many years was that you only payed once a month and had the chance to obtain everything the game had to offer without a cash shop. It really made the game as a whole feel much better and more cost effective compared to F2P variants.

This game I feel has kind of over done the glamour aspect of cash shops as well as emotes. In FFXI and FFXIV 1.0, you could always reobtain event gear the following year in-game, but now you have to pay money if you missed out that one year which is already a downgrade compared to the past. Even FFXIV 2.0 was like this at first but they changed it and started charging us for old gear that was made for basic events.

SE charging 30$ for a mount and 7$ per emote is hella pricey with their other costs being high as well. 15$ gets you an outfit and a hairstyle, but is that really the price of something that cost more than a single 12.99$ sub? All in all, they definitely deserve criticism with how they've been implementing this cash shop from price alone and charging us for old event items with steep prices in comparison to the sub. You don't even get to have these items on all of your characters which is even more steep.
Granted, this isn't the way things used to be, but that doesn't make it inherently wrong. Square Enix is offering goods and services, and it's your choice whether to buy them or not. I just think "we didn't used to have to pay for this" is a weak argument. If enough people say "we won't pay for this and will stop paying for your game at all" that it seems like they're actually coming out behind by offering these items at these prices, that should convince them. But it's not a debate that can be won on principle, because the principles are entirely arbitrary.