Gil Issues @ 50

[Jynxii]

snip.

You know, I'd be all for this if we weren't paying $15/month to play the game.

If you go on a case by case basis, and lets say there is someone that only gets 1 hour in a night during the week, and a little more on the weekend; we'll go with 40 hours. Why should this person be paying a company $15 for 40 hours of 'entertainment' a month, and then have that company dictate how he spends those 40 hours? "Oh customer, I know you'd love to go farm Ifrit tonight, but sorry, you haven't done you mandatory farming".

If you paid a monthly fee to join a gym, and were told you could come in any time you like, that'd be pretty normal right? We'd accept that, yeah? What about when we've been hitting the gym for about two weeks, and are then told we can only use certain equipment on certain days, unless we want to come twice a week and work part time for them, without monetary pay, but they'll then be allowed to use the equipment as they were told, as long as they maintain the part time work. I think most people would be second guessing the management of the gym right about now.

[Demetirus]

-snip-

I'd counter with this:

Your gym says you can't just sit and use one machine the whole time. You can't just take over the bike for 6 hours every day. You have to use some of the other machines (in the case of the gym, this is for the sake of others) or only enjoy a limited amount of time on that bike. Sure, you could look for a different gym that doesn't have that limit just like you could look for a different game. Why sign up to one knowing they have those restrictions if using the other machines is so abhorrent to you?

I know this is not a perfect analogy, but the base one of the gym wasn't perfect to begin with. I hope you can see my point with this: Just because you pay for a service from the company, doesn't mean you get to dictate the terms of the service. The game was designed to be played with a balance between crafting/gathering and questing. If you don't like the service offered, find another service.

[Jynxii]

-snip-

You make some solid points, and indeed the gym analogy isn't really a good one (if anyone has a better one, feel free to share), however unless explicitly told, you are given the impression that you can (to use your example) sit on the bike for 6 hours a day. You were never told otherwise, and are now in a contract paying for a service you were mislead to believe would cover what you were after, but simply does not. I am quite aware that crafting/gathering is a part of the game, and I am far less frazzled about the whole ordeal than some players, but (to my knowledge) it was never stated that you had to partake in gathering/crafting in order to maintain one section of the game. People are still in their free month, and arguably haven't been milked out of any money, but again, they also aren't tied to a contract.

You pretty much summed up my point perfectly; people will leave if the service isn't what they are after (want to spam dungeons, forced to do other parts they have no interest in). Again, this is arguably better for the community, but not so much for Square's bottom line.