Famitsu Interview with Yoshida - FFXIV in 2015

[Slycer]

Started this translation earlier on a different PC so I'm just posting the small bit I got through before when I had a couple minutes free, starting to work through the rest now... probably not really worth reading yet, just posting this for myself so I can start where I left off. Thanks to the few people who PMed me about this interview.

Translation of: http://www.famitsu.com/news/201502/06070272.html

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[Connect!on] A Realm Reborn Producer Naoki Yoshida Discusses the Expansion Pack ~ New Year Interview (complete) ~


2015 brings new challenges for A Realm Reborn

In addition to all of the updates Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn received in 2014, huge Fan Festivals in three countries excited fans around the world. Now, we've welcomed the new year and A Realm Reborn continues to move at the same fast pace with a variety of new additions. So to talk about 2015, we scheduled some time with Naoki Yoshida.

*A partial version of this article was published on January 27, 2015 in Famitsu Connect!on.


The new year began quickly with part 1 of patch 2.5, along with the implementation plan for future large updates. Above all else, the highlight of this year is the game's first expansion pack, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward, planned for release in spring. Thus far, A Realm Reborn has become a successful large-scale MMORPG.


Looking back to the crazy rush of 2014.

Famitsu: How was 2014 for you?
Naoki Yoshida: We had so much going on last year. First of all, I'm very happy that we were able to celebrate our first anniversary of service, so I thank everyone for that. From the beginning, we've developed A Realm Reborn with the goal of being a truly global game, not just focused on Japan, and I'm glad we were able to achieve that. It was also great to hold the Fan Festivals in 2014, which allowed us to talk to the whole world about our future plans. That said, since 2014 was so crazy, honestly, it's a bit tough to look back on it right now. (laughs)

Did you learn anything from the Fan Festivals in 2014?
Y: I got a stronger awareness of all of the players' feelings towards this MMORPG.

How do you think A Realm Reborn is doing in the MMORPG genre?
Y: If you take a look at the global game market right now, MMORPGs in general have become a struggling genre, especially subscription-based (flat-rate) large scale MMORPGs in the last three years or so. There have been a lot of free-to-play MMOs which have released in the past few years, so it's pretty tough. We released A Realm Reborn as a subscription-based MMORPG under those circumstances, and we were still able to get the second largest number of players in the world. The business is doing well in terms of the numbers.

What kinds of players are playing A Realm Reborn day to day?
Y: From those who played since the initial Final Fantasy to people from the new generation who are playing the series for the first time, I think we have a broad spectrum of players. I think this is a good thing for a MMORPG, so I'm happy to see it.


Heavensward is the latest installment of the Final Fantasy series.

What are your plans for A Realm Reborn in 2015?
Y: During the Fan Festivals in 2014 we released a lot of details about Heavensward. I think players familiar to MMORPGs got the thought that this would be just a typical expansion pack although they are still looking forward to it. This isn't the case, though, we really want to build the world and expand our horizons with new possibilities for A Realm Reborn with Heavensward.

It seems like you've convinced some players who were uncomfortable with the idea of an online FF game.
Y: I think there are a lot of Final Fantasy fans who thought that an online Final Fantasy title wasn't a true FF game. To those people, I still hope they decide to play Heavensward as the latest work in the FF series. We'll continue to expand our PR activities in the future and welcome new players who want to start fresh. To start off 2015, we're first releasing the patch 2.5 series. Once that's complete, we'll launch Heavensward, which will be the climax of 2015, after which our first priority will be to balance the game. After that, we'll continue to evolve the game, hopefully in some new ways from what you've seen before in A Realm Reborn.

Along with that notion of this being a new title in the FF series, it seems like you've removed "A Realm Reborn" from the title of Heavensward.
Y: I think most players won't even really notice it. Since we moved from "A Realm Reborn" to "Heavensward," we decided to drop "Reborn" from the title. When we call the title by its abbreviated name, we want to stop using the words "Reborn" FFXIV or "old" FFXIV, and try to unify it to just FFXIV in the future without using "A Realm Reborn." Someone just starting the game might read some articles or interviews and see abbreviations like "FFXIV A Realm Reborn" and "old FFXIV" and wonder if there are multiple titles, so it will be nice to just have a single unified FFXIV. Since both the Reborn and the "old" version will be in the past, we don't need to distinguish between them any longer.


