Collection of FFXIV News from Media Sources

[Hyan]

So thinking about this a bit I think this MAY be a reason why we've seen so little content in update and only really seen UI and technical changes. I'm guessing some big and hopefully drastic changes are in store.

One of the things he mentioned are the player expectations which he thinks are too high for what he can accomplish especially in a short timeframe.

[Lucavi]

This could mean he prefer to have characters instead of classes/jobs? I doubt he's referring to the steam punk setting so the only other thing I can think of is that FF7 was maybe the first FF title to ditch the job stuff almost entirely (well, if you don't count Limit Breaks, sorta)

If he wanted steampunk, he'd have said VI instead of VII, but even if it -is- a steampunk thing, its not too late. The Garelleans could have a steampunk-esque city.

This game (or the next one, should this... experiment fail) should be interesting in a few years.

[Franzer]

Franz is that sig from Descent? That movie was pretty fucked up, especially if that is the part I'm remembering.

no its from a music video. Health We Are Water

EDIT: here it is if you want to check it out, video is sick. http://vimeo.com/11647220

[Arximiro]

no its from a music video. Health We Are Water

EDIT: here it is if you want to check it out, video is sick. http://vimeo.com/11647220

OH! That's where I seen it. I watched that video awhile back, great video for a good wtf.

[Manako]

Nobuaki Komoto is the lead designer of the game, with Naoki Yoshida being the director/producer. He obviously will have a large influence over the game but to take snippets of his gaming history and think that it directly applies to what we will be seeing is an inaccurate assumption. Can't wait for the first, I really hope that is for real.. I want to know where this game is headed :O

and I am also in favor of gold saucer :X

[Kurokikaze]

God this google translate isn't cutting it.

/lights the Elmer signal!

Also, I've been wanting a Gold Saucer since the old days in FFXI. Something to do while LFG on my DRG. lol

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

Damn google translate. It makes no sense yet I continue to read hoping I'll make something of it. Here's to the continuation of wasting my time.

[miokomioko]

Does Elmer answer signals anymore? I haven't really seen much translating going on in a while and JPButton is pretty old now~ Sabbatical?

I think we've been spoiled by his services... D:

[ZarakiKujata]

Isn't he modding XIV Zam? Maybe light the signal on their forums.

From what I've seen this guy is a relative unknown and so this is his career defining moment. He can either prove himself or fall to the wayside. I'm hoping he has the yarbles to do the former.

He's an unknown but he's already had his career defining moment chief. He lead a revamp of XI that got him here in the first place.

[Fawkes]

Do we really know he did anything that wasn't already in the pipeline since before vanafest?

[The Q]

Isn't he modding XIV Zam? Maybe light the signal on their forums.



He's an unknown but he's already had his career defining moment chief. He lead a revamp of XI that got him here in the first place.

That's really good. I think this task will be what really makes or breaks him though. XI wasn't in as bad a position as this game is. That was his start but, in my opinion, this is his BIG moment. All eyes on him and that sort of thing.

[Celeras]

XIV fansites suck since launch You'd figure with all the translation wars going on pre-release between Zam/Eorzea/Core, that at least one of them would try to keep up their traffic. Only thing I can get out of Google Translate is that shits coming to Lodestone Jan 1st.

[Lucavi]

To be fair, I can't blame them for not keeping up with such a sluggish game.

[Riposte]

Yes you can. They are fucking fan sites.

[shepardG]

When fan sites aren't fans of their sites....next on springer.

[sruon]

http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs...29_417979.html
http://game.watch.impress.co.jp/docs...30_417982.html

lots of squiggles

[Lucavi]

Yes you can. They are fucking fan sites.

Who is a fan of this crap? Seriously. Right now, who is a fan of FFXIV? I can't see too many people bothering to put the work in to keep a FFXIV fansite relevant. Even BG's section is on life support for now.

So no, BRP, I cannot. Fan sites are only fan sites when the fans are fired up about it or nostalgic about it. Its too new to be nostalgic and its too bad right now to be fired up. I haven't heard of many fan sites dedicated strictly to "going through the motions", so yeah, go figure.

[sruon]

Credits to Soukyuu on Core.
http://www.ffxivcore.com/topic/28973...38#entry443738

First part

The first part is mostly about the re-organization of the team and the company...

