Pol News: Announcing the FINAL FANTASY XI Starter Pack! (07/20/2007)

[Halifirien]

I think WoW did the same thing. You can get WoW without any expansions and a free trial period from any best buy for $1.99.

I saw that at EBGames the other day and couldn't resist mentioning it to Quieren to give him hope that I'd come over to the dark side and play WoW.

 

[Negorissimo]

That 1up news was a very nice find. All 4 discs in one DVD for $4 is a deal made in heaven. I hope they include the 360/PS2 on this. ^^

 

[Romper]

Yep. This makes good sense to me, and I'm surprised they didn't do it sooner.

Sure, they made money on the Vana'diel Collection, being it boxed all the expansions together, but those also came with those activation codes for those expansions.

It just begs the question of what is going to be the better deal for new players:

Let's consider.

Original FFXI+RoZ at PC release was what, maybe $50.00 (PC)? Subtract the $4.99 for this "starter set"'s price, and that leaves $45.00, which makes the price for Rise of the Zilart in-box. Add the price of Chains of Promathia, in-box, another $40.00/$50.00? Then Treasures of Aht Urhgan, another $40.00. That totals....$140.00 for all the expansions and games (if you started initially with only FFXI+RoZ).

Vanadiel Collection, as I purchased in 05 = $40.00, soonafter went to $30.00. Included (with activation codes) RoZ and CoP. So subtract the $4.99 and that leaves $35.00, divide by 2 for RoZ and CoP base prices (in context of the V Collection).... $17.50 each. Only external expenditure is Treasures of Aht Urhgan....$40.00.

Vana'diel Collection 2006 = includes ALL expansions with codes for EACH, now at the cheapass price (I've seen as low as $20.00). Subtract the $4.99, leaves $15.00 total, for three expansions. = $5.00 per expansion.

Now, this comes in, with all game data, but no activations for any expansion, for the dirt-price of $4.99. Makes you wonder how much SE will charges for activation codes per expansion? Can anyone quantify this for me?




Seems to me the Vana'diel Collection (unless they're wholly phasing it out) is still the best way to go.

Actually Tristam I believe CoP and ToAU are both 30 now if you can find stand alone of em anymore.

 

[Mariox]

Pritty good, people get the game cheep, and if thay like, thay can spend more to unlock all the expantions. Alot better then WoW did. I nearly tryed the trail verson of WoW, till I was told you can only do the noob zones, and after 30 days, you have to buy the full version, and you lose the characture you used on demo disk.

 

[ForteTeppo]

won't this make it easy for gil sellers to keep comin back since they can buy a new CD and ID for 4 bucks?

 

[Blabj]

I remember buying the WoW starter pack, I did get a free 30 day playing period, however I was very limited in what I could do; I couldn't join guilds, use the AH, use the mail box, there was a huge limit on the number of friends I could have (15 I believe)

I don't think this will have all the expansions on it, since it's pretty much impossible to get onto RoZ, CoP or ToAU in that short amount of time, you probably wont even get to EXP in the Expansion pack areas as a noob (Maybe Kazham...?)

 

[Sharpe]

you have to buy the full version, and you lose the characture you used on demo disk.

Not in Europe you don't and I can't see why it's different in NA.

 

[Xalioniaf]

I just noticed they're still pushing Tetra Master on the starter pack's website.
They don't even do updates for Tetra Master anymore ._.