Planning unique content for FFXIV

With the release of Heavensward, it seems like A Realm Reborn will be taken to new heights.
Y: In the patch 2.X series of A Realm Reborn which we started in 2013, we spent time solidifying the groundwork for the MMORPG like adding attractions to a theme park. In the future, with the 3.X series, like in patches 3.1 and 3.2 which will be new chapters of Heavensward, we want to start providing a new challenge for everyone. Since we have some ambitious goals, there may be some content which doesn't work out so well, but we hope to create a new adventure that everyone can enjoy.

What kinds of ambitious things?
Y: Of course, our priority will be developing game content to experience, so we have a goal to mix the types of content we've had through now with some truly unique things we have planned.

What are you talking about specifically?
Y: As an example, think about the Gambit system that you can use in Final Fantasy XII for allies. Since we can use a mechanism like this with NPCs, we're thinking about some play types in that kind of direction. Additionally, we've already talked a bit about airship content for Heavensward, and that's something that we'll continue to update with patches after the release of Heavensward which will be fun in a new way that hasn't been seen before in A Realm Reborn.

After the expansion pack is released, do you know what you'll be doing in the second half of 2015?
Y: I'll do my best to live up to everyone's expectations!


Airships will be fun production content.

One thing you previously mentioned for content you weren't sure if you could implement was the cutscene with the airship battling a dragon in the sky. For the airship content in Heavensward, will there be anything like this?
Y: If you're fighting a dragon in the air, it would be more about the strength of the ship than of the adventurers (laughs). Normally, it would take an entire fleet to defeat a larger dragon. In any case, I hope you can wait a bit longer for us to discuss what adventures are in store. Please try them out, though, we're really focusing on their performance and putting a lot of detail in.

Is the construction of airships going to require a lot of gil?
Y: If you want to avoid using gil and you have a lot of gatherers and crafters in your free company, you can collect the materials through gathering and produce them by crafting. To purchase the land and build houses the only way was with gil, so we want to have the airship content available to everyone by collecting the materials themselves.

Speaking of which, you also included items produced by crafters in the part of the Saga of the Zodiac Weapons added in patch 2.45.
Y: The Saga of the Zodiac Weapons content was designed as first-generation MMORPG content. We thought it was appropriate to start it off first with battle content. Then, for players who have less time, we slowly began to relax the conditions for upgrading while also adding items made by crafters into the process, with the idea being that the strongest weapons would be made from a variety of different elements. Our thought was that players would make some of the items themselves and purchase the rest on the market.


The possibility of a fourth new job?

Is there a possibility that you're holding off on announcing a new class or a fourth new job for Heavensward in the future?
Y: As you might expect, that would be... (laughs)

Since Scholar and Summoner were announced just before launch of A Realm Reborn we thought maybe there was some precedent and that it would happen again this time... (laughs)
Y: When we're creating a new job, it takes about a year of work. You can probably imagine that there's a lot of development work needed with new actions, quests... (laughs).

How much longer will we need to wait before you can be a little more specific than "spring" which we've previously written?
Y: Since the schedule is still likely to shift right now, it's hard to state the exact timing. We're looking through the content we're planning for Heavensward and thinking about when we can make that announcement to the public. For example, we were planning to include Crystal Tower at launch with A Realm Reborn until the last minute. There may be situations similar to this where we're forced to make a judgment call as to whether we want to delay 3.0 entirely or push certain content off to patch 3.1. We feel like it will be better to deliver the content as soon as possible, but we also want to make sure that we have a lot incorporated from the start.

Aside from the content that you already have planned, do you have any new ways to play in mind?
Y: In the current state, we've already incorporated a lot of play elements. That said, I think there are still at least one or two other things we can add.


An expansion pack should have a lot to do from the start.

