ARR is a savior!Follow

We'd be a dangerous team! We'd have a "good cop, bad cop" thing going for us, too. You could totally spout off and put your political opponents to shame... then I gather the media and say, "Filth didn't literally mean his opponent is a 'thieving, two-faced *******.' It's just that he cares so much about his constituents. FilthMcNasty believes whoever is elected to this position should have nothing but the public good at heart."

You want to make the Winter Olympics more accessible to a new audience of people from around the world. A vote for Filth is a vote for inclusion!

Filth, this would be you if you ran for office: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXEglx-or6k and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9gcqiIfw8E

Edited, Feb 6th 2014 3:14pm by Thayos

The end of FFXIV...

will be in approximately 4 1/2 billion years.

You scared?



MMOs require updating and development so they're also a constant money drain. The difference between XI and most modern MMOs was that it's player base increased steadily over several years. It remains to be seen whether or not XIV can follow suit, but odds are against that. The market is probably far too saturated at this point with many more MMOs incoming in the near future. TESO, Wildstar, EQL/EQN, the SWG based MMO(maybe Repopulation), Blade and Soul, Camelot Unchained, ect. ect. ect.

I know XIV will survive, but will it thrive?



Edited, Feb 6th 2014 8:44pm by FilthMcNasty

Quite frankly all character in ARR are pretty flat, I chalk it up to being the atmosphere of the game being meh honestly. Maybe once they start doing throwbacks to FF in the story character wise it'll get up there in interest levels, otherwise it just felt like they tried too hard to give certain characters new personalities from 1.x.

what is there to argue about? no one would deny that XIV is financial success.... i mean what game that charges you monthly WOULDNT be (they said the same about XI.... despite that most could say that FFIV or FFVII are the best FF games ever made), call of duty only sells millions on day one.... gta5 is probably he best selling game in history, all those are unarguable facts.. despite all that.... just because a game sells well doesnt mean EVERYONE has to like it or think its the best game(s) on the planet.


the Twilight movies made plenty of money..... so all of us on this board thing those movies were the greatest thing to ever grace the silver screen? doubtful, Im sure each and every one of you (he males at least) would say those movies are garbage. Yet does that change the fact that they were financial successes? no

Running through my mental list of all the MMO's in the universe, EVE Online is the only other successful pure P2P MMO that I can think of off the top of my head that's currently a financial success.

Yeah, EVE has been around for a while - 2003.

And if we aren't limiting it to post-08 games, we obviously have FFXI and WoW. I don't remember what other games are still on a pure subscription model, though. EQ2 has an optional sub model now, right?

They have probably never played P2P games, either... so far, the patches for FFXIV have blown early patches for GW2 so far out of the water, it's not even funny. The expansion is going to be nuts... and that wouldn't be possible without the P2P model.

$15/month for all this content is winning!

You make some good points, but you also leave a few out. The P2P model honestly does trump F2P for encouraging/allowing quality content from developers... and there's simply no refuting that.

A F2P model only succeeds when certain content is put behind a pay wall, or when natural in-game progression to obtain those items is made so painfully slow, that eventually, you'll just want to pay for it. Therefore, I argue that P2P games are actually BETTER for people who have limited playtime, but only for those gamers who would rather reach their goals through natural progression than take shortcuts.

I'm like you... some nights I can play a lot, but some nights, I can't play at all. I work all day, and sometimes at night. I'm married, and I also work out literally every day. My marriage, my job and my fitness (and friends, when there's time) all take priority over gaming. That said, I really tried getting into GW2 (one of the better, more content-intensive F2P games recently released) and just couldn't do it. The game was fun, but what drove me nuts was how there was no realistic way for me to get the game's coolest items without buying gems for the cash shop. A P2P Final Fantasy game with the doors flung open is a breath of fresh air for me.

The thing is, I'm an old-school gamer, and always will be... and the thought of buying upgrades or rewards for my character through a cash shop is absurd. If I'm not able to get these things in the game with reasonable effort, then what's the point? On the flipside, I know people who would gladly just buy things in a cash shop, and then putter around doing whatever else they want during their available gaming time. There's nothing wrong with either approach...

After buying GW2, though, I spent zero dollars on the game's cash shop. After buying FFXIV:ARR, I've already spent $60 in subscription fees... AND I feel much better about playing, because I know my in-game accomplishments will be the result of what I put into the game, and not what I buy from a cash shop.

Neither approach to gaming is wrong... it's all personal preference... but there are more than enough people like me to make solid P2P titles successful and sustainable.

EDIT: Also, if your schedule is so sporadic that you may go a month between play cycles, then ARR probably isn't the best game for you to be playing. I honestly couldn't imagine being able to play an MMO effectively with that kind of limitation. I'm not trying to stand in that "GO PLAY SOMETHING ELSE!!!" crowd... but MMOs shouldn't be designed around people who can't play on a somewhat reliable schedule.

Edited, Feb 7th 2014 9:23am by Thayos

Everything I've heard about GW2's content updates makes me just not believe your stance about whether or not content development is a firm difference between P2P and F2P.

In the end, everything is going to come down to the kind of revenue you're sustainably producing. That's the one and only factor.

If a subscription game isn't maintaining a high-enough population, then its content production is going to be slashed drastically, which is what happened with TOR. Once TOR switched to F2P, their revenue shot up, and their content production has been much higher than it was during the sub period.


As for the rest of your post, you need to stop conflating F2P with P2W if we're going to have any kind of realistic conversation here. P2W is a subset of the F2P model, and the entire experience and development approach is very, very different.

GW2 is NOT a P2W game. You can use real money for boosts and cosmetic items that are quality of life and aesthetic improvements, only. You can't purchase weapons, armor, or even content.

LotRO is somewhere between F2P and P2W. It gates actual content blocks behind price tags, so it's not QUITE F2P (since you can't really progress past a fairly early level playing free). But it's not quite P2W, since (to the best of my knowledge), you can't purchase competitive endgame gearsets. It's in a limbo. And to be clear, it's a limbo I don't like (nor do I like any P2W models).

An example of P2W isn't coming to mind right now, but MANY Asian F2P mmos fit this bill.

P2W sucks. F2P != P2W.

Another example is TOR.

TOR is, in ways, over-monetized. Most notably, imo, are the medical probes. These are what you rez in the field when you die, as opposed to having to fight your way back in from a medical droid. They are unlimited for subscribers, but F2P players have to purchase them (or just rez back at the droid, which isn't the end of the world, but it's annoying for hard missions).

But TOR also delivers access to all of its content without the requirement that you pay, and you can't buy endgame gear with money. Actually, if you want to raid, you HAVE to be a subscriber - they don't make that a F2P option. So subscribers pay for content updates of the raiding variety. Everything else is paid for entirely through cosmetic, quality-of-life, exp booster, and medical probe purchases.

I disagree with some of those quality-of-life purchases being gated, because they really should be standard. But the content itself isn't gated.

The entirety of Crystal Tower is a throwback to FFIII. About the only thing that was missing was Luneth and Refia.

I still think the biggest issue with previous MMOs were the investors. SE and Blizzard are a couple of the few comanies completely funding their project. When you have investors involved, they want their money back, and fast. Company starts looking into F2P, predicts better returns, and boom. XIV can take 3-4 years to start being 100% profitable and SE will just wait it out.