FFXIV Naoki Yoshida Interview Transcription

[Sonomaa]

This is the question list, the actual interview is being transcribed right now by forum member The Blackrose. He will post the questions and answers as he finishes them and we will eventually post the entire audio to the forums.

Keep checking the thread!

1. With the new 2.0 server systems, will the major game breaking issues such as animation lock, the positioning imprecision, and interface lag be greatly reduced?

2. Payment using Click and Buy is something a majority of the users have come to not want. Since you seem to be listening very well to what the players want, why haven't we heard anything regarding SE's own private subscription plans and the abolishment of the Click and Buy contract?

4. Why are you deciding to charge now, when the game is only 50% to where you wanted it to be at launch? It seems awkward that we're going to be paying a subscription fee for a product that is only half complete, how do you justify this?

We did an informal poll after the decision to charge the game and 70% of our user base was against being charged a fee to play the current game in its incomplete state. Are you thinking of backing away from the intent to charge or are you considering offering it for a much lower monthly fee.

5. In the 2.0 PDFs, addons were highlighted as something you want to see happen. Tanaka said the same about addons early in XIV's development but we never saw anything come out from it. Will you be releasing a developer kit to help create new addons for the game and show you're fully supported in evaluating and balancing addons?


7. How are you planning on addressing the current loot distribution quagmire that seems to plague the game right now? Ifrit drops weapons that people can't use because they don't have the jobs leveled, nor do they want to level those classes. Loot cannot be master looted or need for greeded, and there is no random number roll. In 2.0 how are you addressing this lack of attention in the loot table and loot distribution department?

11. What are you planning on doing about the monotonous crafting mechanics? People literally sit and press enter for hours on end. Why was this specific crafting style chosen over something simplistic and automatic ala World of Warcraft?

24. Will the new engine allow for a full screen windowed mode that every other mainstream MMO has without the use of a hack. Will the new engine support muiltiple monitors and multiple video cards.

Will the new graphic engine support Direct X10/11 are will they be making the same mistake in sticking with Direct X9.0c?
classes and jobs that will utilize them, and how will summons come into play?

--

4. Why are you deciding to charge now, when the game is only 50% to where you wanted it to be at launch? It seems awkward that we're going to be paying a subscription fee for a product that is only half complete, how do you justify this?

Sonomaa (BG): Why are you deciding to charge now, when the game is only 50% to where you wanted it to be at launch? It seems awkward that we're going to be paying a subscription fee for a product that is only half complete and going to be completely new at a year's time.

Square-Enix: To clear a little up - the payment system will not be starting now, we just announced it now. We are planning on starting the payment system sometime in December, after patch 1.2. In 1.20, some of the major changes we will be making includes a more advanced player search and to get a market system as close to the Final Fantasy XI auction house as possible. This would be where you could search for an item, and then buy that item, or see the past 20 auctions. This will be before we start asking for payments.

The 50% number, during the Live Producer letter, came from where they were at before the release of 1.19. Once 1.2 is released, that will be even closer to the final vision of the current game. We want players to try 1.2 and see that our game is officially worth paying for, which is when the customers can decide if they want to pay for it or not.

And then from 1.2 to 2.0 we will continue to release content that you can only play at this time - realtime updates with realtime story that you can only experience NOW. If a player plays through 1.2 and decides if the game is not there yet, they can choose not to play or do the billing system. But we ask them to keep coming back to check what we're adding in 1.21 or 1.22 because there will be a lot of content that they will not be able to experience in any other MMO. We hope that by offering different things that they will come back.

BG: We did an informal poll on our forums about the decision to charge for the game, and 70% of our users that voted in the poll were very against being charged a fee. However, when I brought up just as a side-question, what would they feel about paying, say, half that cost, while in this early developments stage, most were not against paying half for what they perceived as a half-finished game. But they also understand that what happens in FFXIV-I is not necessarily the same as FFXIV-II.

SE: It's interesting to hear that the player base was against it, but when offered paying half that more were for it.

BG: Yeah, to them it's still half of what they wanted, when the game was still released. So only paying half is like the beta phase/beta 2 phase. They were, "I can stand $6-$7 instead of $14."

