Quote Originally Posted by Del Murder View Post
I think subscription models work if you have a lot of time to play and if you find the game very immersive. For FFXIV, I don't know if those two criteria have been met for me yet.
I'll agree. If you don't enjoy it move on, just like a SP game. In the past I've paid way too much for a SP experience I didn't enjoy and also walked away from. I don't really see how, as far as immersion goes, a subscription MMO is much different from a SP game. If you hate the MMO, you walk away and probably only paid as much as you would for a SP game in the first place. At least in this case you've got the open beta to decide if you want to pay for even the box before you do.


You can't really compare games to other forms of entertainment because they are different forms of entertainment. I watch movies or read books for different reasons than I play games.
While I consume different entertainment for different reasons, they are all things I enjoy. Eating out with friends is definitely different than reading a book, but they both bring enjoyment. I don't see how these are so different from doing a cost/benefit analysis of what you pay for in games whether online or SP.


But you can compare different game models, and I've always prefered an up-front cost model (for all games, not MMOs, which I have only ever played one). For most games, you pay for the disc and then you can play it all you want. For a subscription MMO, you have to pay for the disc and the monthly fee (for each player in your household). So a MMO has to be that much better than a normal game, which you can play all you want as long as you want with whoever you want after you buy it.
In this case, FFXIV is only $30 for the disc and 30 days without paying for a subscription. That's far less than most games and that's more time than you'd probably put into a game you bought on a disc anyway.

I used to prefer the upfront method too, but I'm more and more in love with subscription models in general. I could buy episodes of TV shows or movies in boxes... or I could subscribe to Netflix. I could pay to upgrade stuff like Office, Photoshop, etc. every few years up front, or I could subscribe for much less over all and get much more out of it over all. Same with music subscription services like Spotify.

Heck, I'd be happy (and wouldn't be terribly surprised) if a lot of gaming went the subscription model in the future. For example, what if you paid $15 a month to have full access to the entire back catalog of Sony games from PS1-PS3 all accessible on your Vita or PS4? I'd much rather do that than hunt down copies of some of these games.


FFXI was a subscription model and I played it and loved it. But I played it when the game had already been out 4-5 years already and it was much more polished than it was at launch (and probably not worth my subscription back then). I also had access to tons more content than the first subscribers. I'm wondering if FFXIV will be this way too. I much prefer to join a game like this when it is a few years old rather than at the start because everything will be much more smooth.
Yeah, the time I put into FFXI when it was a brutal, unhealthy game is terrible and broke me as a person in many ways. But there's a sick part of me that wishes I'd been in earlier. I'm a sick bastard that reads through old patch notes and comments for people that were there at a time when the cap was 50, SA was broken and everyone was a MNK/THF for 100% accurate critical strikes with Combo... or when DRGs could spam Pentathrust. I wish I'd been there to see where it was and where it went.

I'm still nostalgic over some of the "back in the day" stories of my own... before they lowered the XP requirements... beating CoP before it was nerfed.. bones parties in KRT when a chain 8 was a technical marvel and at a time when fighting Rams in Tavnazia was one of the best options for getting to 75. I liked watching it grow.

I've had the same experience with WoW since I started after Burning Crusade and wished I'd see what endgame was like in Vanilla and how those zones worked. Or a time when Taurens didn't get mounts because they had Plainsrunning.

Part of me also wishes I'd been around for FFXIV 1.0 just to have seen what a mess it was and have an idea of exactly what all changed so I'd appreciate it more.

But I'll admit that these desires to be there early are sort of unhealthy and not necessarily a good thing. But hey, it also highlights another of the amazing things about subscription MMOs. Seeing them revised, watching them grow, getting new content. It's a form of media unlike any other. The endgame of Vanilla WoW was a moment in time that can never be recaptured and was only there for the people who did it when it existed.

Once upon a time I would've had a problem with that, but I sorta find it magical now.