The whale mount is up on Mogstation

[Bourne_Endeavor]

You can't claim "they wouldn't be plans to make a moogle or whale mount to begin with. They just wouldn't exist.", you don't know that, it's a big stretch to claim that if the cash shop didn't exist then it wouldn't even cross their mind considering all the types of mounts already available in the game. There's nothing inherently tied to the cash shop in the design of those items.

It's not semantics, they are 100% completely different things. Many of you seem to be relying on the idea that getting things as part of your monthly payment is freeloading, which is a ridiculous notion. Until our sub is free asking for things to be part of the monthly payment is not asking for them to be free, because the game is not and has never been free, you are paying for every single drop you get in the game. At this point this is the equivalent of insulting other people for not wanting to be double dipped.

Yes, I can because other companies do precisely that. There's a reason EA, Activision and Ubisoft have the reputation they do. In their case it's often rushed development or sneaky ways to incentivize their cash shops, but it's all along the same lines. Why do you think Yoshida has outright stated there's a separate team who handles the Mogstation; the "Queen of the Mogstation" if I recall? Now if SE is a greedy company, what makes you think they would keep that team around to work out mounts and outfits... when they're no longer going to sell them? The whole point of that team existing is to turn a profit through micro-transactions. Sure you may see say, the Carbuncle mount. But you'd be seeing mounts like appear exceedingly rarely, and behind extremely arduous grinds like Astrope. You can call it shitty gaming practices but... welcome to the gaming industry.

Hence why I said "given the provided context." When I say "free," I'm simply inferring the sub as something you'll pay anyway, thus there isn't an additional cost. The thing is, you do get things as part your monthly sub. Their have been two exclusive mounts compared to how many released with patches? This is why you have many people simply not care or have a general indifference to the cash shop.

If the problem is the unreasonable requirement for some mounts then the solution is to not have unreasonable requirements, not to require you to pay extra for them.

Welcome to MMOs 101. Dev teams constantly lock coveted items behind grinds or content a chunk of players wouldn't otherwise do in the hopes of incentivize the content or at least moving the queue. We're all pretty certain the hairstyle everyone wants will be in Pyros. Why? Because they want you to go into Eureka and they know how much people want that hairstyle. This isn't unique to FFXIV or even MMOs, really.

I don't think she's saying that moogles and whales wouldn't exist, or wouldn't be a "lore-worthy" thing to have in the game. She's saying they wouldn't put the time into developing the mounts if they weren't going to be getting money for them. They wouldn't just say "oh, nobody's buying so let's roll them into the sub price", they'd say "nobody's buying so let's nix all of the extra costumes and mounts and emotes".

Getting rid of the cash shop will never result in those items being rolled into the game. Not just past, because of course they're not going to make items some folks paid for now free, but anything in the future, either. We wouldn't get Krile's outfit or Tsukuyomi's dress or whatever rainbow flashing tiger mount they come up with next, they'd just never make them an option.

Exactly this.

And please don't mistake all this as me defending the Cash Shop. My personal stance is indifference, though I do somewhat like them if for no other reason then I suspect prices of games and sub fees would increase if they couldn't market micro-transaction. A while back Capcom's CEO even said he feels games should be $150 retail. At least with Cash Shops, we can opt out of any additional costs. Regardless, I merely aim to relay the cynical nature of game development because, yes, SE is just as greedy and shameless as the rest.

[ElHeggunte]

I have nothing to add to this thread other than the passing observation that the whale is kind of a little bit of entirely adorable.

[Rhus]

I'm sure t looks cool my only issue is the size of the thing. You get 4 or 5 people around a vendor in the reach or the summoning bell or in Eureka all jumping around and showing off (great btw) it takes up a large amount of my screen and can't see anything other than whale back. It seems unnecessarily large. Even Behemoth mount isn't that big and it's a mountable BEHEMOTH, it's in the name it should be massive but isn't.

[Haxaan]

I love the mount I'm just sad that it is only a 2 seater. It looks like it was created with multiple riders in mind, you can clearly fit at least 4 people on it. It would have been so cool to have a light party on the mount, would make hunts so much fun! I'm still going to get it, but just would have been nice.