Letter from the Producer, I (1/21/2010)

[Rumo]

All sounds fine. But I'm keeping my expectations low. Three weeks without any little message is just too long.

I don't know what it is with SE but everytime they announce something I also have a bitter feeling about it because either i'm mad about the way of communication or it could have easily been done before.

Sure he seems nice and I'm sure they all are working hard. But you don't let a customer wait for 20 days...

[Cantih]

I'm all for the jumping, IF it will allow to jump up or down the small cliffs and such that we currently have to walk around, but if you still have to walk around that shit, its worthless imo.

THIS is probably why they're considering it.
Adding a small jump is probably the most efficient (Not best, mind you. I don't wanna see tards hopping around either) way to deal with the terrain issue.
Going through every bit of terrain in the game to check and alter it's passability properties is probably too much work with all the other stuff we need them to do.

[Toth]

Very encouraging to see him speak so candidly about the upcoming changes.

I am also completely on board with the class name changes. This is a Final Fantasy game and everything about these classes so far are very...generic. Perhaps they can have a happy medium and keep the names as 'base classes' and then you can choose to specialize after a quest. For example, you can level Conjurer to 30 and then specialize as a black mage, increasing the damage of your elemental spells. Conversely, you can specialize as a white mage and enhance all white magic spells. You will continue to gain levels as a 'conjurer' but your specialization will further augment specific spells as you level.

[Jamison]

(Not best, mind you. I don't wanna see tards hopping around either)

Hrm, there's no reason they'd have to let you see anyone else's jumping animation, is there? Show only your own, and no one can be bothered by it?

Edit: I would probably be most in favor of a system where you auto-jump when needed to go up/down small ledges, rather than anything that is player-controlled.

[Hyan]

How do the new class names it in the lore? It's more work than one would think.

[Fawkes]

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/9096/sadfrog.jpg

[Katlan]

idk about character jumping, but i want to be able to traverse ridges that are 5 feet higher / lower then my current location.

[Spider-Dan]

They are going to have to alter terrain passability either way, since there are a lot of dumb 2-foot ledges that you can't drop down. Jump feature would not seem capable of solving that right now, unless the original environment team was forward-thinking enough to implement the bare vertical minimum for clipping restrictions when preventing you from dropping.

If you ask me, jump feature should let you jump off of any ledge with valid terrain below. It's not like dying means much in this game.

[Kenshiin]

I wish they mentioned something about adding auto-attack.

[Grey Jorildyn]

Chances are the jumping thing is for getting up those 3inch ledges. Icon will pop up or some crap, just like in XIII.

[solracht]

"Changes to class names" and "Changes to actions for Disciplines of War & Magic classes" are probably going hand in hand. It'll probably be more than simply changing Gladiators into Paladins.

[kisada]

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/9096/sadfrog.jpg

A+

i'm gonna pray that the devs are gonna completely ignore the people crying about jumping. and the possible changes to class names (which i hope to god they change).

[Elrina]

Really rather it wasn't like XIII and they actually instituted free jumping. I don't really care about the random fools who feel like jumping constantly - they're fooling around, or being stupid, or don't matter at all and are below my concern.

The biggest issue is it's immediate ability to traverse all of the small ledges, either up or down. Then the ability to jump down any open ledges we choose, and with it the freedom to move around the game world as we see fit, and if it's too far of a fall then we take falling damage and potentially die. We then gain many more options for traveling around that we don't have, and that a canned jump wouldn't allow us on larger drops.

Then, eventually, it's in the addition of terrain placement that allows using it as an actual device. The current tapestry hasn't been designed with it in mind, but later areas and zones all would be, and I believe it could have a lot more potential uses later down the road than simply avoiding small ledges that become large annoyances. That's the main and immediate problem it's existence would solve, and initial functional purpose, but it would allow for a lot of potential later. Not to mention, it could eventually open the world up to swimming and even potentially flying in later zones, also devices that would just add more to the areas they were in and allow both more interesting areas to traverse developed by an SE team in a Final Fantasy world, and also leading into things like personal + "Company" airships, a literal FFVII-like chocobo breeding system with types of chocobos that could travel across different terrain up through flying, etc.

