A recent dustup over the shops in World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14 inspired me to break down how both work, from the subscription to services, cosmetic goodies and even how the boosting, carry and grey markets work.
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0:00 Welcome to my shop!
:59 Expansion costs
1:30 Subscription tiers, costs and promotions
3:52 Service costs
7:38 Game Shop (WoW)
8:42 Game Shop (FFXIV)
11:48 The grey market
14:17 The WoW Token
17:09 WoW’s grey market problem + opinions
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WoW is 100 % pay-to-win…….. Buy WoW token with real money, Sell WoW token for ingame gold, Buy anything you want in game with ingame gold = Pay To Fcking Win. 🙂 Simple as.
You really need to unlock the Aesthetician – in the Limsa Lominsa Inn. FFXIV has a base set of hairstyles and you can pick up additional ones both in-game (some can be sold through the Market Board, some can not) and through the cash shop (My female mi'qote is using the 2B style that drops from the latest Alliance Raid).
There are certain things like eye color and gender that can't be changed through the Aesthetician and do require Fantasia.
Great comparison! Btw, in regards to the extra retainers for storage in FFXIV: I play FFXIV in a "Marie Kondo" method of not holding on to a lot of stuff. At one point I did have 5 extra retainers and couldn't do the extra fees anymore. The 2 retainers with the base sub is good & gives you 1 battle class & 1 gather class for ventures in both. 👍
Bout the only thing i still enjoy in WoW is challenging group content which i can complete with friends. Namely M+ these days. I'm a h pal and I won't lie its a pain having to deal with people who are just bad. I guess you could call that the competitive nature of WoW or just one of life. Both situation's have people who take things a little too far. I felt a little less bias towards FF's store but I can understand, its new/fresh so the idea of stuff you could've gotten is 'exciting'. Tbh i wish neither had a cash shop but that's just not the world we live in these days now is it
dozens of hours of content hundreds if you don't skip cutscenes HAHAHAHAHAHAHA so good XD
Wth is the point of playing any rpg if you skip the story smh
There is an aestician which functions as a barber shop in FFXIV which you unlock via a quest picked up in Limsa Lominsa
Please don't attack me, simply stating what has been said before*. There is *some element with pay to win in regards to leggo crafting (and bfa, corruption pieces least the BiS being put for dozens of gold). Having to constantly recraft your leggo along with getting the base mats can cost loads of gold based off what sever your on and only makes buying gold via coin even more lucrative.
wow token is an company introduced P2W mechanic. That's the problem. i could pay myself to full mythic gear without ever MOVING my character. i could boost a character for real money, get a boost to each boss in the raid, have it killed for me and get the loot… for real money. i could unbind every button on my keyboard and still be one of the better geared characters on the server.
don't come here and say, and i quote "There are no pay 2 win in either of these games" , because that is an upright lie.
I cant believe how people can even compare FF to WoW. Purely graphics alone favor WoW, hard, not to mention the sheer amount of content the game has amassed over the years.
I can see why you said WoW doesn't have a P2W because you're right, if I get my boost for keys, M raid or glad yeah I will have good gear and still be shit in the game, you have a point there. But, at the same time you can buy everything with your credit card just pressing Esc, and even when the "endgame" for each people differ from one another, you can P2W depending on your need.
My goal is to achieve 20+ and get the TP, I want to clear SoD, I want to get Glad, I want things from the Ah, and this one that annoy me but I know is a thing… I want my lego but I don't have the gold.
Yes, technically you can't buy a significant advantage, but you can buy your end goal thanks to your credit card, so also technically that person is paying to win.
The whole token system is… Something else.
OH and I agree with everyone I think when they say neither shop should exist, personally I buy shit in both stores at one point, mounts to be specific thanks to discount.
I'm a mount collector in WoW (only have the pig from the store cause of a joke between friends), and this is my personal opinion, but FF store doesn't annoy me as much since there are a lot of mounts that I want to use that I get in game, cool ones that even if a good one show up in the store I don't mind I know I can get shit as cool as that doing the grind. In WoW, must of the time that happens with the store, and that annoy me but again that's my personal opinion on the main topic.
Here comes the welcoming and warm "FF14 is perfect and cannot be criticized" FF14 community.
I think promoting the idea that you can earn enough gold in game to pay for wow is a bit disingenuous. You for one play wow fir a living. Other also are able to no life the game or are also content creators. I'm sure there are a few that don't fit those criteria but I'm also sure not many. Particularly not to get the level of promotion the idea gets. If anything it helps the content creator most cause gold videos are crazy popular.
1) you can unlock the beautician in FFXIV to change your hair, make up and face tattoos.