What are your thoughts on what an expansion pack should be?
Y: Using World of Warcraft expansion packs an example, I think it needs have about as much volume as a new game. I think FFXI comes to mind when speaking about expansion packs to many people in Japan, but for people who are familiar with World of Warcraft or other MMORPGs developed overseas, it's taken for granted that things like new content, new jobs, and increasing level caps will be included. So first, we want to make sure we have the right volume of content in Heavensward to satisfy all of our players around the world. Also, expansion packs for World of Warcraft have recently shifted from releasing around once every other year to releasing annually with a more compact size, which I think reflects the increasing rate at which the community is digesting the new content and new requests coming in more quickly.

That sounds like a shift in priorities from what you previously announced with Heavensward, do you mean to say that it will be better to release expansion packs at shorter intervals than to focus on the volume of the content?
Y: Once the game is launched up until the time when the first expansion pack is released, the content that gets released along the way is made within the same systems. Then, after the expansion pack is released up until the time when the next expansion pack is released, the new play systems in the expansion become the main content. In other words, without releasing an expansion pack, one might say that the game doesn't change. In recent years, I think that cycle has definitely grown shorter. Actually I think Dragon Quest X Online has had expansion packs released even faster. Since the volume and release rate would be proportional, it could become troubling, but change is also one of the best things about MMORPGs, so we'll continue to evaluate based on player feedback, market trends, and how our own operational figures are doing.


Looking for a release cycle appropriate for today's lifestyle

Are you also looking at trends in other MMORPG expansion packs?
Y: I've been watching trends for expansion packs for MMORPGs released around the world, but the number of titles for sale in the first place has dropped. The sale pace of expansion packs might be a problem, so maybe by having the 3.0 series of Heavensward a bit shorter, we could move up to the 4.0 series earlier than we originally planned.

For the expansion packs for A Realm Reborn, do you have a model case for the release cycle that you're going by for their development?
Y: No, nothing like that, we think we should follow the play cycle and life cycle of our customers. It wasn't so long ago that the amount of entertainment choices around were more limited and people had more free time on their hands so there was more time for things like MMORPGs. Right now, with all of the different entertainment options available and limited amounts of free time, not to say that there's no room for fun, but it's tougher to decide how to spend your free time. Since a game is entertainment, you have to feel that way when you play it. However, a game isn't passive entertainment, it's entertainment that you get from your own actions, so it takes some time before you get the satisfaction from playing. These days, if you feel like you dont have enough time for the game, you'd probably wind up deciding to never try it out in the first place. Taking that into account, rather than spending a lot of development time preparing a large volume of content, it might be better to prepare the next expansion in a relatively shorter amount of time, with the thought that it might be better to have a more episodic nature which better matches today's lifestyle. In the past, people were able to wait and look forward the launch of expansion packs every two years, but I don't think that fits well anymore. That said, since Heavensward was our first expansion pack, we felt that we had to prioritize really building it out rather than getting it out quickly.


Large-scale patches will continue releasing every three months in the future.

After the release of Heavensward in spring 2015, will the time between patches remain the same or change?
Y: I don't think there would be much benefit to changing it. Taking minor patches into account, we'd like to add as much as possible every month, but I don't think we'd be able to shorten the interval of major updates any shorter than it currently is without reducing the volume. Reducing the interval of the major patches by reducing the volume doesn't make much sense so we have no plans to change that cycle at the moment. Our plan is to continue to release a major update every three to three and a half months and have two small updates released between them.

What about the patches in between?
Y: To be honest, the current pattern of releasing two content updates between each large patch is still one that we're barely getting out in time. I've been wondering if there is a way we can adjust this so that we have a more reasonable development cycle.

At the Fan Festival held in Japan in 2014, we heard you mention patch 3.1 for the first time. Any more on that now?
Y: I've been intentionally avoiding talking about it, I'd like to stay away from that topic (laughs).

But you have said that you already have the road map for the patch 3.0 series completed.
Y: We have the story roughed out and the content conceptualized for up to about patch 3.5, I think.

So the patch 3.0 series won't be completed in 2015?
Y: That would be impossible (laughs). Earlier I mentioned that we wouldn't be changing the pace of updates, so if you figure when Heavensward is being released... you might be able to imagine how long it would take.


