Price Reduction =)

[Alerith]

What's with all the "extra character" rage? True, most MMO's allow you a number of more characters free... Then again most MMO's restrict your character to one job class, one crafting class, etc.

FFXI and XIV have the advantage of giving your character access to all classes. XIV even has retainers so you don't have to have a mule for selling stuff.

Also:

"The above price plan includes a save slot for one character and the 30 day basic service fee."

+1

[TheVedis]

READ!

"The above price plan includes a save slot for one character and the 30 day basic service fee."

I think you need to re-evaluate who is spreading false information.

you may want to re-read what you looked at

the 9.99 is what that applies to(6.99 + 3 = 9.99)


the pricing itself says this

"* One character save slot as well as a basic service fee is required to play FINAL FANTASY XIV "

[Rowyne]

READ!

"The above price plan includes a save slot for one character and the 30 day basic service fee."

I think you need to re-evaluate who is spreading false information.

Wow. This is what I'm talking about. SE's talent for making things convoluted once again confuses people. People actually think they're getting a bigger discount than they really are.

you may want to re-read what you looked at

the 9.99 is what that applies to(6.99 + 3 = 9.99)


the pricing itself says this

"* One character save slot as well as a basic service fee is required to play FINAL FANTASY XIV "

TheVedis is right. If you scroll down the page and look at the fee breakdown, you'll see the real details.



What this means, in reality, is this:

30 Days - $6.99 Service Fee + $3.00 Character Fee = $9.99
90 Days - $5.99 Service Fee + $3.00 Character Fee = $8.99
180 Days - $4.99 Service Fee + $3.00 Character Fee = $7.99

The absolute cheapest you can play this game is 8 bucks a month. But the only people who will benefit are the diehard fans, the ones who will be willing to pay 6 months worth of fees upfront. Anyone who is on the fence and only wants to pay by the month will get it at 10 bucks a month.

[Sevokevo_Royuki]

Oh Bohoo you trolls will be gone soon. That is when I will be happy for those who don't want to pay.

[Pebe]

This may be completely wrong, so don't hold me to it. This is jusat an example.

Personally I don't mind the character fee, and there is probably a good reason behind it. Like previously said by many people, one character can do everything. Now in an MMO, being able to everything entails ALOT. Now think for a second, how much memory do you think one character takes up. Everytime you log in or log off you character data is being retrivied or stored on the ffxiv servers (I think, please someone who knows more about this help me explain). This has to be the case, otherwise you couldn't play your ffxiv character on a different computer. So somewhere stored in ffxiv's memory is all of your character data. Which includes things like, character graphics, quests completed, jobs leveled, items held, linkshells, friends, etc. But not only does it include that, but each character also probably has a massive chunk of memory reserved for things to come. If not, then everytime they add new content they will expand on the memory allocated for each character. Now, imagine 5 years from now and think about how huge this game will be and how much memory each character alone will take up. I personally am curious of the exact amount of memory SE reserves for each character. Probably could make some interesting comparisons between memory and cost.

This is just an example for I am sure there is far more to the character cost than just memory cost, maybe memory cost doesn't even play a factor (It is kind of cheap now). I can't really say, only SE knows.

[Ranara]

This may be completely wrong, so don't hold me to it. This is jusat an example.

Personally I don't mind the character fee, and there is probably a good reason behind it. Like previously said by many people, one character can do everything. Now in an MMO, being able to everything entails ALOT. Now think for a second, how much memory do you think one character takes up. Everytime you log in or log off you character data is being retrivied or stored on the ffxiv servers (I think, please someone who knows more about this help me explain). This has to be the case, otherwise you couldn't play your ffxiv character on a different computer. So somewhere stored in ffxiv's memory is all of your character data. Which includes things like, character graphics, quests completed, jobs leveled, items held, linkshells, friends, etc. But not only does it include that, but each character also probably has a massive chunk of memory reserved for things to come. If not, then everytime they add new content they will expand on the memory allocated for each character. Now, imagine 5 years from now and think about how huge this game will be and how much memory each character alone will take up. I personally am curious of the exact amount of memory SE reserves for each character. Probably could make some interesting comparisons between memory and cost.

This is just an example for I am sure there is far more to the character cost than just memory cost, maybe memory cost doesn't even play a factor (It is kind of cheap now). I can't really say, only SE knows.

Honestly there is no real way of us knowing how much it takes it up, but its just data stored in a database. My guess would be a file under 1MB.

[zaviermhigo]

I'd like to see there reasoning for the $3 fee for our first character. 2nd character I understand, but the first? I guess maybe other people charge you for that kind of stuff and just lump it in, but here they separate it. It's just always made me wonder, since CE release.

[Antipika]

I'd like to see there reasoning for the $3 fee for our first character. 2nd character I understand, but the first? I guess maybe other people charge you for that kind of stuff and just lump it in, but here they separate it. It's just always made me wonder, since CE release.

SE just fail at marketing.

To the consumer, it sounds way nicer to say : $9.99 + $3 per extra character rather than : $6.99 without any character + add $3 per character.

Following the billing announcement today, a lot of medias published the news, and feedbacks from non XI/XIV players were almost always "wow, charging $3 for a character, this is retarded". While if it was advertised as an extra service (since after all you can do everything with one char), there would less negative feedback.

And I believe that SE should even mention on the billing page that one character can plays all classes.

A future customer coming out from any MMO out there, willing to try XIV, checking the fees page and seeing "$3 per character" may just run away because of that, without even bothering asking/looking for more information.

[Ashiee]

SE just fail at marketing.

To the consumer, it sounds way nicer to say : $9.99 + $3 per extra character rather than : $6.99 without any character + add $3 per character.

This... I would personally rather have a $9.99 basic service that includes 1 character then have a $6.99 basic service that includes no character + $3.00 to add a character.

I know there is no difference, it's $9.99 either way, but I feel more cheated with the second option.

[Answa]

This... I would personally rather have a $9.99 basic service that includes 1 character then have a $6.99 basic service that includes no character + $3.00 to add a character.

I know there is no difference, it's $9.99 either way, but I feel more cheated with the second option.

Unless I'm mistaken, the process disallows simply paying for the service fee alone. You have to pay for at least one character.