Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Shenrien]

Fuck I'd resub to all 5 of my characters with that price, it would be a steal lol.

[Treize Kordero]

Killing off the PS2 wont magically fix the issues that plague the game, and would ultimately do more damage to the community that the game has than help it.

I disagree leaving it on PS2 will slowly lead them into a corner that will force them to make a decision which may not be something we'd like. Better for them to be pre-emptive and give PS2 players a way out, for free of course, especially while the player base is paying full price subs.

Should use that money to fund a port to PS3/4, I'd prefer PS4, and even allow free upgrades to PC.

It's not really a stigma limited to Japan, but something ultimately regurgitated by delusional P2P fanboys that love to believe every red cent of the sub is going toward the benefit of their game of choice. We're not in 2005 anymore where F2P invariably means P2W. A game only fails when one can no longer log into it and I think that's actually been fairly rare of bigger name titles. Of course, Yoshi erroneously picking on Star Wars when justifying P2P for XIV likely didn't help this perception and the fact some upcoming MMOs are trying to launch that way may be interpreted as a superior model, but the players will ultimately decide. Box sales and 3 months of subs, even if a shipwreck, is more money than just box sales. So I can't really fault a dev for starting that way, but it certainly makes luring in the P2P sheep who just blindly want to believe they'll get better service a whole hell of a lot easier.

More pragmatically, my stance on F2P XI lies in the admission of a skeleton crew. They want a premium price? Give a premium product. Otherwise, slash it or show some appreciation to the FF fans for a decade+ of contribution. Hell, eliminating the $1 per mule charge would go a long way.

That sounds more logical.. I also prefer eliminating that $1 fee first before F2P or as I mentioned before sub price reduction. If they don't wanna give up charging on mules lower the price to .75 cents or more. However the main fee should drop to under $10 too.

[arus2001]

lol, have you ever played a subscription-based game that went F2P? The hate is anything but irrational.

I have and many are over-dramatic gits about issues that would likely exist in the P2P sphere, too.

I have no issue in saying early F2P MMOs were terrible, but the market is more player-friendly these days. Why? Competition. Unless ones unwillingness to shell out for a pretty outfit is what we want to call locked out content. The shitty games will be shit regardless of how they make money, though.

[Shenrien]

I disagree leaving it on PS2 will slowly lead them into a corner that will force them to make a decision which may not be something we'd like. Better for them to be pre-emptive and give PS2 players a way out, for free of course, especially while the player base is paying full price subs.

I don't see what you think is magically going to happen to the game is the PS2 gets dropped, I'm almost positive any problems that have plagued the game over the years and being slapped with the "lolps2limitations" was more of a cover because they either don't know how to implement certain things, or the servers themselves are just not equipped to handle certain actions without lagging horribly because of how the game is scripted, much like auction house item cap not being raised because it would cause lag, or not being able to have more inventory slots because lag, so on and so fourth.

With the partition having been doubled and expansions getting smaller and smaller I doubt HDD partition size will be an issue for 15yr+ if they keep the game going that long.

[Priran]

I have and many are over-dramatic gits about issues that would likely exist in the P2P sphere, too.

I have no issue in saying early F2P MMOs were terrible, but the market is more player-friendly these days. Why? Competition. Unless ones unwillingness to shell out for a pretty outfit is what we want to call locked out content. The shitty games will be shit regardless of how they make money, though.

Your experience with F2P is that it's only for cosmetic stuff? What are you playing, DotA?

What F2P MMOs sell is the opportunity to not have every little goddamned thing be a sisyphean grind. Every positive step the game has made away from being dickishly unrewarding and mindlessly repetitive will instead be gated by your willingness to pay $5 for a Delve lockout reset, or a pack of teleport tokens, or a special item you trade with an Airlixir to reduce the chance of its application failing, or a cupcake for Monisette so she only takes a game day instead of a RL week to finish your armor. The game always ends up being more expensive to play at a functional level than your original sub fee, everything becomes a grind, and the community just goes to absolute shit.

I feel like gaming is past the point where you can say "hey, maybe in-game microtransactions won't be so bad!". Because they are so bad. So so bad. Always.

[Treize Kordero]

I don't see what you think is magically going to happen to the game is the PS2 gets dropped, I'm almost positive any problems that have plagued the game over the years and being slapped with the "lolps2limitations" was more of a cover because they either don't know how to implement certain things, or the servers themselves are just not equipped to handle certain actions without lagging horribly because of how the game is scripted, much like auction house item cap not being raised because it would cause lag, or not being able to have more inventory slots because lag, so on and so fourth.

With the partition having been doubled and expansions getting smaller and smaller I doubt HDD partition size will be an issue for 15yr+ if they keep the game going that long.

The fact is PS2 is one of the problems plaguing the game just because work-arounds and band-aid solutions were found doesn't mean they shouldn't take the initiative to permanently address it especially if they decided to keep going until the game is truly dead. I didn't suggest this because I felt it would fix things in-game. We were talking about ways to improve the game and this is one of them. I don't understand your disconnect with it.