The "wall of regulations" hinders the establishment of a darker fantasy.

Can you give us any details on characters appearing in Heavensward, like what they might look like?
Y: We know that we can come up with our own new characters as opposed to just drawing from characters from the story's past. Original characters have been an important part of the FF series, so we hope to bring those to the forefront here.

The darker fantasy themes are also attractive.
Y: We'll do what we can feasibly, but there are some strict national and platform regulations we have to work within.... For example, whether we can show blood varies from country to country, so there's some trial and error involved in figuring out what we can express.

How do those regulations affect the development process?
Y: It's not so much about what we can write, but more about what we can show, it's not as unrestricted as it was years ago. For example, one of the new NPCs is a Miqo'te with a wounded ear, and that wound is a fundamental part of that NPCs back-story and character, but there could be some limits to how seriously we could treat that which limit our expression.

That has to be tough to a certain point though, where you can't even really show a character getting injured?
Y: Well, as an example, even just showing an arrow sticking into the body is not allowable in some countries so it's something we have to look at. We aren't just including this to show cruelty, a lot of is it showing how an important character became injured in the past but they are now proud of those scars. It's hard to create that kind of character depth and background with some of these restrictions.

In patch 2.45, among the moogle delivery quests that were added, one of them mentioned a bloody helmet in the text, was that something you were unable to show in the graphics?
Y: If we would have shown the bloody helmet, someone would have told us it was no good and that we couldn't use red blood (laughs). Of course, we aren't just doing it to be cruel or just to have a darker theme, it's just that we want the player to feel that the story has a certain weight to it. Sometimes it's necessary to use representations like this to highlight the fate of certain characters we interact with.

To develop the flavor for a character, you need to have some amount of story to go along with it.
Y: The characters and the story have to be properly balanced, so if certain regulations affect our ability to maintain this balance it does make it difficult. Plus, Eorzea is relatively peaceful right now.

Eorzea is still at peace...? (laughs)
Y: Well, among other recent games, the story in A Realm Reborn is more about justice and morals. Still, I feel that something's missing.


Yoshida says that Alphinaud is an "Unfinished Leader."

Can you give us an example of how you feel that it's lacking?
Y: This isn't really related to how the regulations affect us, but when I look at some of the behaviors of Alphinaud, it makes me wonder if he's really as young as he is, although he is actually young. (laughs)

He probably wouldn't be screaming out things like "Enterprise, start!" [[JP Alphinaud quote on the way to Garuda in main scenario, apparently]] (laughs)
Y: Right (laughs). Also when he founded the Crystal Braves, surely the salute pose he came up with was specific for their philosophy. I can imagine him tirelessly working to come up with the salute (laughs). I'm sure before he would go to sleep each night he stood in front of a mirror and said to himself "the clarity of a crystal and the courage to take action..." as he tried different gestures to avoid overlapping with those of the city-states. (laughs)

Even if he did come up with the salute, it's unlikely he'd ever tell anyone (laughs).
Y: For example, someone might have asked him to come up with an idea for a pose to show their courage to fight for Eorzea and he might have been forced to come up with a decision from his close assistants.

So he presented his own plan.
Y: He might have been waiting for a pose similar to what he was thinking and then said "that's it!" hoping that other people would respect the opinion of someone younger than them. That's the kind of personality I think Alphinaud has (laughs).

He's certainly a playful character.
Y: I like Alphinaud a lot. Since he's a cute character, I want to follow along his journey as he grows into a true leader. Right now his ideals may be a bit too bold, but at least he has the type of character to take a stand. However, he definitely has important leadership qualities like ideals and morals that I'd like to watch develop.

Before the series' story moves on we might see Alphinaud grow into a dignified leader.
Y: I'd like to see it go that way. Alphinaud is certainly a bit naive, but without ideals like his you can't make it to a leadership position. He needs to have his utopian dreams to get followers the side of the Leveilleur house who will listen to what he has to say. Aside from being involved in the politics of it, though, since he's also following around the warriors of light he might find himself stuck in some tricky situations.

