Account wipes after unsubscribing?

[Kincade]

Ditto. I've played too many MMOs that went F2P and the quality just took a nose-dive, not to mention all the kiddies jumping in and lowering the average maturity of the player base.

If FFXIV goes F2P then I will quit too...

[Anova]

To return to the original question, in subscription mmos, they will almost never delete an existing account. The only exceptions are when your account has been hijacked or if the company decides to shut down the game. Even if the game switches from p2p to f2p, they might still maintain the data. S-E's track record seems to suggest that they will keep the player data. I played 1.0, left the game alone for 2 years, and was able to jump back in with all my progress intact when it relaunched. Keep in mind they were losing a lot money just to keep the servers up at this point, so I can't imagine a situation where they would delete the data with the current game.

I think it is premature to say whether the game will be f2p or not. For most MMOs, the first patch update (or 2 patches, depending on how conservative you are) are used as measuring stones for how readily the development team can output content and the player's reaction to that content. No new patch has come out for the relaunch yet, so any claim of f2p or success is pure speculation at this point.

[Orbital-Dragon]

You are right its much too early to determine if a game is going to be free to play in the future or not. My main thoughts are that the Pay to Play models have taken major hits, and is largely on the decline. Honestly, there is a nice chunk of FTP games that have treated us pretty nicely, and its hard to go back to subscription when the quality of the game is not superior to what you had for free. Personally I love the Buy to Play model that Guild Wars 1 and 2 have. They offer some pretty amazing games with just a one time fee. There are plenty of things in GW2 that are done better then FF14, some things I really wish they would implement here.

[Orbital-Dragon]

Anyways, as far as no game is good that is free, or most games just shut down shortly after going free, that is completely untrue. A lot of games that go free to play after dumping their subscription model have actually thrived and gotten better. Here is a great article discussing how FTP/BTP is the future. Honestly, I completely agree... Subscriptions are out!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain...ng-the-future/

[rabbitzero]

this game will be free to play within 6 months. Once they lose a multitude of subscribers they will rethink this.

While anything is possible, it's highly improbable this will ever go free to play. All you have to do is look at how FFXI is still subbed based. Square really doesn't "do" free to play. Also, the free to play sheen has worn off for most devs now, some do make money, but not as much as it seemed. A lot of free to play players are now tourists, and hop to whatever is new, so they do well the first few months, then crash. So you now get games like Wildstar and Elder Scrolls being subbed based. Heck, just look at 1.0. They knew they messed up and kept the sub from kicking in for about a year, but once they got it to where they wanted it, subbed only. That was even with the advance notice it was going to shut down for retooling. Don't hold your breath for this going f2p.

[Anova]

While the merits and demerits of subscription and alternative payments is something we are all interested in, this is not the thread for it. We can all agree that we will just have to wait and see what payment plan S-E pursues for FFXIV.

The OP was asking how long his character would be preserved if he stopped subscribing. I know they've maintained all legacy characters since the launch of 1.0, so it can be assumed S-E will maintain our character data for 2 years or more unless there is some unforeseen event to their data hub.

[Kincade]

I can't say for sure what S-E's policy is, but I know all the MMOs I've played kept my characters for years after I stopped playing. A couple of months ago I reloaded the original Everquest just for the sake of nostalgia, a game I haven't played in 10 years, and all my characters were still there.

[lebirath]

oh good.. so i just have to pay as it comes.. right?
i have a similar problem to OP/TC .. i wont be around from sept 27 to oct 13, which if in correct in my calculations, the last week of thos period should be part of subs (right?).. aft that i plan to pay 90days, so on oct 14ish: I just have to get home and go into my account online (SE website) pay my subs and play, right?
i know that they wont wipe my account for only 2 weeks, but no sure what happens / how i restart...
thx

[seekerofpower]

They stopped wiping accounts on FFXI after the game had been out a few years. My characters from FFXI are still there and I haven't payed for it in 3+ years.