SE: We went over many options when deciding to start the subscription system again. Maybe charging half, maybe charging less, maybe extending the free period. There's many options. The reason we decided to start the subscription system and charge the price we're charging is that, one of the things is players playing now, others players go "Why are you playing this game? It's not done." Maybe charging less for it, you get the sense, "Oh, it's still not done and you're still not getting a full product." This is our roadmap. This is what we're going to do. We're getting the players opinions and reflecting them in the game. We're also working to give players beyond even what they expect with update content, such as the realtime events that you will not be able to play anywhere else. We have to show the players that we'll be accepting money from you now, so now we have to work even harder in order to give you more than what you get for your money. But you went ahead and you had this poll and we know that you're a good group of hardcore players that have been there a long time. So we are taking this poll to heart and discuss this again and see if this is an option for us. We will then get back to the players and decide.

1. With the new 2.0 server systems, will the major game breaking issues such as animation lock, the positioning imprecision, and interface lag be greatly reduced?

Sonomaa (BG): With the new 2.0 server systems, will the major game breaking issues such as animation lock, the positioning imprecision, and interface lag be greatly reduced? Closer to the speed of FFXI? Or better than FFXI?

Square-Enix: First of all, we'd like for you not to worry. The interface lag will get much better when we introduce the server system for 2.0. As compared to 11, he (Yoshida) would rather compare it to World of Warcraft. It's going to depend on things such as your personal environment, equipment, etc. But it will be closer to that then what currently exists.

BG: That is important, because FFXI is good, but World of Warcraft is "I push forward, I go forward. I turn around, I turn around." In FFXI, I can turn around with a few button clicks and it's not that slow. In FFXIV, I turned around and it took 30 seconds to finish that rotation. I have a Core-i7 - a fast computer - and not being able to do that was a problem.

SE: The current plan, when we're redesigning the servers, is to have a system where there's difficult tactical battles. Like the Ifrit battle, he wants to make end content closer to this - where it's all about the positioning is important and where response is immediate so you have to decide in one second where to make these moves...

BG: Don't stand in the fire.

SE: [chuckling] Yes, don't stand in the fire. So, the current system they are building will allow them to have more battles like this - more action based content where it might take a lot of different tactics instead of whacking away.

2. Payment using Click and Buy is something a majority of the users have come to not want. Since you seem to be listening very well to what the players want, why haven't we heard anything regarding SE's own private subscription plans and the abolishment of the Click and Buy contract?

Sonomaa (BG): Payment using Click and Buy is something a majority of the users have come to not want. Since you seem to be listening very well to what the players want, why haven't we heard anything regarding SE's own private subscription plans and the abolishment of the Click and Buy contract?

Square-Enix: We have received a lot of user response to how they do not want to use Click and Buy. So in response to that, we have started moving forward with different ways of purchasing Crysta and using that towards your system. So we are moving towards options other than Click and Buy. We're continuing to get a lot of different opinions and what are the best options. We will use this data to give the community more options to pay. It is an ongoing process.

BG: Our community seems to favor credit cards, PayPal or prepaid cards, and I have never heard of Click and Buy before FFXIV came out. A lot of people were wondering if this is legit, or if it was something that was made up?

[Some discussion ensues among the SE staff. Possible take-away question for later?]

7. How are you planning on addressing the current loot distribution quagmire that seems to plague the game right now? Ifrit drops weapons that people can't use because they don't have the jobs leveled, nor do they want to level those classes. Loot cannot be master looted or need for greeded, and there is no random number roll. In 2.0 how are you addressing this lack of attention in the loot table and loot distribution department?

Sonomaa (BG): How are you planning on addressing the current loot distribution quagmire that seems to plague the game right now? Ifrit drops weapons that people can't use because they don't have the jobs leveled, nor do they want to level those classes. Loot cannot be master looted, needed, or greeded, and there is no random number roll. In 2.0 how are you addressing this lack of attention in the loot table and loot distribution department?

Square-Enix: First of all, we want to make adjustments to this before 2.0. It comes down to whether or not a Need/Greed system is the best way to go? Where the player's current class dictates if they can accept the loot? There are a lot of different options. But with the Armory system being the way it is - being able to take abilities from other classes and attach them to the class you're playing - currently the game may favor this one class with a certain combination. But in future battles maybe it will be other jobs (once implemented), with different abilities, will become more popular and so players will want items that they can use in the future. So it comes down to which is the best type of system that corresponds with the unique Armory system. And so designing a system that meets that is very difficult. Actually, he (Yoshida) has a question for you - what would you think be the most optimal loot system for the current FFXIV?