So he might feel some of the ups and downs of fierce leaders?
Y: Unlike the leaders of other groups, in the patch 2.0 series, I think there's a feeling that Alphinaud is attempting to resolve situations from a position of lower standing. In fact, some of the grand company leaders would have nothing to do with him because they just thought of him as someone with an important name but no real experience. Now that he's become a scion and he's no longer just a name, I'm looking forward to seeing how that situation unfolds.

By getting through these situations, we're witnessing the birth of a leader in Alphinaud Leveilleur.
Y: I think he will be a true leader when he grows up. Looking at him right now, though, I can imagine him trying different poses to look strong in front of the mirror (laughs).

By the way, how do you plan on continuing to build Alphinaud's character?
Y: It came about when Hiroshi (Kazutoyo, main scenario writer) and I were throwing around some ideas. As a result, I thought he should become a more interesting character over time. He is definitely one of the more lively characters.


The next Producer Letter LIVE will occur before Patch 2.51 is released.

Do you have a defined schedule for upcoming producer letter LIVE broadcasts?
Y: Before patch 2.51, we want to have a producer letter live in some form featuring the Manderville Gold Saucer features (editor's note: the producer letter LIVE was held at the 2015 Tokaigi conference on February 1). Additionally, we want to respond to some feedback we've received from players who are already playing patch 2.5.

In 2015, do you plan to release new information to players at the same pace as last year?
Y: Well we're planning to participate in Niconico Tokaigi in January and the Niconico Super Conference in April. After those are over, we want to have events all over the place. Honestly because we've only just recently gotten through all of the Fan Festivals from 2014, we tried to avoid having too many events in early 2015. That said, we do want to make sure we are exhibited at large gaming events around the world, and we still want to make sure we have the opportunity to talk directly with people around the country in Japan through the FATE events like we had last year. So for annual events like these, it won't be much different from the past year. Of course, we'll be participating with a lot of our core team members at Tokyo Game Show this year so if you come to the venue you'll be able to chat with them directly.

A lot of players have been talking about whether or not there will be Fan Festivals in 2015.
Y: Previously I mentioned that I thought it would be good to have one about every other year. Takai (Hiroshi, Assistant Director) mentioned that we would try to hold one every year, and while I appreciate the sentiment, I told him that right now with our schedule it would be crazy to have one every year (laughs). After we get past the successful launch of Heavensward and we're on the right track with some of the updates that follow, we'll think about whether we want to hold any large-scale events.

Have you decided on any new countries for which you'll begin service in 2015 or beyond?
Y: We're still not sure. We were able to announce service in Korea well in advance after we got through talks with our partner. That doesn't mean that we still aren't trying hard to find more places to release, though.

What kinds of things do you look for to start service in new countries?
Y: We have to look at the partners we can use to manage the release and whether we have a community there that would appreciate the game itself. Without those two things, we wouldn't be able to operate an online game very successfully, so it's not purely a business decision. Really it's a collaboration where we get to a point where we can find a partner to work with and we have a lot of fans who want to see the game released. On the other hand, we also want to hold back a bit since so our in-house server team can settle things down a bit, right now it's a bit hectic for them because it feels like we're launching the game every year.

Personally, I thought you might begin service somewhere in the Middle East.
Y: Speaking of the Middle East, we received a very polite letter from a player living in Dubai. It also seems like we have a lot of folks from there watching the producer letter LIVE every time.

You might expect that in places where people have a lot of money (laughs).
Y: Actually the person wrote in the letter that he isn't an oil tycoon and he buys gas like everyone else, it was kind of funny (laughs).


Three days and nights of playing A Realm Reborn at his own pace in the New Year

How will you spend your New Year?
Y: I'll spend about two or three days without working at all and I'm going to try to devote a day to just play A Realm Reborn. I haven't been attending Final Coil every week so I do want to check that out with a group. I try to make time to play every day but for the most part I'm just working on the Ixal daily quests while waiting on Duty Roulette match for a dungeon. My play time tends to be chopped up so I really want to get a chance to experience it to its fullest. For example, I really wanted to complete my Supra tool but I wasn't able to get that done.

