SE Please implement a Chonoscroll/PLEX system in FFXIV: ARR

[Psion]

Wow the mental gymnastics I see trying to defend this system are astounding and idiotic...

If anyone here thinks this will harm RMT, you clearly have not checked any RMT sites or played any other MMOs in the history of ever.

RMT do not make money because they sell currency, THEY MAKE MONEY BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR ITEMS IN THE GAME THAT HAVE VALUE TO THE PLAYERS.

And this is exactly why a PLEX system would harm RMT. Suddenly, players that would buy gil from RMTers have a new, safe option to make gil, and buy that instead, causing RMTers to lose revinue. Not only that, because the scrolls are influenced by the market, undercutting (and by the gods does FFXIV market have a lot of undercutters) would ensure that profits go down further for RMTers. This is because it assigns a market established worth to gil, and they'd have to compete with the entire player base to stay in buisness. That is, they'd have to sell their gil for less RL money than what it's worth on the market, because why buy gil from third parties that could get your account banned when you could sell it on the market legit instead?

This system is, yes, a type of RMT. However, in this case, the trade is only one way: players can only get gil for RL cash, and even then the gil isn't being created. Instead, it's causing players with lots of gil to send it to players with little gil, and boosting the market from increased cash flow. (And as others have pointed out, due to market taxes, it actually takes gil out of the economy!) This system, in essence, is an anti 3rd-party RMT measure, which is what i think most people can agree is the bane of FFXIV. No one likes having Adasdasd and Ddsfsad hogging all the wild boar spots for skins 24/7 and taking away legit players methods of making gil. No one likes Ffdsfsd's party using hacks to claim all the NMs with worthwhile drops. Seeing Sdadfaf and company doing leves all day at cedarwood gets annoying as hell.

This system reduces all of that. It may not eliminate it entirely, but it sure does put a dent in those people's profits, and that is something i think we can all agree on as a good thing. As an added bonus, players that normally couldn't play due to RL circumstances are now able to have a new option to keep enjoying the game with friends. I might even be one of those players paying gil for a subscription myself, if it was affordable enough. As a college student without a job, it's pretty hard for me to make money, so i wind up doing odd jobs to pay for FFXIV. Having a backup option for paying my subscription would mean that if for some reason i can't get any money, then i can still keep playing with my friends. If that means some player with more cash flow IRL gets to benefit by buying stuff he needs in the game that he really doesn't have time for (because you know, some people work 40-80 hours a week, and people with high paying jobs tend to be on the higher end hours worked per week), then that's all for the better.

[Abriael]

Ok, let me explain very clearly why this is a horrible idea.

All you explained is that you didn't understand the system at all.

1.) It does absolutely nothing to support the developers, as some people seem to believe. The amount of these used by players who purchase them is directly proportionate to the about of people who buy them to sell to the people who purchase them. No new revenue is generated for SE, it simply shifts the subscription fees from one player to another. Which leads me into...

Completely wrong. By allowing players to pay with gil (that other players convert into money that goes in SE's coffers), you remove an obstacle to people on the fence keeping their account active. A lot of people that reach the endgame stop playing as much, up to the point of simply letting their account expire.

Those people normally have a whole lot of gil that remains unused in their pockets, and many of them would definitely keep their account active if they could just use that gil to that end.

In TERA i know a ton of people that log in once or twice a week, and would never keep their account active if it wasn't for chronoscrolls. Games that don't have them, lose those accounts. TERA keeps them, and that's all money that goes every month into En Masse's bank account, and that wouldn't otherwise.

It prevents lost revenue.

On top of that there's the undeniably positive marketing effect that even if those people's attention for the game has lowered, it's much easier to catch it back if their account is still active.

2.) It allows for a F2P option in this game. Not only does this open the community up to every 12 year old with internet access, it also encourages (even more than now if humanly possible) greed and competition between players and exploitation of game resources. (If you think RMT are bad, wait until you have 500 other players undercutting everything you try to sell to pay for their subscription.)

This is just elitism and fearmongering. People's quality isn't determined by how much money they have, sorry.