BG: There honestly isn't a question of that. The World of Warcraft system of Need/Greed and the option of a Master Looter. If say, I'm a Warrior, and I'm on Warrior. I can Need on Warrior gear, but I can't Need on Thief gear. But I can Greed on Thief gear! So that way it can be an option - a Need before Greed. This is something that went down in FFXI. You had Black Mages spending their DKP on E Bodies (Earthen Abjuration: Body/Adaman Hauberk), when Warriors did not have E Bodies.

SE: Regarding the DKP - because it's a big issue on the forums - we hope to address this along with the Free Company issue on Lodestone really soon, so please keep an eye there. But we agree that this Need/Greed system is what we want for the game - at least a variation on this, of course. So in the coming months, this will be one of the things addressed on Lodestone, but this will be something that does not have to wait for 2.0.

11. What are you planning on doing about the monotonous crafting mechanics? People literally sit and press enter for hours on end. Why was this specific crafting style chosen over something simplistic and automatic ala World of Warcraft?

Sonomaa (BG): What are you planning on doing about the monotonous crafting mechanics? People literally sit and press enter for hours on end. Why was this specific crafting style chosen over something simplistic and automatic ala World of Warcraft? I hate to keep going back to World of Warcraft, but they're winning.

Square-Enix: It's a matter of priority so far. For the past 10 months, we prioritized all of the things we thought we needed to get fixed first. On the top of that list: UI, Battle System. Also, Content, where the content was based on Guildleves. So, over the past 10 months, it has been fixing the things that needed fixes and adding more content. With the Crafting System, again, we prioritized what needed to be fixed first. The first thing that needed to be fixed was that the Recipe System was way too complex - way too many ingredients, way too many steps to get to your final product. Something that was way too difficult for the novice player to get into. You would have to be hardcore if you wanted to make something. So getting those things fixed first was our priority.

[Yoshida speaks more]

And he's going on more; it's the amount of materials you needed. It wasn't just pressing Enter, it was having to get ALL of these materials before pressing Enter. And so the next step, which we hope to do really soon, is now shorten the number of steps to actually do the crafting. Instead of, you know, sitting down, doing the thing, standing up, getting your stuff, etc. Consolidate all of it and cut down on the steps is the next step being taken.

And one of the things we're planning is two different crafting systems. One that's very simplified and that you're going just for the item you need without having to worry about High Quality, with a small chance of High Quality. Then there's the other system, where it will take more time and effort, but the chance of getting that High Quality item will become higher. So the people who want to spend more time and do it carefully will have the higher chance of a High Quality, and then the people who want to get it done, they have the consolidated system.

BG: Will you be abolishing breaks? Like FFXI had breaks, where you could lose everything and it was heartbreaking.

SE: Yes, we've already begun discussing removing that loss probability. If it's below, at, or just a bit above your crafting level, then the loss probability would be removed. But if it's something far above your crafting level - if you succeed, then you get the experience bonus, but if it is far above your level, having those item lost are a good way...

BG: Agreed. Good.

SE: That's the standard, and we hope to get to that. That's what we're thinking.

BG: I just hated making arrows with my Ranger in FFXI that were 30 points below and blowing up the whole thing. Why am I blowing up my arrows?

SE: [Discussion and laughs among the SE staff] We'll take that into consideration.

5. In the 2.0 PDFs, addons were highlighted as something you want to see happen. Tanaka said the same about addons early in XIV's development but we never saw anything come out from it. Will you be releasing a developer kit to help create new addons for the game and show you're fully supported in evaluating and balancing addons?

Sonomaa (BG): In the 2.0 PDFs, addons were highlighted as something you want to see happen. Tanaka said the same about addons early in XIV's development but we never saw anything come out from it. Will you be releasing a developer kit to help create new addons for the game and show you're fully supported in evaluating and balancing addons? I know one of the most asked ones is a parser for people who like to min/max their damage, and just customizing the screen to look more like what players want.

Square-Enix: Rather than XML or LUA, like World of Warcraft is using, we're thinking of provide this in Flash simply to make it more visual. We'll be preparing a dev kit and providing that with help for the players. Once we get closer to the release of the dev kit (before it's even released), we will talk to the community and show what we have planned to put in it - UI engine, what we're providing - and then we can get feedback. So you could say, "This is not going to be enough, we need this," so we can get that feedback and get as close to what the community wants as possible.

Ragns (BG): When should we be expecting to see this?

SE: We could start now, but we're using SQWT and the situation is that it's such a mess that it's something that players would not be able to work well with. We want to streamline things to make it easy for players so we can get the best addons from the players. We feel that this is going to come with the release of 2.0. So we hope to have stuff ready about the same time.