Are you trying to work towards buying the Mastercraft Demimateria from the market, for example?
Y: I've been working raising up desynthesis skills so that I can obtain the Mastercraft Demimateria on my own with my own skills. If I have to purchase them on the market, then I need to look at other ways to re-earn the gil somewhere else, so since I'm focused on efficiency, when I think about the time it would take to earn the gil again, I hesitate to buy it on the market. In my mind, I need to allow time to get to the goals that I want to achieve.

You may not have enough time in three days (laughs).
Y: Maybe if I don't sleep? You can get a lot done in 72 hours (laughs).

By the way, have you tried Frontline recently?
Y: Not long ago we were busy with preparations for the Fan Festival so I was just working on collecting Poetics, but the other day I was able to return to Frontline. Just the other day it was Christmas Eve and I started chatting with some of the other players I had gathered with asking if we knew what day it was.

Maybe he was trying to inspire his team members (laughs).
Y: He was saying stuff like "our enemies are Christmas spies who are trying to gather information about this battlefield, we can't allow it (laughs!)" and the chat got really excited with people talking about taking out the enemy teams on Christmas Eve which really boosted the morale of our allies.

What was the outcome?
Y: It was a landslide victory. It also made for a lot of fun, so I was thankful for that too (laughs).


Challenges reaching new heights lie ahead for 2015.

So what are your promises to the players for 2015.
Y: With Heavensward, we're going to deliver three new jobs to everyone. As a new title in the FF series, since there will be as much volume to play through as a whole new RPG, please look forward to it. Also, since we're opening up the level cap, it won't only be battle classes you can enjoy, but also further development with gathering and crafting classes. After you finish leveling up, please try to take on the end game content to get new equipment appropriate for the higher levels. At the same time, I think people will also be looking to collect equipment associated with the new jobs. Heavensward itself will also include a lot of new content. Additionally, we'll have updates to A Realm Reborn starting from there throughout the year which will renew the excitement for everyone. Although we challenged ourselves as much as possible last year, we hope to kick it up a notch this year, so I hope that this is a year in which we can deliver on what everyone's hoping for.

[Kipling]

Slycer for realest nigga on BG.

[Taint]

Ty Slycer!

[darkepyon]

Yes, Slycer is the man indeed!

[Burningthought]

Thanks Slycer!

[gaogaostegosaurus]

Just wanted to pick someone else's brain on this:

──今後、『蒼天のイシュガルド』4つ目の新ジョブや新クラスが発表される可能性は残されているのですか？
吉田　さすがにそれは……（笑）。

Is there a possibility that you're holding off on announcing a new class or a fourth new job for Heavensward in the future?
Y: As you might expect, that would be... (laughs)

I'm 90% on it meaning "no" but I'm never quite sure when Japanese people trail off like this. lol

Edit: since I kinda quickly browsed through it, some things I thought were interesting personally:
Stuff up to 3.5 roughly planned out
He spent a lot of time talking about regulations being different between countries and to not put gore on stuff
Apparently he wants to develop Alphonse a little more

[bercus]

Thank you once again!

[Voyage1970]

@gao Another way of looking at it would be, Yoshi: As you might expect, that's a bit.....(laughs) Basically he's implying that it would be a bit much to expect a fourth job considering the amount of work it went into making the three we currently have.

[Ayn]

As always, thanks Slycer.

[Sho]

@gao Another way of looking at it would be, Yoshi: As you might expect, that's a bit.....(laughs) Basically he's implying that it would be a bit much to expect a fourth job considering the amount of work it went into making the three we currently have.

Ninja was literally 2+ years in the making with 4+ years in planning/decision phase, so yeah I would say so. If they have a 4th job to announce, you can bet your top dollar that it's been in planning at least as long as the other three have been, and it won't just be a last minute addition.

[Niiro]

It did not take them 4 years or whatever the fuck to create NIN.

Copy-paste a few combos from other melee DPS, add ninjustu.

The rest is mocap.

[Shenrien]

So what branch in SEs development department do you work in?

[Odin'sLaw]

I agree 4 years seems way to long 2 years id happily agree with (wasn't ninja meant to be a fourth job in 3.0 but they wanted to treat us early?)

