Producer letter and player poll results are upFollow

Go check it out while it's still hot.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/46535-Letter-from-the-Producer-XXVIII-(05-28-2012)

It also contains a fraction of the player poll results. Which says that everybody is happily playing the
game for more than 4 hours a day. Now that's interesting. And then there's the passage that says

Sorry folks, we didn't manage to finish the trailer for the E3,
but hey, we have some new password protected paying-customer exclusive website in
planning for sometime soon after E3 has ended. That one will surely draw in the masses.

Draw your flame swords, oh ye mighty whiteknights! ^.-/

Edited, May 28th 2012 8:06am by Rinsui

I think they are gun-shy and scared honestly.

I can't blame them but knowing how SE PR works I can see how this is going to play out.

Oh come on. You really believed that?

Quoted for truth from the official forum:



Edited, May 28th 2012 9:32am by Rinsui

Wow the Whiteknigting on the official forums is astounding! (that Starlord is quite a character, I wish i was still allowed to post there :/) Anyway people are getting upset over the wrong thing here and coming up with all sorts of crazy theories as to whether FFXIV is or isn't a show at E3 this year. Its really simple what happened here: SE sat down and had a long chat about how things would pan out if they release a 2.0 trailer at E3 - people would watch 2.0 trailer, get all excited and giddy, go check out main website and.....nothing on 2.0 is there but rather stuff associated with 1.0 and its ugly head. So SE decided its best to hold off on the trailer until they can release it alongside a flood of new information (I'm guessing this starts with the website due to launch after E3).

People should be upset at the fact that SE didn't think of this earlier and didn't prep for this leading up to E3. Instead this was a last minute decision on their part and where they could have made a lot of progress here instead E3 is gone to waste. Whatever though, I'm looking forward to the launch of the new website, hopefully they have some nice stuff lined up for that.

Yes, a big LOL @ that Starlord guy. He just collected the whole PLD artifact armor set solo with his posts.

There's yet another possible explanation for why they would decide to miss the E3 opportunity: the main
audience for the PS3 version arguably sits in Japan, so perhaps they wanted to make sure that this time,
their home market gets the biggest buzz at the Tokyo Game Show. That would be an indication that they
are at least aware of the dangers a flop at the E3 would imply, and opted to focus on the rather "tame"
Japanese playerbase first.

And Amateur Hour continues... Seriously, it's like clockwork at this point.

I think instead of trickling out little shades of the game like some 3 min trailer. They are holding back to release a ton of PROVEN HANDS ON INFO at once.I'm guessing they plan to unload the blitzkrieg around the 2.0 PC version time release or close to it. They can show off the most beautiful game ever, cgi or real time. But as we know looks are not everything. They might get you a first date on a first impression(which XIV already had) but your relationship won't last without substance and honesty.

- Trailers on tv and gamescomm both cgi and real time by August or close by then
-Gamescomm demo
-PC 2.0 reviews go live(Hopefully it can get to an 8 at the least and they direct players to wiki sites)
-Followed up by Let's Play FFXIV videos on gamespot and IGN.(Hopefully they direct players to wikisites)
-Various other fansites showcase the new XIV.
-The game against all odds manages to re-entice some of the pc community and garners interest towards a ps3 version for low budget gamers.
-The ps3 reviews come in(Hopefully above decent as well)
-A flexible payment system or excellent free trial setup goes into effect to get feet wet initially.

You may not agree with my last statement. But if you want to entice from the largest pool of gamers. They got to have a means to get substantial time on a game to even consider p2p. Even then, they sometimes still don't wanna p2p even if the game is good. Given the intial launch which only compounds this possibility. If the aggregate reviews still score 7ish or lower. I don't think anything will matter. I'm hoping that SE comes out roses. But so far, everything is on paper. One has to actually get hands on with things to judge it's worth.

lol. This could just be me having wishful speculation.

If you look objectively at their track record, I'm pretty sure it is wishful speculation at this point. Every major transition or addition has been either a.) completely underwhelming, b.) delayed and then completely underwhelming, or c.) delayed, outright befuddling and bizarre to the point of inducing rage.