Sonomaa (BG): I know he wants to work on his custom Final Fantasy I UI.

SE: [laughs] You'll have lots of time to use that screenshot we released and how you want to rearrange that to make it more like Final Fantasy I. With a lot of games, they'll have their addon community. Within BlueGartr, how many would you say are in that addon community.

Sonomaa (BG): A lot.

SE: A lot?

Sonomaa (BG): I'm not even joking. I'm not joking. You're talking the core hardcore player. The parsers for Final Fantasy XI were almost exclusively fixed by the BG community. The unofficial Windower for Final Fantasy XI... most of the addons - the fixing, the creation of that came from the Final Fantasy community, our community. Addons were created by many of our members, including BG members - not forum members.

SE: [laughs] Don't incriminate yourself now!

Sonomaa (BG): Well, Yarnball is the only plugin that has not broken, so I know he (Ragns) knows what he's doing.

SE: [more laughs] We'll make sure the mods you guys make will be able to be used for a long time. We don't want to make it where you make a mod, we change something, and you can't use it anymore. So we want to work with you.

Sonomaa (BG): World of Warcraft does that a lot - every major patch breaks half the addons. That, to me, is a... "Why are you screwing the community so much?" I can understand if something is broken and needs to be changed because it's breaking the fundamental game. But if every patch you have to disable all your addons, it doesn't seem professional. Even though the community may look like amateurs, they are pretty good at what they do.

SE: As you probably know, Japanese game development has been console based for a very long time. This whole concept of addons is very popular in the West, but not something a lot of developers are used to in Japan. They don't know how big of a community that is in America. So getting our developers to realize the importance of this, and not just tacking on something in the middle of a game after it is finished and having problems created that way, we're getting the game ready to accept addons.

[One of the staff inquires about more questions in Japanese, followed by more laughs]

Sonomaa (BG): [sighs sarcastically] I have so many more!

SE: If you send some of the questions by mail, we can answer them afterwards as well.

*Transcriber's note: There's one or two more after this.

Will the new graphic engine support Direct X10/11 are will they be making the same mistake in sticking with Direct X9.0c?

Sonomaa (BG): Will the graphics engine support Direct X10/11 and additional features, such as a full screen windowed mode without the limitations of ALT-TAB killing your game. DirectX 9.0c was a great API for Windows XP, but we're not on that anymore. We have very powerful graphics cards. We want the game to play like we know it should. Will the new engine will be a DirectX 10/11 engine or will it be an older, legacy engine.

Square-Enix: First thing, we're going to make sure ALT-TAB does not kill your game! [laughs] We're sorry it still happens!

The first thing, with this current graphics engine, is that you can't do things such as display more than 40 characters at the same time. That, to him (Yoshida), was nonsense. First, we wanted to start off by having an engine that covers that, and get rid old problems like that. We're making the new graphics engine such that if you have a high-end PC, we want you to be able to display tons of different characters and not have it tax your CPU. But we're also making it to where low-end PCs can also play it and have a similar experience without losing too much, without having to have that high-end PC. We hope to have that by 2.0. After the release of 2.0, getting it ready for DirectX 11 is the next step. We had the option of having DirectX 11 ready at release, but it would have made release later. So we wanted to get the new engine out and have this type of high quality for high-end/low-end. Then our next step is DirectX 11. And again, it was a priority thing. We had this schedule of how we wanted to remake the game in an unprecedented time of 2 years and to make that, we chose to do that first and then go to DirectX 11. But we do promise that we will do it. It's not one of those things where, "But well, yeah, 11, yeah, whatever blah blah..."

BG: That's important for a lot of our community. They don't want to play an old game. They want to play a new game, and if they upgrade, they don't want their new hardware to not have compatibility. That's the problem our FFXI users are running into. They buy a new graphics card - Oh, we have a list of graphics cards not to buy because they cannot play FFXI on those graphics cards!

SE: That's one of the main things we have in our head when we're planning for our new engine. We want those high-end users to take advantage of their high-end platform and get the best out of it as they can. To make sure we have an engine that can support that.

--


Full audio.

[Vandole]

4. Why are you deciding to charge now, when the game is only 50% to where you wanted it to be at launch? It seems awkward that we're going to be paying a subscription fee for a product that is only half complete, how do you justify this?