2) You apparently don't pvp in wow. The amount of carries in 1200-2100 range is insane. Allowing people to buy gold, and use that gold to buy better gear that makes you more powerful in a a direct competitive pvp environment is by definition P2W. You can argue the grey market all you want, but grey market transactions are bannable. Now, carries are allowed by Blizzard so they are rampant.
It seems like we might have a difference of opinion on the definition of "winning". Let me approach this by winning the RFWF and me winning. We have seen real money costs associated with the world 1st race several times in the past as they buy gear from the auction house. We see the item level comparison, hear about how much gold (money) they spent, and then a team wins – So, real money = Gold = Gear = Winning world 1st often. When I am thinking of me winning in WoW it's 1. When I get my BiS loot (if we really ever can these days) and 2.Beating the hardest level of content I want to/can. If I buy a token, and sell that for gold, then I can achieve my definition of winning by paying for it as well. So I can pay to win very easily. Have a like on this, but I feel like you didn't say what you really wanted to say to not piss people off…
Major difference is that Blizzard caved in too trash sites by becoming one of the trash sites with it's tokens. Strange enought they just keep bots roaming around like they owned the place, especially in WoW classic. In FFXIV the devs strike hard and fast on bots, when reported. Gil is also a resource which is easy enought to get hold of… so I don't even know who would ever consider buying Gil, boosting is also very rare since there's very few groups who could carry a team member in any content that might be worth boosting.
I completely agree that neither game has P2W. Is getting in game currency winning an MMO? I don't see someone that has much more currency than me as having won the game more than me. Is getting a particular end game item/achievement winning a mmo? Getting a particular end game item is not winning the game, as some having better gear is most likely not going to make up for the lack of skill or something that kept you from doing that content anyways. Achievements or one time rewards such as mounts are the closest to winning a mmo to me which is present in both games However, I have a hard time saying someone that has gotten a kill one time on a carry is equivalent to someone that is able to clear said content on demand. In WoW my goal might be to clear the Mythic raid but I am not done when I have killed it once I want to be able to farm it and get completely geared. Also in M+ buying a +15 is by no means winning the M+ end game, neither is a +20. Personally my goal/winning to me is getting as high as a score as my team of friends/guild can get in a particular season, which isn't buyable. While goals can obviously be different between people, I am not really bothered by someone buying the mythic raid final boss kill once, or buying a carry in +15s as I know I have done that myself with my friends and that they won't really perform better, they just got an achievement/mount that doesn't make much of a difference.
I also agree with soul that it's interesting that pugging content has gotten more and more unforgiving. I don't believe the toxicity has increased, this is the same as always and in my mind can only really be fixed by moderation, which is something it sounds like FF14 has down pat even if it might be a little heavy handed. But with my limited experience of pugging M+ it does seem like lately there are many more ads for carry runs and making a currency a better source of gear might be a good answer. I think the changes to the current valor system would be to open in up to being able to upgrade items to the max end game ilvl and make it more easily farmed by casual players, which would hopefully allow them to venture into harder content with the added gear.
Something seldom talked about is that a big reason people hate the wow store is that the game lacks content. Or content is only added to the store. As you always bring up, player housing. A huge content thing. People are also less angry at the ff14 devs cause they listen to the community which bring much more good will to things like an ingame store.
If you don't like shop ,then don't use them. Stop trying to ruin things for others.
I Agree with you. I never quite understood where why there is a cap for reaching maximum ilvl gear with valor upgrades. So many things in this game feel pointless after u achieved them, because u achieved them without them… and afterwards they dont contribute to ur player power in a meaningful way anymore.
For example i grind m+ rating so much to finally unlock that max ilvl valor upgrade gate. But now that i have it i dont even need to spend valor on my gear cuz id be maxed out ^^ get it ? It would console me if my alts would have their gates unlocked aswell if my main already cleared the way once. That would be baller.
Imagine, i run 2 necrolord characters one being my main DK and another alt. I stopped playing the alt because i have to regrind all the anima for an optimal covenant use… where is the point.. why not have a joined effort, an account wide effort towards the covenant system?????
All these designs do is give us meaningless scraps. Ofc there will be bot accounts who farm all day, ofc there will be elitist players who take lower geared ppl along cuz of cash. They resent lower geared ppl.. The game made them resent lower geared ppl to the point that elitist grp offer a spot to take u along for cash, even if it is in form of gold that u bought or farmed. Now thats what sucks in an mmorpg where teamwork should be the primary thing and incentives from the game should be according to that.
On top of that still pay sub fee? I basically play this game solo, from time to time with a friend or two and always trying to pug a m+ or elite quest.. To consider this a Grey Market is an understatement man. It looks like players are being capitalized upon because the games designs and Systems are not so rewarding for the average joe.
Anyway..
Hi Dan 🙂
Also I think you should watch madseasons video again when it comes to pay to win in wow…
it's all about the Benjamins