Regarding the Official FFXIV Forums (03/04/2011)

[Hyan]

http://static.finalfantasyxiv.com/to...812705c89f681c

http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com...21dac6400c8b79

We would like to outline some details of the official forums and the changes that will be made to existing features on the Lodestone. Specific forum features will be announced within the forum itself following its launch.

We will be launching the official FINAL FANTASY XIV forums to offer a dedicated setting where players can communicate with each other and make their opinions heard. The forums will also be a centralized location for us to gather suggestions and feedback on future plans announced by the development and operations teams.

Launch Date
March 8, 2011

The forums will initially launch in a beta version to test certain features and server load. There will be no limitations on the forum features, but certain features, such as the linking of character data, will be unavailable. Also, posts may occasionally be rolled back to a previous version in the event of data corruption during the testing period.
Access

Anyone can freely view the forums without logging in. Please be aware, however, that to post comments and join in the discussion, or to access certain features, a Square Enix account with an active FINAL FANTASY XIV service account is required.
Development and Operations Teams

Representatives from the development and operations teams will also be present on the forums, reading player comments and making posts of their own, as well.
Forum Languages

The FINAL FANTASY XIV forums will be offered in Japanese, English, French, and German. Users will be able to access the forums in any language, regardless of the region where their Square Enix account is registered.

Please keep in mind that comments from the development and operation teams may not be made available in all languages. Some comments will initially appear in a single language, and then be translated into others at a later time, while others may appear in specific languages only. Support within the forums will always be offered in all languages.
Changes Coinciding with Forum Launch

Along with the introduction of the forums, certain changes will be made to features and announcements.
Topics

Topics posts regarding upcoming patches, future plans, and other game updates, and Letters from the Producer will be made on the forums. Such posts will be announced in both Topics and Twitter posts!

The FAQ-style articles posted on a periodic basis will also be transferred to the forums.
Information Section

Service related posts, such as general information and server maintenance notices, will initially be made on both the official website and the forums. In the future, however, these posts will eventually be made on the forums only, though they will also be announced via Topics.

We look forward to everyone participating in the various discussions and offering plenty of feedback on the forum. See you there!

[Vice-Admiral von Titsling]

Please keep in mind that comments from the development and operation teams may not be made available in all languages.

Unpleased.

[Shenrien]

Probably means like Spanish, Italian, Arabic, ect... all the dead languages that games seem to refuse to support.

[Karinastar]

I read that as JP ONRY for a lot of dev posts. I'm sure they'll translate the important stuff, but if we want to see every little thing someone's gonna have to read the JP forums. The good news is they're not region locking them or anything, so as long as people who speak JP keep an eye on their forums we shouldn't miss anything. I do hope that we at least get some chances to directly engage the dev team in conversation via a translator or whatever though, because judging by the last poll results the JPs seem to have different opinions than NA/EU on several things.

[Hyan]

Probably means like Spanish, Italian, Arabic, ect... all the dead languages that games seem to refuse to support.

I'd guess they mean any language other than JP.

[Waraji]

I wonder what percentage of Fan Site forum users will be moving to the official forums. I probably will for the most part, as I'm tired of going to different fansite forums to see if there are any Active topics. By far imo BG is the most informative so far, and that's not saying much since the other 2 threads seem to just have 2-3 topics going at a time, and they are all about bitching/white-knighting.

[Corrderio]

If the forums are anything like the beta... yeah I'm not getting anywhere near them.

[Cureslime]

I think by not being translated they just mean random posts that devs may make on a forum. Like if somebody makes a cheesecake thread and a dev posts "I liek cheesecake" there is no reason to pour man hours into translating that into every language.

There will probably be a lot of venting on the forums at first but it should eventually settle down. This is brand new territory for them so it'll be interesting to see how they handle it.

[Gulkeeva]

thinking ffxiv forums will have the trolls from every current fan forum jumping in and having some orgy.

[Selamis]

I wonder what percentage of Fan Site forum users will be moving to the official forums. I probably will for the most part, as I'm tired of going to different fansite forums to see if there are any Active topics. By far imo BG is the most informative so far, and that's not saying much since the other 2 threads seem to just have 2-3 topics going at a time, and they are all about bitching/white-knighting.

Only reason I will ever step foot in official forums is to read posts by Yoshi-P and other devs, anything else in there would be a waste of time.

[Sephiroth]

Only reason I will ever step foot in official forums is to read posts by Yoshi-P and other devs, anything else in there would be a waste of time.

If you want your voice heard on the future of the game then it's in your best interests to post. You don't want SE listening to all the Zam/Core trolls who think the game as it was in January was the perfect MMO right? I'll be posting in any thread that the developers are likely to care about.

[tymora]

Only took them 10 years to realize a MMO needs official forums...

[Selamis]

If you want your voice heard on the future of the game then it's in your best interests to post. You don't want SE listening to all the Zam/Core trolls who think the game as it was in January was the perfect MMO right? I'll be posting in any thread that the developers are likely to care about.

We'll see how that goes, if this is anything like how the beta forums were, when the devs were supposed to be listening to our feedback in how to shape the game and then ignored pretty much everything we said needed fixing....it'll still be a waste of time. If they actually respond to people, and make changes based on player feedback then sure, it's worth the time to post.

[Sephiroth]

I think they've learned from their beta mistakes when the launch failed and the game got slammed hardcore by just about every gaming website. But as you say, we'll see how it goes.

[Kurokikaze]

If you want your voice heard on the future of the game then it's in your best interests to post. You don't want SE listening to all the Zam/Core trolls who think the game as it was in January was the perfect MMO right? I'll be posting in any thread that the developers are likely to care about.

Exactly. If you think you have a good idea for the game post it on there. No one is telling you to participate in their general chatter section. lol

I have high hopes that under Yoshi-P these forums won't go the way of the Beta Forums.

[Selamis]

The main thing that gives me hope that they won't turn into the beta forums, is that we'll need a SE ID account to post, so if trolling gets out of hand they could just suspend your account and access to 14/11 as a way of policing people. Then again, you needed that to post in the beta forums too and that wasn't really monitored all that well lol, and was a complete mess. I pray and hope these forums work this time around and doesn't become another FFXI Linkshell Community site that gets forgotten after a few months, maybe they learned. Yoshi has shown at least he gets the mmo genre from his letters, would be awesome if the same applied with official forums.

[Elrina]

Yeah, hoping that Yoshida has a plan as far as forum moderation, since this isn't a short term thing like the beta forums were. I see it as a good thing long term, even if it might be something of a mess initially. I like the warning about potential forum rollbacks initially too, rofl.

And the way I see them not translating all the dev posts, is that it's simply not worth the time. It was probably part of the reason they never wanted to before, because people would complain if they didn't have every single thing translated. The way I see it, I would rather have the devs posting in Japanese and leaving it up to us to get those posts translated than not posting at all.