Sonomaa (BG): Why are you deciding to charge now, when the game is only 50% to where you wanted it to be at launch? It seems awkward that we're going to be paying a subscription fee for a product that is only half complete and going to be completely new at a year's time.

Square-Enix: To clear a little up - the payment system will not be starting now, we just announced it now. We are planning on starting the payment system sometime in December, after patch 1.2. In 1.20, some of the major changes we will be making includes a more advanced player search and to get a market system as close to the Final Fantasy XI auction house as possible. This would be where you could search for an item, and then buy that item, or see the past 20 auctions. This will be before we start asking for payments.

The 50% number, during the Live Producer letter, came from where they were at before the release of 1.19. Once 1.2 is released, that will be even closer to the final vision of the current game. We want players to try 1.2 and see that our game is officially worth paying for, which is when the customers can decide if they want to pay for it or not.

And then from 1.2 to 2.0 we will continue to release content that you can only play at this time - realtime updates with realtime story that you can only experience NOW. If a player plays through 1.2 and decides if the game is not there yet, they can choose not to play or do the billing system. But we ask them to keep coming back to check what we're adding in 1.21 or 1.22 because there will be a lot of content that they will not be able to experience in any other MMO. We hope that by offering different things that they will come back.

BG: We did an informal poll on our forums about the decision to charge for the game, and 70% of our users that voted in the poll were very against being charged a fee. However, when I brought up just as a side-question, what would they feel about paying, say, half that cost, while in this early developments stage, most were not against paying half for what they perceived as a half-finished game. But they also understand that what happens in FFXIV-I is not necessarily the same as FFXIV-II.

SE: It's interesting to hear that the player base was against it, but when offered paying half that more were for it.

BG: Yeah, to them it's still half of what they wanted, when the game was still released. So only paying half is like the beta phase/beta 2 phase. They were, "I can stand $6-$7 instead of $14."

SE: We went over many options when deciding to start the subscription system again. Maybe charging half, maybe charging less, maybe extending the free period. There's many options. The reason we decided to start the subscription system and charge the price we're charging is that, one of the things is players playing now, others players go "Why are you playing this game? It's not done." Maybe charging less for it, you get the sense, "Oh, it's still not done and you're still not getting a full product." This is our roadmap. This is what we're going to do. We're getting the players opinions and reflecting them in the game. We're also working to give players beyond even what they expect with update content, such as the realtime events that you will not be able to play anywhere else. We have to show the players that we'll be accepting money from you now, so now we have to work even harder in order to give you more than what you get for your money. But you went ahead and you had this poll and we know that you're a good group of hardcore players that have been there a long time. So we are taking this poll to heart and discuss this again and see if this is an option for us. We will then get back to the players and decide.

[The Blackrose]

I'll be posting these one at a time, so bear with me. A full transcription of the interview will be posted later. But in the mean time, so the questions are answered, I'll be transcribing just them.

1. With the new 2.0 server systems, will the major game breaking issues such as animation lock, the positioning imprecision, and interface lag be greatly reduced?

Sonomaa (BG): With the new 2.0 server systems, will the major game breaking issues such as animation lock, the positioning imprecision, and interface lag be greatly reduced? Closer to the speed of FFXI? Or better than FFXI?

Square-Enix: First of all, we'd like for you not to worry. The interface lag will get much better when we introduce the server system for 2.0. As compared to 11, he (Yoshida) would rather compare it to World of Warcraft. It's going to depend on things such as your personal environment, equipment, etc. But it will be closer to that then what currently exists.

BG: That is important, because FFXI is good, but World of Warcraft is "I push forward, I go forward. I turn around, I turn around." In FFXI, I can turn around with a few button clicks and it's not that slow. In FFXIV, I turned around and it took 30 seconds to finish that rotation. I have a Core-i7 - a fast computer - and not being able to do that was a problem.

SE: The current plan, when we're redesigning the servers, is to have a system where there's difficult tactical battles. Like the Ifrit battle, he wants to make end content closer to this - where it's all about the positioning is important and where response is immediate so you have to decide in one second where to make these moves...

BG: Don't stand in the fire.

SE: [chuckling] Yes, don't stand in the fire. So, the current system they are building will allow them to have more battles like this - more action based content where it might take a lot of different tactics instead of whacking away.

[The Blackrose]

2. Payment using Click and Buy is something a majority of the users have come to not want. Since you seem to be listening very well to what the players want, why haven't we heard anything regarding SE's own private subscription plans and the abolishment of the Click and Buy contract?