So, yeah, wishful.

Gotta agree with this tbh.

No one is thinking this from an actual gamer that may have seen XIV when it was first shown at E3. Let me think how did that go, they showed a trailer and put a site up. So why the heck would they want to do the same thing now. To repeat what they did would just be a dumb idea they have to show that 2.0 is different from 1.0, the best way they can do this is by actually releasing a site which actually has info related to the game not an info site that brings up concepts which weren't even implemented into the released product.

I'd much rather have a flood of information taking concepts from everything that have planned for 2.0 rather then a trailer that may even spoil the story a bit for those who haven't played yet. Odds are the trailer is being released closer to 2.0 release since it'll have some connection to the conclusion of this story arc as things lead into the new build.

It's only a week away, people are getting to butthurt over all of this and just need to be patient for one more week.You've waited long enough now just sit back relax do your weekly thing and wait for e3 to start lol.

What a joke...PR watched the trailer and said "Yea this is sh*t.We can't release this" ok lets delay and give out little tidbits so people don't realize it sucks all at once...

Back at the start of April I seem to remember him saying "we'll putting up a promotional website for 2.0 around the end of the month", maybe it's just my imagination though. Probably it is because I can't find it now.

Weren't they talking about Welcome Back/Legacy as the new promotion?

I think that's what I read that confused me.

Regarding that promotion I just logged in to find that it was exactly the same game functionally, just with autoattack and most of my old abilities gone and replaced with some more boring ones, with my previously acquired abilities now becoming my high level rewards. Yeah... that was great.

I can certainly understand why you feel underwhelmed. I'm just excited that he actually mentioned the PS3 in this letter.

Yeah, I'd love to know what's really going on over there. Is the game really in that much of a mess from the beginning, or is the team really just that incompetent? I guess only 2.0 will answer that question...

I'm glad he recognises this, but I'm really not sure what they think appeals to people or what their specific target audience is - FFXI players? WoW players? TERA players? FFXI felt like a game that evolved completely independently from the Korean/western market, mostly in a good way, but in this case they just seem to be fumbling in the dark. I really don't think asking peoples' opinions on the official forums is going to be of great assistance... they need to be listening to their most critical customers, who mostly left long, long ago.



It makes me really worried about the revamp if it's just... this, but smoother and shinier. But that's what they're planning, right? :( That's not going to even attract 100k players...

I really feel that 2.0 needs to bring deep gameplay changes or surely it will surely fail. New graphics and netcode just isn't going to turn around the game's reputation and fun factor. I think they should just be releasing 2.0 as a a "new" FF MMO without a number (initial game free for current players of course), since no one other than people already interested in FFXIV care about a revamp and most people have already already written off XIV as a "a game that failed 2 years ago" or comment "revamp? SWG tried that". When I mention XIV to friends I get treated as if I'm some sort of anachronism, and somewhat rightly. Spiritually scrapping the current game entirely might ruffle a few feathers of the current hardcore player base, but how many people is that, really? Surely not enough to justify hiring a (supposedly) 100+ man team to develop 2.0 in the first place. The majority would be more than happy I'm sure. Being conservative is just not something they can afford to do.

Maybe I'm just being pessimistic, though.

Edited, May 29th 2012 5:10am by Dizmo

Most definitely true; I almost fell into that trap myself.
Until I realized: hey, there will be newbie exclusive 2.0
servers anyway, so everybody will be on the same footing.
Also "not being left behind" is hardly an excuse for wasting
hundreds of hours playing a game I simply can't enjoy.
Not when there are so many other good things to do.
(Including, and this I add for Mr. McNasty, watching porn)

Yeah I feel like I've gone from someone who was willing to hang in there and give SE a second chance to fix their horrible mistake, to just almost completely losing interest and giving up on the game.

SE seems to live on another planet, is is their hubris that keeps them there? they just don't seem to grasp even the most basic of concepts that come naturally to other developers. I do give Yoshi credit, I think he's done well overall, but the game feels like it has lost a lot of depth, it may be the shell of something great, we'll see I suppose.

