Q. How will the payment plan look?

While Final Fantasy XI runs on a monthly plan through PlayOnline, Final Fantasy XIV will drop PlayOnline and utilize the recently established Square Enix IDs and Security Tokens. The monthly plan is also due for a change, and Tanaka says they are considering a more versatile plan, based on 30-day payment cycles.

Some people have been confused by this, but all it involves is altering when a player’s plan stops and starts. If you count by days instead of months, you have the freedom to stop and start more freely. This would allow billing to break free from the shackles of the monthly cycle and possibly really help out customers by helping them avoid paying for unused time and lessen the inconvenience of the regularly scheduled billing maintenance.

Just a theory:

I thought this little tidbit definitely required its own thread because as it sounds the payment plans are being heavily reworked to reflect more on how the Eastern pay-by-the-hour works!?  Instead of buying hour-blocks of time, what I get from this is that you buy a one month blocks of time; like you would normally do in the West for any P2P MMO, but you only use one day of it at a time after so many cumulative hours have passed. 

Lets say after every 8-12 hrs because there are players that play that long per session like me, and there are players that can only dedicate 2-3 hrs or less at a time.  There are also those that can only spare 30min here, 1 hr there, etc multiple times each day.  However, how I'm seeing this work is you buy a 30day block of time, but you're only charged for the time you used on a scale of 8hrs per day.  Every 8 hrs based on casual players would charge 1 day of your paid time, but if after 8hrs of play and you continue to play through to 24 hrs you're still only charged the 1 day. 

This would be for those players that can't play everyday or only 1-2 days a week, so the other 5-6 days a week their paid time isn't counting down.  So you only use of time when you're logging in.

So what I'm thinking/saying is that you buy 30 days, but its not a continuous countdown until its all used up!  Rather now when you buy 30 days; you get deducted 1 day of time for each log in based on how many hours you were logged in.

• 30 days equal $14.99 or lets say $19.99 or even $29.99!
• A cumulative 8 hrs would equal 1 day for the casual players!
• A hardcore player that stays logged in past 8 hrs and up to 24 only gets deducted 1 day!

Basically you only use up time that you're logged in on, so you play 4 hrs on Mon, 2hrs on Wed, and 2hrs on Thurs and that would equal one paid day.  The hardcore that logs 14hrs on Mon, 22hrs on Wed, and 10hrs on Thurs would be deducted 3 days!

Seriously that would rock, no more feeling like you wasted a month away if you happen to be busy for that month. I'd love that, more importantly my husband would love that so much he wouldn't play anything else.

^_^ I hope you're right!

Sounds interesting...

Bah... edited 'cause I misread the post the first time :-p. Go me.

Hmmm... So basically if you only play 10 days out of 30... you're only billed for 10 days worth of time? Well that's pretty cool.

Although... reading it again...

It also does kinda sound like they're moving to the system other MMOs use. Basically, if you sign up on the 15th of June, you're billed again on the 16th of July. Not "always on the 1st of the month, regardless".

By not being billed for unused time, I think what that's addressing is how it's setup right now with FFXI. Basically, say you sign up on the 27th of June. When billing happens, you're billed for all of June, not only the 3 or 4 days you were actually subscribed. They don't pro-rate. It's a really poor way of handling it, and I'm sure they get a lot of flack about it. I know I've had my rounds with their customer support over it.

Also, by moving to that kind of system, they no longer have to do billing maintenance as they do now, as it's a more fluid, on-going thing.

If you're right, that's a real good plan.  I would take that over the current system anyday.

After reading it, I'm thinking it's going to be more of a system where you buy a thirty period of time...that keeps ticking, whether or not you play that day or not.  So, for example, if you signed up on the 1st of Feb, you would be recharged on the 2nd of Mar. 

Originally posted by WSIMike

Sounds interesting...

Bah... edited 'cause I misread the post the first time :-p. Go me.

Hmmm... So basically if you only play 10 days out of 30... you're only billed for 10 days worth of time? Well that's pretty cool.

Well, technically, but if you only used 10 days that month you're not billed for another 30 days until you used up the other 20 you still haven't used, but paid for!

Originally posted by Bintowe

After reading it, I'm thinking it's going to be more of a system where you buy a thirty period of time...that keeps ticking, whether or not you play that day or not.  So, for example, if you signed up on the 1st of Feb, you would be recharged on the 2nd of Mar. 

...and thats exacty how billing already works, but the answer above specifically sayd they want to break free of monthly blocks and go to a more day by day payment system!

Actually, I think this payment plan sounds like a long distance phone card. You purchase an 800 minute phone card and use it for 800 minutes of talk time. If you aren't talking, your not using your card, so basically, an 800 minute phone card could last you a year depending on how often you use it.

It sounds good on paper, but that all depends on how they break the blocks of time down. Is it by 1 minute, 15 minutes, 30 minutes or 60? Cause if they charge by the hour and you only play 45 minutes, your losing 15 minutes of played time. So ya, it depends on how small their block of time is as to whether this is beneficial to the player or to the company.