Sonomaa (BG): Payment using Click and Buy is something a majority of the users have come to not want. Since you seem to be listening very well to what the players want, why haven't we heard anything regarding SE's own private subscription plans and the abolishment of the Click and Buy contract?

Square-Enix: We have received a lot of user response to how they do not want to use Click and Buy. So in response to that, we have started moving forward with different ways of purchasing Crysta and using that towards your system. So we are moving towards options other than Click and Buy. We're continuing to get a lot of different opinions and what are the best options. We will use this data to give the community more options to pay. It is an ongoing process.

BG: Our community seems to favor credit cards, PayPal or prepaid cards, and I have never heard of Click and Buy before FFXIV came out. A lot of people were wondering if this is legit, or if it was something that was made up?

[Some discussion ensues among the SE staff. Possible take-away question for later?]

[The Blackrose]

Some of these are out of order as well, so continue to bear with me.

7. How are you planning on addressing the current loot distribution quagmire that seems to plague the game right now? Ifrit drops weapons that people can't use because they don't have the jobs leveled, nor do they want to level those classes. Loot cannot be master looted or need for greeded, and there is no random number roll. In 2.0 how are you addressing this lack of attention in the loot table and loot distribution department?

Sonomaa (BG): How are you planning on addressing the current loot distribution quagmire that seems to plague the game right now? Ifrit drops weapons that people can't use because they don't have the jobs leveled, nor do they want to level those classes. Loot cannot be master looted, needed, or greeded, and there is no random number roll. In 2.0 how are you addressing this lack of attention in the loot table and loot distribution department?

Square-Enix: First of all, we want to make adjustments to this before 2.0. It comes down to whether or not a Need/Greed system is the best way to go? Where the player's current class dictates if they can accept the loot? There are a lot of different options. But with the Armory system being the way it is - being able to take abilities from other classes and attach them to the class you're playing - currently the game may favor this one class with a certain combination. But in future battles maybe it will be other jobs (once implemented), with different abilities, will become more popular and so players will want items that they can use in the future. So it comes down to which is the best type of system that corresponds with the unique Armory system. And so designing a system that meets that is very difficult. Actually, he (Yoshida) has a question for you - what would you think be the most optimal loot system for the current FFXIV?

BG: There honestly isn't a question of that. The World of Warcraft system of Need/Greed and the option of a Master Looter. If say, I'm a Warrior, and I'm on Warrior. I can Need on Warrior gear, but I can't Need on Thief gear. But I can Greed on Thief gear! So that way it can be an option - a Need before Greed. This is something that went down in FFXI. You had Black Mages spending their DKP on E Bodies (Earthen Abjuration: Body/Adaman Hauberk), when Warriors did not have E Bodies.

SE: Regarding the DKP - because it's a big issue on the forums - we hope to address this along with the Free Company issue on Lodestone really soon, so please keep an eye there. But we agree that this Need/Greed system is what we want for the game - at least a variation on this, of course. So in the coming months, this will be one of the things addressed on Lodestone, but this will be something that does not have to wait for 2.0.

[The Blackrose]

11. What are you planning on doing about the monotonous crafting mechanics? People literally sit and press enter for hours on end. Why was this specific crafting style chosen over something simplistic and automatic ala World of Warcraft?

Sonomaa (BG): What are you planning on doing about the monotonous crafting mechanics? People literally sit and press enter for hours on end. Why was this specific crafting style chosen over something simplistic and automatic ala World of Warcraft? I hate to keep going back to World of Warcraft, but they're winning.

Square-Enix: It's a matter of priority so far. For the past 10 months, we prioritized all of the things we thought we needed to get fixed first. On the top of that list: UI, Battle System. Also, Content, where the content was based on Guildleves. So, over the past 10 months, it has been fixing the things that needed fixes and adding more content. With the Crafting System, again, we prioritized what needed to be fixed first. The first thing that needed to be fixed was that the Recipe System was way too complex - way too many ingredients, way too many steps to get to your final product. Something that was way too difficult for the novice player to get into. You would have to be hardcore if you wanted to make something. So getting those things fixed first was our priority.

[Yoshida speaks more]

And he's going on more; it's the amount of materials you needed. It wasn't just pressing Enter, it was having to get ALL of these materials before pressing Enter. And so the next step, which we hope to do really soon, is now shorten the number of steps to actually do the crafting. Instead of, you know, sitting down, doing the thing, standing up, getting your stuff, etc. Consolidate all of it and cut down on the steps is the next step being taken.

