Quote Originally Posted by Rogatum View Post
Leaving the earrings aside or any exclusive reward for that matter at the door. I cannot be the only person that feel it is slightly worrying that SE has to provide incentives via rewards to get people to take part in content. I do not know it just seems that SE has a lack of faith in their content / class design if they need to use carrot on a stick to get players to become engaged. Do not get me wrong rewards are awesome, but I cannot say that I have ever engaged in a content simply for a reward. Probably the only person that feels this way since I guess that is the bases of game design.
I would say, from conversations about a lot of other MMOs these days as well, rewards are now an important incentivizing factor for many players. In fact, if you check social media whenever an FFXIV event is announced, many of the initial comments/complaints revolve around the rewards. This is also why the promotional material feature the rewards prominently. I guess people have been sort of reprogrammed to not just play videogames for the inherent fun, but to chase the carrot. (Perhaps part of this is because the MMO genre in general relies on repetition/grinding as a time sink, so people will do things that become less fun over time as long as there's light at the end of the tunnel.)