Yeah SE can tolerate supporting PS2 for awhile longer but the fact remains they are supporting an archaic system that the parent company no longer supports. To me, at this point of the game, it's crazy. Hell even the console's successor (PS3) is going to be phased out at some point in the forseeable future.

So the question remains: Why not take the initiative and offer PS2 players a legitimate way out? Especially while they have the player base paying the original subscription fee.

[Malithar]

What F2P MMOs sell is the opportunity to not have every little goddamned thing be a sisyphean grind. Every positive step the game has made away from being dickishly unrewarding and mindlessly repetitive will instead be gated by your willingness to pay $5 for a Delve lockout reset, or a pack of teleport tokens, or a special item you trade with an Airlixir to reduce the chance of its application failing, or a cupcake for Monisette so she only takes a game day instead of a RL week to finish your armor. The game always ends up being more expensive to play at a functional level than your original sub fee, everything becomes a grind, and the community just goes to absolute shit.

I feel like gaming is past the point where you can say "hey, maybe in-game microtransactions won't be so bad!". Because they are so bad. So so bad. Always.

My only experience with F2P MMOs was Dungeons and Dragons: Online, but I can echo what Priran says here. Humorously enough, every example you gave we already have (no Delve lock outs, gil/bayld is teleport tokens, RF takes 1 game day ), but in serious F2P games, such conveniences would never just be added.

In DDO, they had the balls to release content (and entire "expansions" that were so far from the term) that required you to pay anywhere from $5-$30 just to play the game. Sure, you can play "F2P," enjoy attempting to do the old content that no one want's to do anymore. As a whole, that game felt just downright terrible too. I remember one particular glitch for one of their races, Warforged (humanoid robots that took a -50% bonus to healing spells cast on them in favor of a lot of nifty bonuses) being stuck getting hit for 1-6 HP from the strongest healing spell. That particular glitch went on for nearly a month and a half.

There's many more issues and dodgy business practices I could point to that they employed to take advantage of the F2P model, but I'll leave it at that. My experience with it hasn't been a great one. I see it as a good thing in a sense that you're able to sample the game in a much better way than what a typical 14 day trial would allow. And it allows you to be extremely casual about how you play. But beyond that, if you really enjoy the game? Be prepared to shell out just as much if not more than a P2P MMO on an annual basis.

[JSHidaka]

I can't imagine ffxi F2P... Most P2P games that go free, still have lots of additional services that you have to pay for... FFXI only have one...

[Trigun]

Make it $11.11 and allow us to choose to be billed at beginning/end of the month.
Caught a $35.00 insufficient fund fee because SE billing decided to go from end of month to first of month on its own.

[Seha]

Use crysta and pay when you want?

[fantasticdan]

Make it $11.11 and allow us to choose to be billed at beginning/end of the month.
Caught a $35.00 insufficient fund fee because SE billing decided to go from end of month to first of month on its own.

Recently? Afaik they haven't billed like that in years, since they got sued for it.

[bungiefan]

F2P only works well when free players aren't blocked from playing with paying players. There needs to be some way to do all content even as a free player.

[arus2001]

Your experience with F2P is that it's only for cosmetic stuff? What are you playing, DotA?

What F2P MMOs sell is the opportunity to not have every little goddamned thing be a sisyphean grind. Every positive step the game has made away from being dickishly unrewarding and mindlessly repetitive will instead be gated by your willingness to pay $5 for a Delve lockout reset, or a pack of teleport tokens, or a special item you trade with an Airlixir to reduce the chance of its application failing, or a cupcake for Monisette so she only takes a game day instead of a RL week to finish your armor. The game always ends up being more expensive to play at a functional level than your original sub fee, everything becomes a grind, and the community just goes to absolute shit.

I feel like gaming is past the point where you can say "hey, maybe in-game microtransactions won't be so bad!". Because they are so bad. So so bad. Always.

Grinds, you say? Shitty lockouts? Sounds a lot like pre-Abyssea XI. Pity upon your PTSD Tanaka-ravaged soul.

But thank you for proving my point in being over-dramatic about it. I always find it hilarious people are okay with paying $30+ for an incomplete MMO expansion, but if an F2P game does similar, "HOLY RIP OFF, BATMAN!" Let's just ignore the months in between where you can play without paying a cent and thus not have sub fees adding up to a likely $180 or more a year. Hell, a lot of these games do have sub options, though, that aren't the outright P2W BS many would like to imply. Bluntly, it's a lot better for the player if they're given the choice to pay a dev if they're entertained as opposed to paying a dev and hoping they'll entertain them for the next 30 days. Content quality and pacing needn't suffer.

My most recent "The fuck are they doing with our money?" moment came from XIV and the 2.1 patch. Sure, the fanboys want to squee about how awesome it is, but when I go over the poorly formatted patch notes and actually play a lot of what they put out and assess persistent problems, I asked myself, "Is this really it?" Daily grinds? Fight rehashes already? More unrewarding dungeons? Zilch for open world play and crafting? Shitty PvP? Inaccessible housing? Maybe my standards are too high. Maybe the game is shooting for a different audience. Maybe MMOs are just dying for me in general. But just like XI, I believe SE could do better. Just up and quitting doesn't tell them that, though. It's hella easy for a dev to get complacent when you've got throngs of conditioned masses out there who want to unquestionably believe a P2P game is a better product. A hungry dev is an innovative dev. "How can we nickel and dime the next schmuck?" isn't a question the smart ones are asking. It's how they can want someone to keep playing and enjoying themselves. The decent people of the world will do the shutupandtakemymoney.jpg thing, then.