And one of the things we're planning is two different crafting systems. One that's very simplified and that you're going just for the item you need without having to worry about High Quality, with a small chance of High Quality. Then there's the other system, where it will take more time and effort, but the chance of getting that High Quality item will become higher. So the people who want to spend more time and do it carefully will have the higher chance of a High Quality, and then the people who want to get it done, they have the consolidated system.

BG: Will you be abolishing breaks? Like FFXI had breaks, where you could lose everything and it was heartbreaking.

SE: Yes, we've already begun discussing removing that loss probability. If it's below, at, or just a bit above your crafting level, then the loss probability would be removed. But if it's something far above your crafting level - if you succeed, then you get the experience bonus, but if it is far above your level, having those item lost are a good way...

BG: Agreed. Good.

SE: That's the standard, and we hope to get to that. That's what we're thinking.

BG: I just hated making arrows with my Ranger in FFXI that were 30 points below and blowing up the whole thing. Why am I blowing up my arrows?

SE: [Discussion and laughs among the SE staff] We'll take that into consideration.

[The Blackrose]

5. In the 2.0 PDFs, addons were highlighted as something you want to see happen. Tanaka said the same about addons early in XIV's development but we never saw anything come out from it. Will you be releasing a developer kit to help create new addons for the game and show you're fully supported in evaluating and balancing addons?

Sonomaa (BG): In the 2.0 PDFs, addons were highlighted as something you want to see happen. Tanaka said the same about addons early in XIV's development but we never saw anything come out from it. Will you be releasing a developer kit to help create new addons for the game and show you're fully supported in evaluating and balancing addons? I know one of the most asked ones is a parser for people who like to min/max their damage, and just customizing the screen to look more like what players want.

Square-Enix: Rather than XML or LUA, like World of Warcraft is using, we're thinking of provide this in Flash simply to make it more visual. We'll be preparing a dev kit and providing that with help for the players. Once we get closer to the release of the dev kit (before it's even released), we will talk to the community and show what we have planned to put in it - UI engine, what we're providing - and then we can get feedback. So you could say, "This is not going to be enough, we need this," so we can get that feedback and get as close to what the community wants as possible.

Ragns (BG): When should we be expecting to see this?

SE: We could start now, but we're using SQWT and the situation is that it's such a mess that it's something that players would not be able to work well with. We want to streamline things to make it easy for players so we can get the best addons from the players. We feel that this is going to come with the release of 2.0. So we hope to have stuff ready about the same time.

Sonomaa (BG): I know he wants to work on his custom Final Fantasy I UI.

SE: [laughs] You'll have lots of time to use that screenshot we released and how you want to rearrange that to make it more like Final Fantasy I. With a lot of games, they'll have their addon community. Within BlueGartr, how many would you say are in that addon community.

Sonomaa (BG): A lot.

SE: A lot?

Sonomaa (BG): I'm not even joking. I'm not joking. You're talking the core hardcore player. The parsers for Final Fantasy XI were almost exclusively fixed by the BG community. The unofficial Windower for Final Fantasy XI... most of the addons - the fixing, the creation of that came from the Final Fantasy community, our community. Addons were created by many of our members, including BG members - not forum members.

SE: [laughs] Don't incriminate yourself now!

Sonomaa (BG): Well, Yarnball is the only plugin that has not broken, so I know he (Ragns) knows what he's doing.

SE: [more laughs] We'll make sure the mods you guys make will be able to be used for a long time. We don't want to make it where you make a mod, we change something, and you can't use it anymore. So we want to work with you.

Sonomaa (BG): World of Warcraft does that a lot - every major patch breaks half the addons. That, to me, is a... "Why are you screwing the community so much?" I can understand if something is broken and needs to be changed because it's breaking the fundamental game. But if every patch you have to disable all your addons, it doesn't seem professional. Even though the community may look like amateurs, they are pretty good at what they do.

SE: As you probably know, Japanese game development has been console based for a very long time. This whole concept of addons is very popular in the West, but not something a lot of developers are used to in Japan. They don't know how big of a community that is in America. So getting our developers to realize the importance of this, and not just tacking on something in the middle of a game after it is finished and having problems created that way, we're getting the game ready to accept addons.

[One of the staff inquires about more questions in Japanese, followed by more laughs]

Sonomaa (BG): [sighs sarcastically] I have so many more!

SE: If you send some of the questions by mail, we can answer them afterwards as well.

*Transcriber's note: There's one or two more after this.

