Microtransactions :(

[Rostum]

Also, just to put this out there and take it however you please: People do pay a lot of money for online games, and when I say a lot I mean a lot. Some people were willing to drop $4,000 on a botting program and that got shut down so they lost all their money and I'm betting they are willing to pay the same if not more for the next big bot program even though FFXI is on the decline.

People are just that crazy, that paying something like $10 for an item that may or may not give you a slight advantage in some small way is just not really that big of a deal considering people are already paying huge amounts of money to get a much bigger advantage over the rest.

Now, I'm not saying it's justified, but it could be a better solution. Anyway just throwing it out there.

Also that list on FFXI forgot not only the satchel but the Nexus Cape; and item you get for buying all three mini-expansions and it lets you warp to where your party leader is (one use every 40 hours I believe). Stuff like that is great, imo.

[Loony BoB]

An interesting idea would be having some servers with pay-items and some without.

[Ouch!]

Given SE's idea of fair effort to reward, I sincerely doubt that you'll be able to buy anything of consequence through micro-transactions. I imagine it'll be as it is in FFXI: items of convenience (mog satchel, nexus cape) and items without practical game play application (tidal pendant, moghouse piano). These things don't bother me in the slightest. I mean, this is the company who regularly institutes obnoxiously low drop-rates for mediocre items. I really have a hard time imagining that they're change they're game play model so drastically so quickly.

[Del Murder]

I hope so! I didn't mind the idea of the FFXI mini-expansions at first because I thought they would actually be mini-expansions, where they turned out to be a lot of stupid little side quests which resulted in some great piece of armor at the end. It was no where near being half the content of a Wings of the Goddess expansion even though it was half the price. You were basically paying for the armor and not the experience. I fear that the success of those would set a precedent that goes away from full scale expansions and toward selling us a crappy subplot just to get some elite gearz.

[Lionx]

This is like DLC, cheap and makes them TONS of money. I won't touch any of them XP Full expansions are one thing but DLC usually are weak.

[Rostum]

This is like DLC, cheap and makes them TONS of money. I won't touch any of them XP Full expansions are one thing but DLC usually are weak.

That's not always the case. DLC is evolving very rapidly, and there's still a chance for Square Enix to do it right.

[Lionx]

Oh theres definitely exceptions(Borderland's DLC comes to mind), just the majority of them are pretty underwhelming. I agree that theres still time for them to get it right, and i really hope they do.

[Rostum]

True but I must say FFXI mini expansions aren't really that great. They only sold because of the item you can get at the end of each.

[Del Murder]

I agree, and I don't want to see more of that, especially in lieu of better things they can include.

[Ouch!]

Eh, A Crystalline Prophesy's plot wasn't too bad. It was short, certainly, but at least it was relevant to the existing Final Fantasy XI storyline. It tied up a loose end that had been left open since the opening video of the video game. I can't say much in favor of A Moogle Kupo d'Etat's plot, however. I wasn't particularly fond of it, and the fetch-quest missions were even more obnoxious than ACP's (which really aren't that bad unless you were doing it right when it came out and there was all the competition). Can't say much about the third one as I've not finished it yet. I've heard the final fight is loads of fun, but that's about it.

[Del Murder]

What? ACP's story sucked balls. It was by far the worst of the three. It gave the promise of tying up loose ends but it was just nonsensical.

[Ouch!]

Nonsensical is stories featuring a villain called Riko Kupenreich. D;

[Del Murder]

But that one was nonsensical on purpose. Riko was funny as hell. Even for all the silliness it still made more sense than ACP and felt more rewarding.

[Roogle]

I would not mind paying a small price for items on convenience. If there is one thing that I have learned over the years, it's that in a difficult online game, it's you against the world and you have to do whatever it takes to come out on top while spending as little time as possible. If I could have paid to teleport anywhere in the world in Final Fantasy XI, I would gladly pay a small fee.

[Madame Adequate]

In all MMOs, it's really a question of what purchasable items permit. If you can spend money for a shortcut - the teleportation Roogle suggests, for instance - then I don't really have a problem. Aesthetic stuff is fine, it's one reason I bought the CE of Burning Crusade for WoW. Equipment is where I start feeling it's a bit dodgy though, because it really does feel like it's defeating the purpose of the game. I appreciate however that people have very different objectives and desires in playing MMOs - outside of PvP, even equipment doesn't make much difference to me. There just shouldn't be something which is entirely unparalleled by stuff you can get in game through more traditional methods.