Account wipes after unsubscribing?

[jruu]

So I've been noticing that I'm having less and less time for FFXIV at the moment. When December hits though, I should have more free time. But I do have a question about subscription and accounts.

Say you do not renew or subscribe for the next month, will they cancel your account? I do plan on going back eventually, and I already spent a good amount of hours in the game. But I am concerned that if I do not pay, they will eventually wipe my account.
I remember in FFXI, if you did not renew or subscribe to your account for a certain amount of months, they will wipe your account. How is it on this game?

[Estellios]

Very few people have had their accounts wiped in FF11, and it was after years of inactivity.

So far in this game they have not to my knowledge ever wiped any accounts.

[RaphaelDDL]

I doubt they would wipe right away.

The question is the one you said at end, how many months to actually wipe.

[jruu]

So would I simply have to just pay the subscription when the time comes to get back into the game? all under the assumption that my account is still active and my character(s) are still at their currently level with all items.
Or would they have me restart everything from scratch.

as far as ffxi, I did have an account there and it got wiped after about 6 months after inactivity. A reason why I did not go back.

[Blazn]

I would imagine they would send some form of email notice a month or two before wiping a account, "Hey we noticed you haven't subscribed for X months, We want to tell you we will be erasing accounts after X months of inactivity" if for no reason other than to try to get people to sub for a random month now and then just to save their accounts.

[Orbital-Dragon]

They will not wipe your account without a good year or two of inactivity. However, I also would not worry about it too much, despite all that high talk by Yoshi about shutting down the game before going free...this game will be free to play within 6 months. Once they lose a multitude of subscribers they will rethink this.

[Dalok]

They will not wipe your account without a good year or two of inactivity. However, I also would not worry about it too much, despite all that high talk by Yoshi about shutting down the game before going free...this game will be free to play within 6 months. Once they lose a multitude of subscribers they will rethink this.

I doubt this game will be Free to Play, that model will ruin any and all potential this game has. I actually know more people who would quit because it goes Free to Play than people that aren't playing because you have to pay for it.

[Zenaku]

They will not wipe your account without a good year or two of inactivity. However, I also would not worry about it too much, despite all that high talk by Yoshi about shutting down the game before going free...this game will be free to play within 6 months. Once they lose a multitude of subscribers they will rethink this.

Most if not all legacy members would quit if it goes F2P and same goes for some Non-legacy members. I know for sure i'll quit if this go F2P i just end up not playing any more mmo lol.

[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...

[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.