Or we can just assume they'll be overrun with potty-mouthed kids with convenient unrestricted access to their parents' credit card and zero in-game skill in the frequently erroneous belief that one game's community is better than another. Hint: People suck everywhere.

[dasva]

Make it $11.11 and allow us to choose to be billed at beginning/end of the month.
Caught a $35.00 insufficient fund fee because SE billing decided to go from end of month to first of month on its own.

Yeah it changes. Like right now because of varying dates I created/resubbed different accounts all 3 accounts get billed at different days even weeks of the month which makes it hard to plan for if I ever have to tap into the account deeply or if for some reason I need to get account number

[Priran]

Grinds, you say? Shitty lockouts? Sounds a lot like pre-Abyssea XI. Pity upon your PTSD Tanaka-ravaged soul.

It does, hence the line about moving away from that. Because moving away from it is a good thing.

But thank you for proving my point in being over-dramatic about it. I always find it hilarious people are okay with paying $30+ for an incomplete MMO expansion, but if an F2P game does similar, "HOLY RIP OFF, BATMAN!" Let's just ignore the months in between where you can play without paying a cent and thus not have sub fees adding up to a likely $180 or more a year. Hell, a lot of these games do have sub options, though, that aren't the outright P2W BS many would like to imply. Bluntly, it's a lot better for the player if they're given the choice to pay a dev if they're entertained as opposed to paying a dev and hoping they'll entertain them for the next 30 days. Content quality and pacing needn't suffer.

If a sub option exists, it does not give you full access to the game, it's at best a discount on the most popular cash shop items. And content suffers one way or another as for every little thing they add either your access is blocked behind a pay wall, or it's designed with built-in impossible grinds for anybody unwilling to pay for it.

My most recent "The fuck are they doing with our money?" moment came from XIV and the 2.1 patch. Sure, the fanboys want to squee about how awesome it is, but when I go over the poorly formatted patch notes and actually play a lot of what they put out and assess persistent problems, I asked myself, "Is this really it?" Daily grinds? Fight rehashes already? More unrewarding dungeons? Zilch for open world play and crafting? Shitty PvP? Inaccessible housing? Maybe my standards are too high. Maybe the game is shooting for a different audience. Maybe MMOs are just dying for me in general. But just like XI, I believe SE could do better. Just up and quitting doesn't tell them that, though. It's hella easy for a dev to get complacent when you've got throngs of conditioned masses out there who want to unquestionably believe a P2P game is a better product. A hungry dev is an innovative dev. "How can we nickel and dime the next schmuck?" isn't a question the smart ones are asking. It's how they can want someone to keep playing and enjoying themselves. The decent people of the world will do the shutupandtakemymoney.jpg thing, then.

So changing their motivation from "maintain current and entice new subscribers" to "move x units of Quest Pack 5 and increase sales of EXP Charms" is going to make mediocre devs into great devs? Why does this make sense to you, exactly? Because they're "hungry"? Do you think F2P devs work on commission or something?

Or we can just assume they'll be overrun with potty-mouthed kids with convenient unrestricted access to their parents' credit card and zero in-game skill in the frequently erroneous belief that one game's community is better than another. Hint: People suck everywhere.

Go play Maplestory, or LOTRO, or Aion, or TERA, or any other MMO in the F2P wasteland. 12 year olds and brazilians as far as the eyes can see. Those games also prove my points and disprove yours, so I guess the question is what exactly if anything is your experience with F2P MMOs?

[Trigun]

1 account, 2 characters, haven't unsubscribed since PS2 launch.
Last few months.

Date it went through - Date it was billed
11/01/13 - 10/31 SQUARE ENIX
12/03/13 - 12/02 SQUARE ENIX
12/31/13 - 12/30 SQUARE ENIX
01/30/14 - 01/29 SQUARE ENIX

What is the crysta/dollar ratio?
How much crysta a month for 1 account with 1 additional character?

[Kaisha]

100 crysta = $1 US dollar (not sure how it goes for Europe/Japanese). Should be 1395 crysta for what you have.

Gives you more payment options too via UGC. I do it via Paypal, although it tends to cost me 50c-$1 extra based on the current CDN->US exchange rate.

[Trigun]

Thank you. I should just grab a pile of crysta just out of convenience.

[Richybear]

100 crysta = $1 US dollar (not sure how it goes for Europe/Japanese). Should be 1395 crysta for what you have.

Gives you more payment options too via UGC. I do it via Paypal, although it tends to cost me 50c-$1 extra based on the current CDN->US exchange rate.

I swear that's the game within the game when using the Ultimate Game Card. Playing the "What's a $20 card worth today?" when adding Crysta to the account. LOL

[Vathris]

So update is tomorrow ¿? Why do all the posts say February 18th but the maintenance post says 17th? My excitement about this update is confused at this moment