Time to get serious: A BlueGartr interview with Naoki Yoshida Coming Soon

[Gulkeeva]

Ask them to fix this. Regional servers were in online games since basically online games existed. I would even bet the laggy/clunky combat we're currently seeing is far better in Japan. And this isn't just something they should look into for FFXIV. SE seems to be interested in making multiple MMOs, so they should look into setting up multiple server farms in multiple regions of the world for all those titles. I know I would have loved to play XI on a server in my region, just imagine always having an extra half-second to stun TP moves. Or actually being able to claim NMs pre-claim delay patch. Anyhow, I've never understood why a company as big as SE didn't set up regional servers when it improves gameplay so much for the rest of the world.

Few problems with this.

1. Their market is japan
2. Their market anywhere else? *Points at FFXI and FFXIV*
3. Their financially hurt, and their current market strategy seems to be betting on Dragon Quest MMO/Final Fantasy Zero, FFXIV (to me) is taking a back seat "swept under the rug" type development atm.

If they didn't for FFXI, doubt they will put a server in the US for FFXIV to fix that issue.

[Kurokikaze]

The latency/lag shown in that video has very little/almost nothing to do with the physical location of the servers. Ping is 200-250ms to SE's servers - thats not that fucking high for a game as slow paced as this one. The problem is how often the client/server are updating each other on positioning.

[Tibian]

The latency/lag shown in that video has very little/almost nothing to do with the physical location of the servers. Ping is 200-250ms to SE's servers - thats not that fucking high for a game as slow paced as this one. The problem is how often the client/server are updating each other on positioning.

Correct. I've known several people on several different MMO's who have pings upwards of 300-400 and they have better responses to battle mechanics than with SE's terrible "placement prediction algorithm".

[Tomino]

Couple of storyline/lore questions:

- A lot of quests / CSes / dialogues added in recent patches deal with the incoming danger for Eorzea. Does this mean that they will all be re-done once said world-changing event happens? Or is the development team coming with a different solution to avoid scrapping all this content? Feels a little too early to "Cataclysm" quest content at this stage, given how few players actually got to experience it.

- Should the storyline be redone/updated, will old players be allowed to experience the new versions as well? For example, Company quests or main scenario.

- Are you going to address the inconsistency that is being created between main scenario quests and the most recent lore? From Merchant Ward onward, the story has very little ties with everything else.

- Do you plan to retcon/fix the amount of different plot elements that had been thrown together since the game release? Before the whole 7th Umbral Era/Cid/Dalamut storylines, there were already plenty of subplots that have been left hanging and may confuse players. I'm referring, for example, to the 3 cities storylines (left open) or the mysterious lich-alike figure that appears in the main scenario quests.


Also:

- How does the team look at those veteran, high level players currently sitting on many lv50 classes? A resource for newcomers or potential danger to game balance/economy once Ps3 hits? Would that push you into making fresh new servers or that is something you decided against?

[vadre]

Giving my support to the above questions regarding the storyline and also the questions regarding the inconsistences we have currently (I kill Ifrit at 30 and then a meet him for the 'first time' at 37).

Also I'd like to know whether we can expect to be able to access the materials put up on lodestone in-game ever, through a newspaper stand or something.

Edit: Nevermind, other people have already brought it up

[Sci]

The latency/lag shown in that video has very little/almost nothing to do with the physical location of the servers. Ping is 200-250ms to SE's servers - thats not that fucking high for a game as slow paced as this one. The problem is how often the client/server are updating each other on positioning.

I won't argue that the position lag is due to poor programming on SE's part. But it's silly to think that regional servers do not reduce ping, and SE even commented that the game runs better in Japan. I remember shortly after launch they said that they never saw the excessive UI lag in their testing in Japan, and it was caused in other countries by slower communication with their servers. Again, there are of course ways to programmatically make the client/server communication less affected by lag, but if they're serious about PvP there's no doubt that players in Japan would have an unfair advantage.

[Gulkeeva]

The latency/lag shown in that video has very little/almost nothing to do with the physical location of the servers. Ping is 200-250ms to SE's servers - thats not that fucking high for a game as slow paced as this one. The problem is how often the client/server are updating each other on positioning.