Originally posted by Khrymson

Originally posted by Bintowe

After reading it, I'm thinking it's going to be more of a system where you buy a thirty period of time...that keeps ticking, whether or not you play that day or not.  So, for example, if you signed up on the 1st of Feb, you would be recharged on the 2nd of Mar. 

 

...and thats exacty how billing already works, but the answer above specifically sayd they want to break free of monthly blocks and go to a more day by day payment system!

No, actually it always charges you at the start of month. The example was bad, because in the FFXI system if you signed up on 1st of Feb, you get recharged on the 1st of March. However if you start on 28th of Feb, you get charged on 1st of March still. They want to change this for FFXIV. If you sign up on 28th of Feb, you'd get charged on 28th of March with the new system.

Originally posted by Khrymson

Originally posted by Bintowe

After reading it, I'm thinking it's going to be more of a system where you buy a thirty period of time...that keeps ticking, whether or not you play that day or not.  So, for example, if you signed up on the 1st of Feb, you would be recharged on the 2nd of Mar. 

 

...and thats exacty how billing already works, but the answer above specifically sayd they want to break free of monthly blocks and go to a more day by day payment system!

Well they don't specifically say they want to go to a "day by day" payment system. There's no statement in there saying that; I think that's how you're interpreting it.

They say they want to break away from billing being monthly (ie. going by calendar months), and go with a more 30-day cycle which, as I modified my post above to explain, would mean that you're billed for 30 days of time, independent of when you signed up. If you sign up today, June 12th, you'll be billed again 30 days from now and then 30 days after that.

ahh nvrmnd!

How about just pay for time played? That would rock. rounded up to the nearest minute. I dont log in.. I dont get charged. After paying for the game and my credit card would be charged for what I had played the previous month, starting the first month! this way if some idiot decided to cancel his card on the 29th... well that was just the free month that shoud have come with the game when you bought it.

6.6 cents a minute.

Hmmmm.... Sounds like a good thing. Only real problem is what happenes if you are in the end game raiding and you run out of time?  Like a pre-pay cell phone. Would suck to be talking to your wife and run out of time =)).

Some asian games already have systems in which you can either purchase the whole month like it is now, or just purchase hours to be played.

I really would like to see these different options, especially for those of us who play casually, or that want to play more than one P2P game at a time.

Originally posted by Zandora2018

Hmmmm.... Sounds like a good thing. Only real problem is what happenes if you are in the end game raiding and you run out of time?  Like a pre-pay cell phone. Would suck to be talking to your wife and run out of time =)).

Maybe you get billed for extra time? :P

Originally posted by Hyanmen

Originally posted by Khrymson

Originally posted by Bintowe

After reading it, I'm thinking it's going to be more of a system where you buy a thirty period of time...that keeps ticking, whether or not you play that day or not.  So, for example, if you signed up on the 1st of Feb, you would be recharged on the 2nd of Mar. 

 

...and thats exacty how billing already works, but the answer above specifically sayd they want to break free of monthly blocks and go to a more day by day payment system!

 

No, actually it always charges you at the start of month. The example was bad, because in the FFXI system if you signed up on 1st of Feb, you get recharged on the 1st of March. However if you start on 28th of Feb, you get charged on 1st of March still. They want to change this for FFXIV. If you sign up on 28th of Feb, you'd get charged on 28th of March with the new system.

^^ This, its not a pay by day system they are just doing away with the horrible playonline billing system that would charge you 12,95$ for a month even if you started in the middle of the month then charge you 12,95 again on the first.   Its now going to be like every other mmo out there where u pay for your month and it starts that day and dosent charge again till 30 days later. 

Stop freakin out, take a breath, its ok heh

So they won't steal part of subcription cost, but do like every other company does?

Hmm, btw in system before was month differing between 28 and 31 days?

Yeah they mean like every other MMO out there where your subscription for one month might go form March 15 to April 15 ... instead of resubscribing on March 15th and getting charged for 2 months in April.

Or potentially they will prorate the March 15-30 and you get 1.5 months in April (which is kinda what we all expected would happen after they prorate your first paying month when you start the game)

The thing you talk about already exists in some games and it is ofcourse better for uss gamers.. but its sertanly not for the company. they loose alot of money on the planning schedule, like you can organisize things and get a bunch of people just harcore power level and everybody is getting more out of their ingame time/money... But for be realistik and more logic its nobodys loss... They will make millions and millions of money and you will make more gaming for ya money.. so everybody would win! I defenitly think it will be better if the Pay for Credit time would be super!

I like the idea in general because I'm not a hardcore player, but then I remembered a behaviour I had specific to FFXI and that many share:

Having your toon parked in town with your bazaar full of junk overnight.

That wouldn't be viable any longer but, then again, they might not reimplement that and favor a more robust AH system.