I had already unsubscribed last month, at this point I'm just going to check in periodically and play again in 2.0 to see what the deal is.

I gotta say, it re-invigorated the fan-base. Haven't seen this much talk about 14 since the last time they missed a deadline.

I definitely can understand both stand-points. Personally, if I can't play it, it's icing on the cake, and I could care less... But, then again, I don't need something immediately. I know the window when 2.0 is scheduled to come out, and will continue on using that as my point of reference.

Following up though, consider the constant comments and complaints SE has received in the 9 months that they have decided to release information as they get it. Every time there is a constant barrage of it's not enough information, or, why didn't they wait until they do this, or do that. Or, this feature sucks, or this doesn't work right. It's a constant respond-receive-respond process, that, during early development works well, but the closer they get to the release of 2.0, the harder it will be (and as most people have seen since 1.20) to release more information, because there isn't any. Small bug fixes here, tweaks to the UI there, a Goobbue on the side.

Most of this has the potential to be good in that, if they are holding back on quests, mobs, NMs, zones, raids, and such, which everything is pointing at they are doing. That means, when 2.0 is released, it will actually have something.

Yoshi has been good for his word. He has been honest when he hasn't been able to reach a goal, and has been able to release some things even ahead of schedule. And while typically the releases have been 3 days to a week late, they usually try and get one more thing in, while they fix whatever it is that was causing them problems.

Add to that, the number of defects, or regression issues popping up in the game have decreased, over-all the game is no where near where it was when it launched. It is still limited to the crappy software it was originally released with, and because of that, just logging in can quickly remind anyone of what it used to be. And the fact that everyone seems to want everything, and there just isn't enough to go around leaves most people unsatisfied. It is what it is.

To take something like a trailer this seriously does imply that people still care about the game, and for all the complaining, people are actually interested. But, it also means that people are not very understanding of the politics of it. PR doesn't play by the same rules as Marketing, Development, or Sales. PR is about the company image. So, yes, in many ways, when Yoshi stated that the decision was made in a PR meeting, that meant that they identified a significant issue with informing the public of 2.0. There are two very likely reasons why this happened. The first was the result of the Welcome Back. With multiple worlds locked from new characters. Many of the people who did return where unhappy with the current play balance, and the general aesthetics of the game (still many of the UI bugs, and not enough to do but grind, and no parties to grind with). Combine that with the fact that it would truly be foolish to in any way associate 14 with 2.0 from a public stand-point, they have a problem.

While we want to see the video (and releasing the video to the fan-base would actually seem a lot more of a sane idea), showing it to people you want to prove the game is fixed ultimately is a very high risk, low reward situation. Either people will be "Well, it looks like it might be better", or "So, which part was CG, and which was actual game play", or worse, "If that is how the game can be played right now, why isn't it?" "You say you have the client done, why not give it to the existing players", There are almost an endless number of ways even a good video could be poorly received.

And ultimately, a decision like that, while, was probably stewing in the office for quite a while, would have been from a group separate of the people working on the projects, and that are excited about what they have.

So, Yoshi and his team got ahead of themselves. They are psychologically ready to show the game off. They want people to see what they have done so far... But, ultimately, it's not their decision. There are a lot of people above them, that have been hurt, and are worried about what the future of this game holds.

If you look at it from an open perspective, none of this is even remotely hard to see or understand. But, the real question is, as fans, do you care either way. Most of the people obviously feel once bitten, and the company is twice shy. It's never a good combination, and will have a negative release no matter how good the release actually is. 2.0 could be the best thing since sliced cheese on a rye cracker, and people will still be mad about it. And it could be the biggest mistake that SE ever made (which, I will be honest, I would be incredibly impressed if they found a way to make it worse than 14 was when it was released... but anything is possible), and there would be the whole back-lash against the company (can you say Dreamcast?)

Either way, I am not "White Knighting" SE. I am simply trying to state, there are reasons for their actions, and in the case of E3, the fans matter MUCH less than the general public (aka potential future fans/players). They already burned their current player-base, why risk burning their future player-base (ok, they also did that to the PS3 crowd abit... however, at the same time, they prevented any PS3 players from wasting their money on a game they would never play). And the They I am talking about is the Corporate side of SE, not the development side.