• they are still in the process of re-organisation and he cannot say when it will be completed
• next steps are going to be "organization/sorting of information" (possibly talking about rumors, as in, telling which are true and which are false, not sure about that) and finding the reason for the hardware problems (lag issues? or maybe sys reqs?)
• there will be a comment posted on the lodestone on 01.01 explaining more about this and their plans and expectations for the next year

Next part is about the game itself

• the first time he played the game was when he got assigned to his new post
  this means the first improvement of the UI was not his work
• "ease of understanding/interaction[of/with the game] comes before "making it interesting [for the player]", since a player cannot judge what's interesting about the game and what not if the interaction doesn't work properly.
• this one is to be taken with a grain of salt! He was asked, what SE meant when they said FFXIV is f2p until they think it's ready. He said "until the customers are satisfied with the service". Mwa-Ha. Never? xD
• they are currently trying to make a system to be able to communicate with the players better (bi-directional communication, it seems)
• the most important thing to them atm is to make sure that if they promise something will be implemented, it really does.
• they are currently investigating what has to be done to get back out trust and make the service worth paying for.
  as far as i understood what he is saying, they base the decision on what to fix next on the feedback. So go submit some

Second part

Next part is about the UI

• if I understood him correctly, he is thinking about implementing a similar addon-system for the UI as WoW depending on the feedback.
• he is not satisfied with the UI himself and that was the reason he asked Minakawa to be added to the team as he believes Minakawa won't lose to anyone when it comes to designing an UI (Who is Minakawa, pardom my ignorance)

About lag

• they are still working on optimizing the latencies, one of the reasons why the team got a new technical advisor, Hashimoto Yoshihisa

About re-organisation

• They are trying to work as efficiently as possible, concentrating at one issue at a time instead of trying to improve everything at once.
• He doesn't see FFXIV as finished and thinks the game will adapt itself to meet the expectations of the majority, BUT getting the player's trust is of higher priority (probably telling us to not expect too much)
• They categorize updates into 2 types, the ones making it easier to play the game (interaction?) and ones adding new content. They are thinking about how to balance those 2 types and whether there might be a be a way to satisfy both expectations
• As for the reason known bugs are not being fixed fast, he says it is because of the strict schedule the quality assurance team has to work under - they don't have enough time to test the patches before they have to be released.
  Solving these types of problems is one of the first steps the new team is taking

About a public test server

he says he played some NA MMOs and understands the demands for a test server. The reason SE didn't want one was because they thought it was a waste to set up a server for ~3000 players and only see about 100 of testers online a days. His personal opinion, however is that it's still worth it and even though he definitely wants to make a test server, he can't promise when.
he also adds that even though they want more direct feedback and communication, it doesn't make sense to concentrate too much on the idea of a test server.


About graphic and the fact that recent updates made some improvements to framerates

• they don't really want to change the graphics themselves to suit the slow systems like WoW does as it makes FF lose it's own quality and style.
• they will continue to work on optimizing the system, but it is currently not of very high priority. He also mentions the PS3 version of FFXIV hinting that this should be the solution for those with weak PC systems. (Ha. Ha. Sure, if they bundle a PS3 with each copy of FFXIV for free)

About the PS3 version

• The reason for delaying the PS3 version this time was the fact that all the problems of the PC version piled up to the point of them wanting to concentrate on fixing those problems first.
• Since there were problems with the PS3 version itself, they thought it would be better for all players playing under same conditions for now - on the PC
• At the end he assures that SE has not given up on the PS3 version and will definitely release it

Third part

About Yoshida himself:

• So far he was working on DragonQuest Monster Battle Road Series(?)
• He has been playing games for about 13 years, his first multiplayer game was Diablo, played for about 1 year. After that he played Ultima online for about 2 years and a half before moving on to Unreal Tournament. Next he started playing Diablo II LoD, stopping after 1 year and a half, moving on to Dark Age of Camelot which he played for 6 years. He also gave WoW and Everqust a try.
• He was mostly involved in developing consumer games so far (i guess they mean the offline games by that?), he had some experience in developing MMO related projects too.
• Even though his job atm is to understand how to make the most of the FFXIV client, he has to keep himself informed about the competiotion like WoW at the same time. He mentions something called Dungeon Finder, i guess it's an addon for WoW? It seems as if he's trying to evaluate which ideas from other games could be put into FFXIV.

About his view on developing an MMO

• He is aware there are differencies between developing a MMO and a single player game, and is calling MMOs "theme parks", a collection of "attractions" to appeal to different types of people, motivating them to play the game. But simply throwing different types of content wouldn't be a good idea (i didn't really get his theme park example about disney land, cinderella's castle and a horror house <.<), so keeping the general theme of the park, in our case the MMO is very important.
• He sees the base of a MMO in the economy and the balance between the production, consuming and gathering of goods, so it's important to him for it to work properly.

Some random questions

• His favorite FF is FF7 and he wants to somehow bring the powerful atmosphere and the impact of FF7 to FFXIV.
  He says that there will be more events since he likes them himself and calls MMO a service business, meaning not listening to the customers won't work. The events are fun for them and fun for the customers at the same time. That's why he thinks it's important to keep organizing them.
• As for what kind of events except for the seasonal ones are planned, he cannot say - look forward to it.

The last question is about how confident he is about the future:

He doesn't want to promise too much and rather watch and see how things go. For now, they want to go step by step and not rush things and make sure they keep their promises. He mentions better communication once again...

[Franzer]

three large quote blocks and i didn't learn a fucking thing that hasn't already been said. Guess its just waiting till the 1st.

[CrstyCptSteveWitherspoon]

Yea was pretty much a summary of what we already knew. Hopefully the first brings something more.