CREDD/PLEX/WoW Token system

[MoofiaBossVal]

I'm honestly surprised a token for FFXIV hasn't been added yet.

For as long as WoW has been running, there were all sorts of shady gold selling and level boosting services centered around WoW. They constantly spammed the chats and advertised on forums, over time becoming ingrained in our minds like all successful advertisements. As the game grew and the amount of effort required to obtain something we wanted rose (more expansions = more time spent leveling = more time playing through stuff we don't want to play through just to get to the content we want to play through, or more expensive gold sinks = more time spent farming), players became more and more likely to turn to these services. As such, many had their accounts banned (for possessing stolen or duplicated gold/chargebacks) or their accounts stolen, and the success on the end of gold sellers and level boosters only encouraged them to continue their operations. No matter how hard the GMs tried to shut them up, they would still pop up and the problem only grew. Trying to stamp it out was a losing battle.

Blizzard realized that if they could never get rid of gold selling, than they could at least try to make it as safe possible. Thus, their ingenious solution: the WoW Token. Blizzard legitimatized the gold selling process and made it safe. Players who REALLY, REALLY wanted to skip the tedium could, and due to the design of the process, Blizzard was also able to reward players who took the long and hard path and invested much effort into the game, by allowing them to convert their ingame gold into a token for a service they otherwise couldn't get without paying real money. My friends who played WoW nonstop were able to pay their subscription fee using the gold they earned ingame. They were able to continue playing WoW and buy other Battle.net games for just playing WoW. Blizzard still gets their money; the person who bought the token with real money pays for the subscription of the player who bought the token with gold. The person who wanted the gold is happy. The person who wanted Bnet balance or a free subscription is happy. Everyone wins.

I don't think the P2W accusations holds much water in FFXIV. There is little competition in FFXIV, far less than what there is in WoW at this point.

[HakaseNyan]

There's one hurdle before all of this can even be considered: the mogstation isn't connected to the in-game client. The in-game UI completely lacks cashshop elements, and your crysta balance isn't a viewable currency.

Also, this entire situation sounds like one big headache for Square-Enix. Black Desert Online does this legal RMT garbage where 90% of the cashshop items can be listed on the marketplace. I believe the items first started out where you could pre-order them, top order always won, then they changed it into a bidding system where RNG wins. Also, each item had a fixed price - unlike FFXIV where it's a completely free market.

RMT is frowned upon. Making it 'legal' shouldn't change that. It's the same shenanigans except now it's free2play-cashshop-greed shenanigans. You can argue all you want about how gil isn't being injected into the economy - that doesn't change anything. The fact is it still gives people the option to pay real world money for an in-game currency. That is pay to win.

[Selova]

No.

Keep pay to win out of XIV. These systems allow whales to legally buy currency and destroy game economies.

I've seen these systems in multiple games and it leads to inflation and even more cash shop items instead of in-game rewards.

It would do none of these things. Not unless they started making raid drops from Savage and Ultimate BoE, which they obviously aren't ever doing. People love to throw the P2W term around without understanding what it actually entails. You are aware that FFXIV has the biggest cash shop out of all the subscription MMO's right?

WoW's cash shop doesn't even come close to offering nearly as many things as our cash shop does. (I have no issue with the mogstation cash shop, and think it's completely fine) WoW's economy is also perfectly fine, since you obviously can't buy BiS slot gear off the AH. I honestly don't care if they add it or not, but let's not jump the shark with false assumptions.


People also seem to not understand that the reason WoW Created the WoW token was to combat RMT/Gold sellers which has done incredibly successfully. So if SE implemented their own system to get rid of the ridiculous amount of RMT spammers that plague the game, I'd be all for it.

[Vahlnir]

RMT is frowned upon. Making it 'legal' shouldn't change that. It's the same shenanigans except now it's free2play-cashshop-greed shenanigans. You can argue all you want about how gil isn't being injected into the economy - that doesn't change anything. The fact is it still gives people the option to pay real world money for an in-game currency. That is pay to win.

I agree, and I don't really like the idea of a "WoW Token" sorta thing in this game. But I think it would be foolish of me to say that it'd be devastating. Gil, outside of housing items and glamour gear (I consider even the newest crafted sets glamour because people can get the same level stuff or better the first day of a raid) has very little value. I would prefer to see more gil sinks in the game over a token system though nothing as crazy as a 5 million gold dinosaur mount that WoW has. 5 million gil in FF XIV is nothing but 5 million gold in WoW is a pretty hefty sum that very few people will ever achieve. It'd be like asking people to fork over 1-200 million gil for an outdoor furnishing like a Market Board or something.

[Shougun]

People also seem to not understand that the reason WoW Created the WoW token was to combat RMT/Gold sellers which has done incredibly successfully. So if SE implemented their own system to get rid of the ridiculous amount of RMT spammers that plague the game, I'd be all for it.

The system doesn't combat RMT. It may lower third party RMT but it will not combat RMT as if anything it will increase total RMT, since it is itself RMT. Gil sellers and spam also exist past the addition of this system, WoW is still developing new and better filtering and anti-cheat systems to combat that (since this system will not stop it, third party RMT isn't killed from this). Running bots and spam/account hacks is relatively cheap, you won't kill them with these things (they're unkillable).

WoW added this because it harvests the whales (whale used a bit loosely here lol). Like how diablo 3 real money auction house didn't kill third party RMT (sites were live and active, lots of bots in the system too), just put blizzard in on the RMT revenue stream.

[Penthea]

Since when does Gil affects raids or PvP? I dont see Pay to win here.

Someone here has never heard of win trading or selling raid boss kills.

And yes they do happen.

[Awha]

I would be all for it, but the major down side with FFXIV is it is extremely easy to make money. If the tokens do not go over 100 mil I prob could pay for my sub for around two years just off what I have currently between three characters, and that is with only causally trying to make money.

[linay]

Why does it matter? SE...

I am not SE. What SE gets or doesn't get is not my concern. I don't want this game to be propped up by people with enough money to spend to pay for other players. If you want to play, pay for the game and pay for the sub. If you want something from the Mog Station, pay for it with real money. If you want something from the game other than a level boost or story skip, play the game.

[Rongway]

I am not SE.

Exactly. /10char

[linay]

Exactly. /10char

Now that you understand that, we can hopefully let this idea die.