3.) It does nothing to stop RMT, absolutely positively nothing. If they can't make money selling game currency and U/U drops are the best gear in the game, you think they'll simply throw up their hands and say "whelp, we can't sell currency anymore, time to leave" instead of, oh I don't know, SELLING THE U/U DROPS maybe? RMT can and will sell anything in any game that players put a value on. If SE removes the value from gil, they'll just switch to selling items and powerleveling. That you believe RMT will somehow magically go away, or even decrease in number, is naive to say the very least. RMT don't care about how they make money, they will find a way to make money.

Again, you're completely wrong, and missed the point. It doesn't magically remove RMT, but it does realistically cut their profits. By cutting their profits, you cut their budget, and by cutting their budget you cut their workforce, reducing their ability to influence the game considerably.

[GodseijuroHiko]

Not really. I didn't play Tera, so I don't know if 1500 gold = 10k or 1m in a comparison to gil in our current economy

It's obvious that it'll be up to the players to decide if 1500 gold is enough or if they want to pay 1800 that month to continue playing. Yes you don't know, and continue to comment from an "I don't know" point of view. We call that ignorance. You rejected my answer and that's ok. I hope you find what you're looking for.

[A_Hortensia]

Jerk.

Hey, the question was: if this system was implemented, how much GIL (FFXIV currency) would your 10-15 dollars be worth.
You replied with the currency of a game they didn't play. Obviously this person is going to be ignorant of the currency/value of an MMO they didn't play. Get real, and keep it classy.

[GodseijuroHiko]

I think 150k is fair. If we calculate that into 1.0. (which is something I will be doing for ALL my 2.0 purposes because I'm cheap!) that's 1.5 mil. 1.5 mil a month could be the same as 15 bucks. $1=100k seems ok.

[axemtitanium]

Not really. I didn't play Tera, so I don't know if 1500 gold = 10k or 1m in a comparison to gil in our current economy

To be completely honest, there's no way to accurately predict how much PLEX might sell for on XIV's market wards. Imagine you invented the light bulb. How much would you sell it for? You can use the price of parts and manufacturing to estimate the cost that people will pay for it, but you can't possibly guess the real market value of it. The same thing happens every time a company does an initial public offering (IPO). The company execs have some idea of how much their company is worth and so they set their initial share price at a certain amount. However, there's no way to accurately predict how the market will affect their share price. The reason free-market economy works is because prices are difficult to predict. If they were easy to predict, then everyone who knew how to do it would be insanely rich (think top .0000001%).

[Kiroh]

SE, please implement this so I can laugh at every idiot who believes they have the solution for RMT and know better than you do after having combated RMT yourselves for over a decade. Thank you.

[Nuru]

I really don't understand why it is hard to grasp this concept:

You buy the item with money. $15 or so.

You use that item to activate the account, leading to you earning enough gil to purchase another item using gil (in-game currency)

SE makes no money, and thus, the cycle continues. At least, this is my understanding of it. Even if the item was unique and not tradable.

This idea would seem great when the game has aged enough and subs were decreasing, but as a new game, I'm sure SE wouldn't want to take the risk of this payment system.

[GodseijuroHiko]

Hey, the question was: if this system was implemented, how much GIL (FFXIV currency) would your 10-15 dollars be worth.
You replied with the currency of a game they didn't play. Obviously this person is going to be ignorant of the currency/value of an MMO they didn't play. Get real, and keep it classy.

I commented on something I had actual knowledge of. They are clearly looking for clarity in a system that isn't implemented in FFXIV (Very reasonable). I just posted while you were commenting making your last comment moot. Using Tera's 1500 gold, I equated it to 150k gil. They could just as easily done they same if that was the true intent of their question. I have no time to indulge people and their fake smile emotes when they continue to comment on things they have little understanding and continued unwillingness to do so.

[axemtitanium]

I really don't understand why it is hard to grasp this concept:

You buy the item with money. $15 or so.

You use that item to activate the account, leading to you earning enough gil to purchase another item using gil (in-game currency)

SE makes no money, and thus, the cycle continues. At least, this is my understanding of it. Even if the item was unique and not tradable.

This idea would seem great when the game has aged enough and subs were decreasing, but as a new game, I'm sure SE wouldn't want to take the risk of this payment system.

Wha? I think you misunderstand how it works. When you buy the item, you can either use it or sell it, not both. You can EITHER use the item on yourself to increase your subscription OR sell it to someone else to use. It's not permanent or U/U. When you use it on yourself to activate the account, you can't then also sell it for a profit. If you want another one (to use or sell), you have to pay another $15 or whatever.