[The Blackrose]

Will the new graphic engine support Direct X10/11 are will they be making the same mistake in sticking with Direct X9.0c?

Sonomaa (BG): Will the graphics engine support Direct X10/11 and additional features, such as a full screen windowed mode without the limitations of ALT-TAB killing your game. DirectX 9.0c was a great API for Windows XP, but we're not on that anymore. We have very powerful graphics cards. We want the game to play like we know it should. Will the new engine will be a DirectX 10/11 engine or will it be an older, legacy engine.

Square-Enix: First thing, we're going to make sure ALT-TAB does not kill your game! [laughs] We're sorry it still happens!

The first thing, with this current graphics engine, is that you can't do things such as display more than 40 characters at the same time. That, to him (Yoshida), was nonsense. First, we wanted to start off by having an engine that covers that, and get rid old problems like that. We're making the new graphics engine such that if you have a high-end PC, we want you to be able to display tons of different characters and not have it tax your CPU. But we're also making it to where low-end PCs can also play it and have a similar experience without losing too much, without having to have that high-end PC. We hope to have that by 2.0. After the release of 2.0, getting it ready for DirectX 11 is the next step. We had the option of having DirectX 11 ready at release, but it would have made release later. So we wanted to get the new engine out and have this type of high quality for high-end/low-end. Then our next step is DirectX 11. And again, it was a priority thing. We had this schedule of how we wanted to remake the game in an unprecedented time of 2 years and to make that, we chose to do that first and then go to DirectX 11. But we do promise that we will do it. It's not one of those things where, "But well, yeah, 11, yeah, whatever blah blah..."

BG: That's important for a lot of our community. They don't want to play an old game. They want to play a new game, and if they upgrade, they don't want their new hardware to not have compatibility. That's the problem our FFXI users are running into. They buy a new graphics card - Oh, we have a list of graphics cards not to buy because they cannot play FFXI on those graphics cards!

SE: That's one of the main things we have in our head when we're planning for our new engine. We want those high-end users to take advantage of their high-end platform and get the best out of it as they can. To make sure we have an engine that can support that.

[The Blackrose]

That's all she wrote, folks. All I have left to do is transcribe Yoshida's opening statement, which will be added to the fully assembled list of questions and answers.

[Kurokikaze]

/golfclap on that DirectX11 response. It won't be there at launch but it's definitely in the works for the new engine going forward. Fuck yeah.

Also loved the "is lag gonna be like FFXI good?" - "nah we were thinking more like World of Warcraft."

^ thats what I'm fucking talking about.

[Tibian]

Yeah I am pretty pleased with the responses, especially UI developer kit and the graphics engine. Yoshi clearly has a good picture of where to take the game.

[Eanae]

Why wasn't this guy in charge from the start?

[Sonomaa]

Why wasn't this guy in charge from the start?

I think it was the perspective of the guy originally in charge was considered more important and thus they asked him out of respect and he accepted, assuming people would just take what he gave them when he specifically stated the game wouldnt be like FFXI (he didnt want it to feel like the same game with a new engine)
that sort of thought process was obviously wrong on a fundamental level and it ended up being something that was a turd, so bad in fact that yoshi couldnt even fix it, he felt it would be easier to start over

[Nama]

You men are shining golden gods. I'm very pleased by the directness and open answers especially DirectX11. Thank god for no more cant comment at this moment.

[Karbuncle]

I don't really play FFXIV Much, and this got even me excited to see its future. Hopefully it can recover, Cause it sounds like it would be a really fun game in the end.

[Falisa]

I'm actually shocked at how personable Yoshi seems. He actually answered your questions and the wording makes him seem really laid back, like hes just talking about the game with friends rather than fans.

[shepardG]

pretty awesome... also, why did i think sonomaa was a woman ...

but seriously yoshida is my steve jobs.

[Kirbyprime]

Rather than XML or LUA, like World of Warcraft is using, we're thinking of provide this in Flash simply to make it more visual.

Hummm, as a Flash Developer with a few plugin'ish type stuff in mid-production this is actually interesting. Will have to see how this ends up working.

[miokomioko]

I am very happy with these questions and rather impressed with the answers.

We'll take that into consideration.

They couldn't resist!

Also, Sonomaa, please please please tell me you sent them home with a print-out of that Triple Triad mockup...

[Hyan]

Sure you had to make that up on the fly but seriously, need and greed? This is a multiclass game, people will be asked to do content on jobs they may not "main".