Login Server japan
219.117.154.110

Lobby Server japan
202.67.50.8

Patch server japan
202.67.52.11

Most any game server IP (same city location as above) -> there all near okaya japan

Roundtrip average from a PC from the USA to japan and back 200-250MS
now include a roundtrip from YOU -> japan server checking what you did -> sending out info to OTHER guy client update, your looking at 400-500MS+ before he sees what you did between all the servers verifying what is happening to who what where and when.

Most any game, someone playing at 400-500MS, its pretty noticeable, if you want I can go find a laggy person in warcraft and record their jerky teleportation movement all over my screen. Its almost identical to what the youtube video of a sidebyside play looks like (but instead of stop go stop go slide its teleport stop teleport).

Some other games notable in several korean MMO's reduce this effect of lag by using third party security firm to monitor what happens that may be closer to that persons location. Like gamegaurd or some other thing running while the game is open preventing alt-tabbing, memory editing/reading software, or opening any other program. The server does like no checks on what you do, theirs not much anything cept the game feeding you what you did and what the other guy did. Pretty much reduces your latency in half (or more).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NProtect_GameGuard

GameGuard hides the game application process, monitors the entire memory range, terminates applications defined by the game vendor and INCA Internet to be cheats (QIP for example), blocks certain calls to DirectX functions and Windows APIs, keylogs your keyboard input, and auto-updates itself to change as new threats surface.

If SE used this (or some other gamegaurd thirdparty) and removed all their security checks, the game would run alot smoother, question is... would people want something like that running? (its not 100% fool proof like any other "security" and not as good as server side checking).
More serious hacks could happen like say item alteration, mob hp/exp alteration etc, whatever SE is letting the client handle.

[Jojimbo]

Hated gameguard when I was playing K-TERA, prevented me from using my G13 (even the screen, had to manually stop the processes and restart them to get it to work properly) and made my mouse unusable unless I closed its software before launching. Had issues with it in the past where it prevented games from starting because I had NetLimiter running as well.

[Cichy]

- How are you planning to balance rare/ex gear vs materia gear. 1.19 made almost all rare/ex obsolete, will there be a fix?

[lokiandeath]

I know this was asked alot already but this is something I really want implemented. When if any are the new races gonna be playable and if possible be able to change race. Is there any chance that they would expand the selection of hairstyle/customization for a character because everybody looks the same in the game.

[Ghostsix.Midgard]

PS3 Limitations
How limited will future content be to PS3 hardware? The console is already 5 years old. Will everything be nerfed for the PS3? Is XBOX360 100% out of the question?


UI/Quest system
While you have recently implemented the quest system, for many players coming from other MMOS like TERA and AION, it seems very dated. These games and others have robust quest tracking systems, and very responsive UI. do you look at any other games at all? I understand your team is striving for a unique feel with XIV, but in 2011, approaching 2012 the current quest system and underlying UI seems slow and sluggish.


Milestones
People like myself, coming from FFXI, there were many goals to accomplish and look forward to. Hitting LV10 meant shiny red scale mail, LV18 meant sub jobs, LV20 meant a chocobo license etc. And these weren't just point and click quests, it was something that gave you a sense of pride when you completed it. You could group up with friends and work towards something together.

Personally I feel FFXIV is lacking in any of these types of achievements. Chocobos are bought for example, and there is no airship pass quest. Do you feel FFXIV needs any of these types of achievements to keep players looking forward to logging in?


Mini games/Gilsinks
Are you a fan of Tetra Master/Triple Triad? Is there any chance of these mini games being brought into FFXIV? I think these, including rare card hunting and possibly card crafting could be a great time/money sink.

How important is it do you feel to have money sinks in the game? People are sitting on Millions of gil with nothing to spend it on. There are many vanity features people want included in the game. Chocobo customization, new animations, linkshell icons, hairstyles. Maybe a similar system can be used to remove some of the gil from the economy.


Animations
Would it be difficult to create different animations for skills? Currently every class just does the same 'crouching pose' when activating class skills. Similar to the 'Pelvic thrust' in FFXI. The same for DoH classes, when activating crafting skills, we get the same sound effect and character animation. I think it would be nice and give some identity to the players if each class had different animations depending on the skill used.