The way I see it is that they know the only true market for XIV now is JP PS3 market, everything else is almost irrelevant. E3 is pointless, they aren't going to turn enough people to XIV outside Japan anyway.

They will try to sell it on the easy win of nationalism on consoles, TGS exclusive is the first step of that.

But, capitalize on what? Now, they are not discounting the play-through there. Setting up a system and running with the new client would be good. And since Yoshi is going, it would be a fair assumption that he will be doing more than handing out chatchkeys. But, then again, it is SE, so holding ones breath for anything would seem foolish in-and-of itself.

And no offense taken.

On top of that, E3 is a PR game. And just like any other vendor there, they have to play the game. And until we see their play, it's all just fun speculation.

I thought they had a huge "what do you do" for 14 before they released it at E3, they did the same thing for 11, 12, and 13. And other than Nintendo giving in and saying they will have a Wii-U system there, and Microsoft stating they will have a Windows 8 System (and I believe they are also planning on having a phone and tablet), not many others have actually come out and said what they are doing at E3. I mean, even Blizzard is skipping E3 all together (don't get me wrong, they are running their own Con for their own products in place of it).

This is really not unusual behavior. But, since SE has failed so badly, expectations for them have gone beyond the point of normal to, if they don't do something Final Fantasy 6 worthy, with the openness of a Linux development team, than it's a failure.

No, see, here's the problem with that. Those other companies haven't made promises out of their behind over the past two years about fixing a game that never should have been released in the first place. Those other companies didn't make that mistake. And, when you look at what they promise, versus what they usually end up doing (delayed, underwhelming, bizarre), people are understandably upset that yet again, SE delays, delays, delays at the one time for the States where they knew they were expected to present, and present BIG.

So either, a.) The States aren't a huge priority anymore., b.) They're not nearly as far along as they're alluding to, and so they're trying not to let that particular cat out of the bag, or c.) 2.0 is a complete dud and they're gonna string people along as long as possible on empty promises, like 1.0.

I'm from Minnesota, so that game sounds perfectly valid here:) Go TWINS!

Yoshi has said that 2.0 isn't a brand new game. And to players who have played 1.0 a good deal. That will probably ring true for those players. It is supposed to mark the end of the overhaul stage. A point where the game transitions from slower updates fixing previous things & trickling content. To a game with faster updates focusing on new content. I 'm guessing with all the new zones & story revision, it will feel like an expansion. If the servers are as good as Yoshi has stated. Everything you do in game will just feel snappy & smoother.

For any players they manage to pull in. It will be a brand new game in every sense of the word. A game that has gone through two years of alpha testing. Assuming the new servers or content revision doesn't introduce a slew of new problems. That should in theory equal to one of the smoothest launches in history in terms of polish. A new player will be able to come in and experience the game highly polished. They will be able to focus more on enjoying the content. For these players, it will be the equivalent of joining a game 2-3 expansions into it's lifetime.

The decision on there being an E3 trailer or not being a good idea, has yet to be determined. I feel that for existing players & someone just hearing of the game. This is a bad thing. For returning players and players who made the decision to not play until 2.0. This could be a good thing. A bombardment of info closer to 2.0 reviews and final beta testing. Could let them see hands on the progress that has been made.

In the end it comes down to allowing returning or new players a chance to try the game out with little monetary commitment at entry. If the game is as good as the two years of behind the scenes development should equate to. One trailer couldn't portray that anyways. The review sites, fan sites, and word of mouth should portray that better. APB rereleased f2p with somewhere between 1-3 million players. But received a mediocre aggregate review. Mmos have become more visible to the non mmo community. The true test isn't so much attracting new players. It's keeping them there after the shine wears off. TOR dropped from 2 to 1 million subscribers. I blame that on long term content. But mostly, you can blame the p2p model.

Gamers are far more demanding when it comes down to forking cash out continually. If the sub model fails XIV around 2.0. I hope they consider the flexible payment model of DCUO going forward.