Dev Tracker - Discussion

I think race/face/name change is dumb when you can just do it client side if you're that desperate. But hey, I guess thanks to the people donating your money to SE with all of their mules, wardrobes, server, and face changes.

Sure
Its dumb
But its a gorillion percent less dumb when compared to spending money on player customizations for an offline game

They reduced the stat differences, but they didn't delete them. A tank or DPS main locked on Taru has to be considering the benefits of going Galka. Can get into arguments about paying for it, but there's definitely a market and anything that helps keep FFXI profitable is good for all FFXI players. Doesn't matter if you plan to use it personally or not.

It's a steep price for what it is. It's the same as the discounted cost of a world transfer.

They offer this on every mmorpg, and it's something people like to buy.

Also XI is in a phase now where yearly inflation is damaging it, and they need to continually find ways to counter that. If wages and other costs are rising every year, and they have a static sub it will just keep eating into the profit margin till it's not making one anymore.

I'm all for them adding other ways to keep the game running, especially since it's offering a niche experience.

Cosmetic things in pretty much every area of life are almost always for other people, not yourself. If other people didn't exist, the motivation for aesthetics would not be as strong, if even at all. So yes, people can use race swap addons to make themselves different (but only you can see it), but that's not the underlying reason why people even want Race swap to begin with. It's only "dumb" because it's something you don't consider worth your money (which is fine). To some people, they get enjoyment in the game from their appearance.

You could argue that lockstyle is "dumb", cosmetic gear like Master Trials weapons or other trophies are "dumb", but it's the same premise. The difference is you're paying SE for a new type of lockstyle. Nearly every game has paid cosmetic options, why it took SE so long to release something like this is the only head scratcher here. Huge market they've been missing out on for years.

To support this…

*** mogs, *** glamor, and *** style exist for a reason.

You can bet that the reason I wear that pink bikini lockstyle is to get people to check my bazaar.

I got "Paying for a new type of dumb".

I mean I'm not paying for that nonsense, I've dealt with the galks insults for over a decade, ain't running from the racism now xD

That's like when they released the mutant cure in x men 3. I'm going down with the stereotypes for eva

Are these actually the same sois whinging about 'muh race change' or can't people switch their .dat files anymore? I just don't get it...

*** hell it's more expensive than FFXIV
I know it's new and dev time went into it but come on
Pretty much everything about XI is more expensive than it's XIV counterpart

Trains in rural Alabama are also more expensive than trains in downtown Tokyo too.

More customers means more people to split the cost & more profit to be made.

If it does translate to 12 USD that's worth it to me just to change hair color, Hume F 7B > 7A. I figured that it would be 20 bucks or so. This isn't bad.

Server Transfer in Japan is JPY 1834 (USD 12.88 today) but is 18.00 in US. Wouldn’t be surprised if US price is close to the JPY number but maybe they’ll be nice? Otherwise they didn’t really think it through only announcing on the Japan wide, but that’s a can of worms best not discussed.

XIV is the most heavily monetized mmorpg that exists, it has a massive cash shop selling everything as well as having a sub.

Also if you have more players becasue it's a mainstream casual game you can afford to sell items cheaper per customer because you sell more overall.

Niche products (and XI is a niche mmorpg in modern times because of how hardcore it is), require higher prices due to smaller customer bases. If you want niche products, you have to accept this as a reality. It's the same reason wallmart can sell cheaper than mom and pop stores.

Huh, it seems like you've never seen Black Desert then.

Or Lost Ark.
Or Lineage.

Or any number of Russian made P2W games that offer zero progression outside the cash shop.

FFXIV has a subscription, expansion fees and a cash shop.

Even WoW is worse than 14. You can buy gold with money and mounts cost a stupid amount.

Might change to this, not sure yet

You can't buy gold in WoW. Blizzard is essentially just a middleman in a transaction that was happening since the beginning of the game. The token just facilitates the exchange so players don't have to worry about scamming and GMs don't have to waste time investigating it.

Eh, "illicit" WoW RMT still exists, mostly merc for cash but you can buy gold outside of the token system if you're so inclined. I can't imagine many do, though.

What's unique about WoW's token system is that you can burn tokens for either game time or blizzard shop cash. You can't get real money back out of the ecosystem, but you can buy absolutely everything in the Blizzard shop with it, including WoW expansions, other Blizzard games, or cosmetics/content for those other games, like Hearthstone cards or Overwatch skins. You can also buy any of the same as gifts for friends and family.

I think there's a recent policy where one month of every year's WoW sub has to be bought with cash or something like that, but prior to that I know some people who hadn't paid blizzard real money in over a decade.

The token is basically a safe way of buying gold, come on now. It just encourages more people to pay to win. At least with RMT there is the chance of being scammed that keeps some people away from doing it but now it's safe and easy.

Nothing on the XIV cash shop is required for you to play the game or do endgame content. Everything in the XIV shop is purely cosmetics or story/level skips.

Actually come to think of it... this might be a very unpopular opinion on these forums but FFXIs additional mog wardrobes are more predatory than anything in XIV. You need more invent to play all the jobs you love? Hand over your cash!

I've been a dumb looking Elvaan F since 2005, and I will continue to be a dumb looking Elvaan F until the end of days.

Player A goes to a retailer, buys a prepaid game card and 'sells' the code to Player B for gold. That's what the token was replacing. Players scamming each other with fake codes or by refusing to pay for legit codes, not RMT scamming players.


The 'encourages pay to win' argument falls a bit flat here. The 'value' of the token is terrible for a new or casual player. Whales were going to spend whatever it took, even regardless of legality so I think they're exempt by default.

The reasoning is literally in here: https://worldofwarcraft.blizzard.com/en-us/news/18141101/introducing-the-wow-token

I was telling you what was happening in the years leading up to the release of the token. They got the idea from the community.

TLDR translation of the link above:

It's not a good option, but it's the safe option. I definitely wouldn't call it encouraging though.

Not in practice. Mercs abound, but if you want P2W you're better off just paying cash for carries, rather than absorbing a 25% tax by converting your dollary-doos to gold first. I think Blizz won't even let you buy more than a few tokens per month, anyway.

Tokens exist to apply constraints to both the supply and demand side of casual RMT; That has a lot of benefits from Blizzard's perspective beyond the slight profit they make off token sales, like reducing player interaction/friction with bot farmers, and cutting down on customer service overhead for RMT-adjacent issues like spam, scams, and hacked accounts.

whaaattt



damn i did misread it out for a second