Can we look forward to character idle animations? Right now we have that 'blank stare' when standing still. Idle animations is a staple of many offline and online RPG's, which makes our characters seem more alive.


Character Customization
Many people feel the current character creation options are very limited. Will we see any updates to this? Any new races or at least gender unlocks coming soon?

How often do you play per week?

[Cichy]

Chocobos you can buy but you still have to do plenty of company quests and get enough points, imo it's harder than feeding a choco 4 times and getting it in XI. If you're a new player you probably be 25 by the time you can even get a Choco, sure it is easy for players that been playing but in no way not a milestone or an achievement lesser than XIs.

[Frein]

Mini games/Gilsinks[/B]
Are you a fan of Tetra Master/Triple Triad? Is there any chance of these mini games being brought into FFXIV? I think these, including rare card hunting and possibly card crafting could be a great time/money sink.

Triple Triad against both NPCs and other PCs instead of Parley? Yes please!

[Kaiyoko]

Chocobos you can buy but you still have to do plenty of company quests and get enough points, imo it's harder than feeding a choco 4 times and getting it in XI. If you're a new player you probably be 25 by the time you can even get a Choco, sure it is easy for players that been playing but in no way not a milestone or an achievement lesser than XIs.

Agreed, have to travel all over to get those NMs. And visit multiple cities, multiple times.

[Ksandra]

If you bring up the card game question, maybe refer to EQ2 as they have an ingame card system. Mobs will randomly drop cards that you can add to your deck. Plus you can buy cards irl and they have codes where you can duplicate them ingame as well.

It's definitely a nifty idea to add as a time sink.

[Kurokikaze]

Triple Triad against both NPCs and other PCs instead of Parley? Yes please!

Been saying this literally FOREVER.

Show them this picture when/if you ask about that question:

[Tibian]

Been saying this literally FOREVER.

Show them this picture when/if you ask about that question:

I love you.

[shepardG]

Haven't seen it mentioned yet, but fucking world transfers... I mean... the fucking company is near to fucking tanking(most likely talking out of my ass here) and idiots like myself would probably pay 20-30 bucks to transfer their character around for some retarded reason.
OHNOES THAT PROMOTES RMT!!!

Remind them that RMT is an inevitablity and that the only thing that works to combat them is making gil/plat/gold easy to get (which they did...without the other part, which is gil sinks), and even then, you can't get rid of it entirely.

However, SE did show the MMO community that you can shut down RMT...by destroying the populace of the game within the first 2 weeks. Powerful move SE, Powerful indeed.

[Gokku]

any plans to pull the game / shutdown the severs and rebuild the game from the ground up and re-release it?
What will be the plan if the game isnt up to requirements within the next year or so?

back up reasoning behind my questions was SE CEO stated on sept 27th that "We'll continue with our reform work, which basically amounts to fully redoing the game, and hope to revive the FFXIV that should have been released."
im very curious if they would just instead of patching none stop , pull the game remake it and act like the debacle that is current 14 never happened.

[Burningthought]

any plans to pull the game / shutdown the severs and rebuild the game from the ground up and re-release it?
What will be the plan if the game isnt up to requirements within the next year or so?

back up reasoning behind my questions was SE CEO stated on sept 27th that "We'll continue with our reform work, which basically amounts to fully redoing the game, and hope to revive the FFXIV that should have been released."
im very curious if they would just instead of patching none stop , pull the game remake it and act like the debacle that is current 14 never happened.

I hate to go off topic a little bit, since this isn't a question.

Yoichi Wada made a statement at the beginning of the Letter from the Producers LIVE video:

At the start of the event, President Yoichi Wada dropped in to share a few words with the fans of #FFXIV! He wanted to reiterate that in the media a comment about just now getting started with major changes to the game is incorrect. He reiterated that the dev. team has been working hard to do this for long time and will continue to do so! He hopes all of the fans will enjoy patch 1.19!

Link: http://twitter.com/#!/FF_XIV_EN/stat...95373007093760