[Kaisha]

It's an MMO, you never focus development entirely on one thing in a given situation. It's why new armor sets take forever to come out also, courtesy of budgeting and limited resources.

Wouldn't surprise me if we get a fourth job midway through the expansion's life given the hubbub over NIN. Even if they internally withheld a fourth job until the expansion's midlife, releasing a class as part of its usual content update cycle makes it look like they're doing a mini-expansion; more appealing for potential newcomers that sit there twiddling their thumbs for 5+ months in their MMOs.

Spoiler: show

Granted if they do that every expansion we'll have hell of a job bloat at a quicker rate than XI

[Shaano]

Bring on the FFV selection!

[Lonely]

Since Slycer seems to have gone MIA mid translation theres a thread on reddit with a summary of the interview.

http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...hidden_fourth/

Quick summary

-3.0 series will be shorter than 2.0. 4.0 to be released sooner in comparison.
-3 month interval between patches schedule to be continued. 1 major patch followed by 2 minor updates as has been done the past 2 years.
-No fan fests this year but hoping to have a big event after 3.0 launches.
-Airships are heavily customisable. Looks or specs, choice is yours.
-Airships can be bought at an extravagant price, or your Fc can build it bit by bit everyday.
-Expansion volume is more similar to WoW and other western MMOs than XI. Basically almost an entire new game. But 2 years per expansion is probably not realistic anymore so they're shifting to an annual release schedule.
-expansions and content releases will be more like blockbuster movies, Big, dramatic changes in short spans of time.
-story and content has already been planned up til 3.5
-you can guess when 4.0 will release based on our current pacing, probably.
-blood and splatter is hard to do because of regulations and laws in each region.
Example, a new miqote npc that gets injured and loses part of his ear. Something serious and with consequences. But we aren't allowed to do that because our said regulations.
some places will not even allow npcs shot by arrows to be shown.

1. Fuck china
2. Yah a 4th job isn't going to happen lol if they are planning to release a expansion every 1 1/2 years. Oh and in regards to ninjas release since the beta I believe they always said that they would release one job before the expansion and possibly a level cap increase. The latter never happened.
3. I think it was fanfest but yoshi said the heavensward story would feature two plot points, the thousand year war against the dragons and then the dragon king/lord? (Can't remember the exact words), pretty sure on release we will finish the thousand year war story with ishgard and the dragons and then with the 3.1-3.5 series it will be about the dragon king/lord.

[Slycer]

FYI I came down with a nasty stomach flu which took me out of commission for the weekend, I'll try to finish this up today.

[RPGTyrant]

Many thanks slycer, always look forward to your more clear translations versus the bulleted ones like get posted on reddit.

[Lucavi]

FYI I came down with a nasty stomach flu which took me out of commission for the weekend, I'll try to finish this up today.

Just came down with one myself last night. Blaaah. I know the feels, bro.

[Sho]

It did not take them 4 years or whatever the fuck to create NIN.

Copy-paste a few combos from other melee DPS, add ninjustu.

The rest is mocap.

Actually they did. You should probably reread some of my collected interviews sometime instead of hazard an answer like that. I can do you one better, look for Live Letter II if you have free time. Or click this link and look at the translation at 47:10. They discussed their plans for a then new mage class as well, which turned out to be SCH/SMN/ARC. This was in 2011.

Also, it's a little more than "copy-paste" and motion capture. Even then motion capture in itself takes far longer than just a day or even a week. There's art, rendering, sound effects, quest line data, location for the quests, storyline that needs to fit with world, then QA and testing for bugs. The art and rendering itself more than likely took up a large chunk of the time. They also likely had to run the job in various fights and situations to ensure it wasn't broken. Shit like that.

I agree 4 years seems way to long 2 years id happily agree with (wasn't ninja meant to be a fourth job in 3.0 but they wanted to treat us early?)

It was never proposed as a 3.0 job. Yoshi-P had always planned to add a scout type of class before the expansion release. He simply followed schedule.

You don't need to be on the development team to know how things turned out up until today, Yoshi-P was so transparent about his plans for the game, he gave away a lot of info which still stayed intact, pre-release.