There's a ton of things that it could potentially lead into, later, that right now aren't concerns, but would make for a much more awesome world to travel through and play in with the FF art style and environment/world design, something no other game or studio can offer. Why let some random fools who should be beneath our notice or concern hamper that potential or those possibilities?

[Cichy]

I like the post alot, seems like a normal person wrote it and atleast proves that the guy has an idea on what to fix. If he implements all he promised this game may still have a chance.

[mistmonster]

I wish they mentioned something about adding auto-attack.

you know I logged in last week, first time since the month I bought it.. spammed keys for an hour and said I will never play this again unless that is changed. Surprised it doesn't bother more people.

[Fawkes]

you know I logged in last week, first time since the month I bought it.. spammed keys for an hour and said I will never play this again unless that is changed. Surprised it doesn't bother more people.

http://img204.imageshack.us/img204/9746/4922q.jpg

I find it interesting that JPs seem to hate the combat system and think it's the biggest issue, whereas every other region favors content. Not sure if they want auto attack or what, but it might be worth looking into why that was their number one.

[Mistress Stowastiq]

Pretty inclusive answers.

"By the way, questions 2 and 4 were included to provide referential data to the management team, and I will not post their results here. Suffice it to say, we are hardly in a position to be providing this kind of useful information to any would-be rivals...^^; "

^This drives me nuts, I really want to know what goodies are in there!

We will also be looking in earnest at the possibility of implementing an auction house, as well as continuing to improve the functionality of the item search feature.

This is good, anything to avoid the clusterfuck that one experiences in current player to player commerce.


It occurred to me, upon the concept of in game holiday events, that without a mog house or display type area there is less motivation to collect personal items when wondering what the items will be. It helps that the items are armor but before realizing that the event items are armor, I could not help but remember the odd questioning of wtf will I do with my event items while there is no mog? This includes gardening type activities with a personal area.

Trivial to most people but something I would like to see when they finish dealing with the high-importance stuff.

I really really like the personal format of the letters and the non-formal feeling of them especially the quirky personality and honest-feeling tone.

[Fawkes]

2 was what upcoming MMO do you want to play, so the answers would just make some other MMOs look good. Probably mostly GW2 and TOR.

4 was how long do you spend logged in, which probably made them look bad since a lot of people who still want to like this game are not at all active in it.

[Vuitton]

I logged for the first time in a month last night. Spent 2 hours doing 8 fishing leves and spent the whole time banging my head against the desk because of how long it took just to catch 1 fish. I am glad they're going to make that faster, because I was falling asleep. Especially when you get 4 no bites in a row, and then you get 3 bites but you lose the fish on the very first jig. I wanted to scream but I was so sleepy from the act of fishing I didn't bother.

As for jumping, if it means I can get up and down the cliffs I normally can get up and down but for some reason can't and have to walk around, then great. This is amazing. If this means in the future they design new maps where you need to jump to access certain areas, even better. (Like jumping a series of rocks/small islands in a river/chasm to get across to the other side.)

I am over all optimistic about the changes and look forward to testing them out once they arrive. I am not an active player any more, but I am keeping my eye on the state of things and will come back if it becomes enjoyable.

[blindSharingan]

you know I logged in last week, first time since the month I bought it.. spammed keys for an hour and said I will never play this again unless that is changed. Surprised it doesn't bother more people.

I really don't ever want to see auto-attack. When I stopped playing XI one of the things that started grating on me the most was how slow combat was. While the current system may be repetitive, at least I'm not sitting there 30 seconds to a minute waiting on abilities doing nothing. I really like the fact that every action that I take is deliberate. I don't want to play XI again.