What do you think about this rumor of the Cash Shop. Granted Retainers and Fantasia are already microtransactions, but if it becomes more than that, even if its something like vet rewards or preorder bonus, that would still be a real problem. The only reason I pay the sub is cause of the content, but a Cash Shop seems to jeapordize it.

Also: I'm not at all ready for 2.4 I haven't played since September cause of School, but I'm gonna be a Rogue(Ninja) on Tuesday when/if I renew my sub

the cash shop is purely for vanity like mounts, and costumes. it is not pay to win. money that goes in will go back into the game in the form as content.

Well, I might as well get this out of the way right now, We are gonna disagree. But since we are both fans of the game, and debate is beneficial, lets keep it civil.

If the cash shop is witholding content to produce content, wouldn't it be likely that the content it produces will be more heavily skewed to the cash shop as well? Hence producing more content as a whole, but locking more content out of the base sub and resulting in less content for those players.

Even worse yet, where does the money go?

Best Case Scenario, Majority of Cash Shop Revenue pays for Sub Content. Optimistically, Cash Shop Revenue pays for itself, Sub pays for itself. Realistically, The minority of Cash Shop Revenue adds onto Sub Content. Economically Ideal, Sub revenue adds content to Cash Shop(Which must do at the onset, because their is no Cash Shop Prior).

Although, Sub paying for Cash Shop is effectively worst case, it is best case economically because its generating more money from subs at the cost of subbed content. And since the Cash Shop is being introduced for economic reasons, is it not likely that this will be the case?

Even if to a lesser degree its just getting content faster, its then affecting game play. Why do Odin for a chance at Slepnir when you can buy it at the cash shop?

More than half of the content already in the game could be considered "Vanity" which I think is trivializing the issue. Vanity is important and integral to the gameplay because it acts as a reward incentive, where the incetive of progression alone might not be enough for people.

Even worse still is that Vanity is a subjective definition, especially in this context. Different types of Mounts can be considered Vanity, cause they move at the same speed, but the concept of Mounts is also vunerable, hell SWTOR does it, how long till Chocobos themselves are considered Vanity. Despite its direct influence on gameplay, it can still be considered as Vanity.

the cash shops are strictly pure vanity it has no real effects on the game outside of people willing to pay to look different, which is entirely their choice.

• no pay to win
• Minions sold in cash shop. NOT EXCLUSIVE to cash shop
• Using those funds to create more vanity/minions/etc. that won't just be cash shop-exclusive, or doing other things like adding the new EU datacenter. Want to use those profits to give back to the community

1st problem is what do you define as real? There alone there is a lot of dangerous differences of interpretation.

Vanity is an incentive reward, degrees of importantance vary with each player. If a player spends more time in the game to get a Vanity item, isn't that an effect of gameplay? One which is completely bypassed by making converting that playtime into currency?

* pay to win is an extreme that doesn't need to be realized before effects of gameplay are significant. Not to mention, if Winning results in Vanity items, you are essentially paying for the reward, which is pay to win sans the actual troublesome gameplay part. Its not even a matter of:

Buying Infinity + 1 sword, 1 hitting everything in Coil and getting rare minion or w.e, you just go straight to buying a rare minion.

* If that is the case then cash shop purchased minions must be untradable. It also goes into my main argument as seperating Vanity from Content.

* Where is your guarantee on this? Why in the hell would SE give profits back to the community, when the purpose of the Cash Shop is to profit more from the community? If they wanted the community to have more money then they wouldn't have it to begin with?

And lets be real, this is neither a problem unique to FFXIV or new in FFXIV, this is a simply a problem of degree. And the "Only Vanity" defense is simply the current incarnation of the "Only system/character specific" such as server and race changes, to say it doesn't affect gameplay is a red herring, because everything affects gameplay. Whether or not SE continues down the inevitable road of microtransactions is completely up to how much they like money, which tends to increase regardless of company. Whether or not the players at any time have issue with it, or regardless of what SE or the devs have said, is completely irrelevant. Because SE has a lot of leeway between money gained from Cash Shop is more than money lost from subs.

Personally, will this make me unsub, probably not, especially since most of the stuff in it are things I do not care about.

But it does make justification of my subscription harder, and for me this is the first and only MMO that I have ever subbed to because I was and my parents are vehemently against it. When they saw 12.99 fee in my bank statement in the mail, (cause I'm a college student), they were absolutely livid. And like I told you, I'm in school right now and I want to sub on tuesday, but school alone is makes that hard enough.

Again, I must say that I'm not trying to be antagonistic, I'm just fighting for the opposite side of the issue.

And you've got to think about the worst case scenarios. I'm a straight up Yoshida fanboy, SE fan too, but I don't trust them at all. And I can't for various reasons. The thing is absolutely nothing is stopping the Cash Shop from progressing into worst territories. In fact, the Cash shop itself is a manifestation of the inevitable march towards monetization.

And I'm probably going to expand this to the general forum thread soon, hope you don't mind. I don;t intend it to be solely about FFXIV but I will reference that.

EDIT: When does more content stop being an effective counter to monetization. Surely, SE could for instance make more dungeons if players payed more for them. Its an extreme obviously, but not only does it outline the problems that we have at this degree but its pretty much a natural progression.

How is this game breaking?

Or this pumpkin head, and witch coat, how is it game breaking?

The Sleipnir mount. Not exclusive to the shop. You can get it by defeating Odin without spending a dime.

My guarantee on this is when Yoshi-P himself said in the London Fan Fest today on stage. Can't get more official than that.

I didn't say it was game breaking, only that it reduces incentive, in both cases. That reduction of incentive affects the reason for playing the game. Or in other words:

It doesn't have to be game-breaking for an issue to be had with it. Shoplifting is still a crime, despite it not being Grand Theft Auto.

I mean look, the first thing I told you was that we were going to disagree, lol. I'm not positing this argument to somehow try and convert you. I'm instead asking you the question's I'm having.

When I said: "Where is your guarantee?" it is describing the entirety of the game's life time. Sure its only geting Slepnir faster and halloween costumes now, and as I've already told you I don't care about them, but whats to stop them from adding more, Yoshi-p's words?  I'm not saying he's lying but things change, loopholes and excuses will be made. Money > Everything Else especially to a buisness. I mean, I still remember when Exclusive to PS3 actually meant something worth a damn.

I fucking adore FFXIV. <3

But I play a lot of games and so can't stay so dedicated to any one... As a result, I have an on-again/off-again plan for keeping up with FFXIV, firmly relegating me to semi-casual status. :P

The same goes for my girlfriend.

And so I must ask... Does anyone know when marriage is going to be added? I remember a lot of excitement about it being announced, and I've heard nothing since.

Thanks~ Also, I'm on Ultros. c;

Wow, the Dark Knight looks amazing! Are there any information about the needed classes?

eternal bonding system (marriage) is coming in patch 2.45.