Scared about ARR

[Reika]

There is no reason TERA going F2P should make anyone afraid of FFXIV going F2P. TERA went F2P because that is the fate of ALL Kmmo, period.

[Wicka]

The "better shit" is the wrong way to do F2P. Those are the games that give F2P it's horrible reputation.

The fact that you make enough money to pay 20+ subs a month is irrelevant. If you can easily afford to pay what it costs to play the game, then you can even more easily afford to blow some cash on whatever you please, should that sub money be freed up. I feel like you are trying to brag that you make loads of cash. A smart way for SE to do F2P, especially because they are sitting on one of the most influential IPs outside of Nintendo's big hitters, is vanity micro-transactions. The smart way to do it, is to only sell things that the players want to buy, so long as it does not affect gameplay.

If I am saving my 10 dollar legacy sub every month, I am more inclined to drop 5 bucks on a "barber" to redo my hair and what-not because I feel like a change of pace. I am also much happier to buy expansion packs because I haven't already dropped enough money to buy 5 of them in one year. I hear that they are thinking of implementing a dying system for gear. Its cool if your standard grade-school crayola box covers all the free colors, and a small fee lets you use the much more versatile 256 color gamut. Etc.

Updates and GM support are not exclusive to subscription based systems. LoL gets updates Bi-Monthly at worst. Minecraft got fairly regular updates (I haven't played in a while) and was also very customer friendly and supportive. I have several games on steam that update often that I don't pay for on a monthly basis.

Look, I'm not paid to design a free-to-play system for XIV. The best I will do is throw out a few examples that prove the system works if handled correctly. I am also not saying that XIV SHOULD go F2P. I am saying that if it does, and if it is handled well, it is not a bad thing. I do think that paying a sub AND having to pay for expansions AND (at least right now) paying for more than one character slot, is all unnecessary and dated.

[Kyri]

I wouldn't mind a cosmetic cash shop at all^^: I admit to spending a little more then I would have liked on tera skins and costumes even though I literally never play

[Wicka]

Anyone can express their opinion here, stop being a troll.

I think you'll find that reading one or two posts and typing a reply takes much less time than reading all the posts and doing the same. I'm not as busy as Donald Trump, but I don't feel like wasting my time reading an entire thread when I merely want to communicate my opinion on the subject matter.

Edit - Sorry, I didn't mean to quote you. I meant to quote the other person. My apologies.

[Zehira]

Okay guys, if you believe someone's opinion has already been addressed. Why don't you just copy posts and post quotes to someone who needs to know if s/he doesn't have time to read all of this thread?

Just saying... :3

[Dannythm]

I wouldn't mind a cosmetic cash shop at all^^: I admit to spending a little more then I would have liked on tera skins and costumes even though I literally never play

Yeah like the one WoW have, I think Blizzard has figured the perfect balance between a cash shop (I still think 20€ for a mount is way too much or 10€ for a pet) with purely cosmetic items that don't give any edge on the game, and a monthly fee.

I wouldn't mind a purely cosmetic shop for ARR at all.

[Exn]

While I think the stigma of F2P exists for a reason, I also think that it can be done incredibly effectively. And when effectively done, it is preferable to the alternative.

I'd have to disagree with you. I personally haven't experieced a F2P MMORPG that was worth hanging around longer than a year. The stigma you speak of, is usually warranted. I was surprised you used GW2 as an example, because I could use that as a clear example of how F2P systems ruin gameplay. GW2 has RMT built directly into their system, actually ENCOURAGING something that most players recognize as a blatent violation in other games. All functioning F2P models try to supplement income by separating the playerbase into basically a class system of those who don't mind funneling $$$ into the game vs those actually attempting to play it for free. But the fact is with F2P, the more money you got to spend this month, the more likely you'll continue to find enjoyment in the game.

[Laume]

Don't know if it's been mentioned (and hate to dig up skeletons), but the only f2p [former] SE product I know is/was Fantasy Earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Earth:_Zero
But I agree with most people. SE has never given in to the whole "Pay this for free! You'll get bored of it in 3 months anyways. There's a new game on the horizon! Buy some fake currency!" model that many kmmo's have established. If they ever do, ffxi will go first (they literally said that they didn't expect the game to last this long. But it's still making money so they keep it running/adding stuff.). If this game is/was, that big of a failure, they certainly won't go the f2p model. That's one thing I like about companies like square enix. They have a passion for what they're doing. They'd rather have a great product that failed than an army of shallow product that they can wh*re out.

[Wicka]

The who consider it blatant violations only dk

[Twiddle]

Exn: you correct, something i have noted in not one, not two but ALL free to play games is that the community is divided in to two different camps. The people who pay, and pay more then a monthly sub would normally cost for stuff that should be included in the base. And the people who don't pay at all, who are to such a large extent penalized that they don't stay around long. Way i see it GW2 was a pure rip off, why? Because, even after you spend the 69.99 on your copy, and start playing you quickly realize that unless you keep burning money and the total ends up way over 14.99 a month... you see that you can't honestly keep up with the game speed. At cap unless you are bleeding your credit card like a pig. You can't even afford repairs, at cap the difference between people who pay ~50$ a month and those who choose not to is to the level like we are playing 2 different games.

This is the reason i prefer a p2p game with a monthly sub, we all get the same base and a persons pay at the end of the month does not influence the enjoyment of the game. Were i will give a penalty to p2p games is that they all seem hell bent on 14.99 a month. And yes some people to feel that's steep, and yet i see no MMO p2p braking out of that mold..