Letter from the Producer, XIX (09/27/2011)

Hello everyone! Yoshi-P here.

Sorry to pester you all with another short post, but I had some info to share concerning the release schedule for patch 1.19. I wanted to make sure that it got out to all regions, so figured a letter was the way to go.

It’s now looking like we’ll be able to get the patch out the evening of October 4, some five days later than we originally intended.

The main reason for the delay is the balancing and debugging needed to ensure the stability of both all-new content and the overhauls being made to battle algorithms. Rather than rushing an earlier release and risking unnecessary player inconvenience, I’d rather spend a few more days balancing the combat and materia systems, and squashing as many bugs as possible.

Also, the following features have been pushed back to patch 1.19a:

Ixal stronghold (Natalan)

Guildleve history evaluations

After some testing, Natalan and the evaluations still have some balance issues and other bugs, so we’ve decided it best to reschedule them for a 1.19a release.

The patch notes for 1.19 will be released on September 30. The dev, ops, and loc teams are working to get them out as soon as possible, so please hang on for just a few more days.

But despite the five-day delay, the time for Eorzea’s adventurers to take up arms against Ifrit, that mainstay of the FINAL FANTASY series, is near at hand! And while it certainly doesn’t make up for the delay, I thought I’d drop a li’l teaser vid from the upcoming Bowl of Embers.

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I promise my next letter will be longer! I think I’ll have some details to share with you on our one-year anniversary event, too. See you next time and/or on the forums! :)