Letter from the director?

[Buffy]

The planned August update has been pushed back to maybe September iirc and could take longer given all the billing problems.

Can you please provide a source for this statement.

[Septimus]

that is communication from the moderators and the developors, which is restricted by their superiors and thus is often rather vague or kind of "last-minute". What we are talking about is communication from the Director (or at least someone in between that is making the bigger decisions)

Just look at all the notices about the changes in the payment system. The most important problem that was known by the staff for well over a month was never disclosed and was not discovered until AFTER it was implemented.

Well, this is a great official place for us, the fans, to gather - but it's not giving me any insights into what the Director is thinking and the general direction that the game is heading.

I agree with your previous sentiments - this is FAR better than what we had in the CoP days (and before that even!) but there is still a long way to go. Getting the roadmap was a great thing but I'd like to hear from Ito-san as to how he thinks it's going.. what are his priorities, why did they choose to do some things over other things, does he play the game, what does he enjoy most, how are we going to attract new players etc.

I guess I feel that this game is important to me and that I'm invested in it - I want to know that the world is in safe hands.

yeah... after 6+ years with a company, you would think they would care a little more if you are getting cut off from their service because of some half-baked idea they privately decided to implement. All we are getting is virtually ". . ."

Does anyone actually think that the Dev team for FFXI came up with this payment system idea? (Which just happens to be the same system that is used on FFXIV that no one there liked.) Am I the only person who thinks that this sounds suspiciously like an edict handed down from Corporate big-wigs? Transferring from game-specific to company-wide accounts would be out of the hands of the people in charge of this game. They may not have anything to say because Corporate won't let them. But let's not derail this thread with that.

Where do you think the update announcements come from? Who do you think made that road-map? That comes from the director, even if he doesn't write it himself. Yeah, it isn't constant contact, but it is something.

I know that it is human nature to want more, but just stop and think about what we are getting now. Yes, I would love to get a cookie-bouquet from the Community team with a card that says "We miss your front-page updates Septimus", but I am happy to get what we have because it is so much more than what we used to get. Be thankful that getting even the smallest morsel of information isn't like pulling teeth anymore.

[RAIST]

Update details are given as updates are coming. That is common chatter. A broad generalized note of where they are going is just that.. a broad, generalized note.

What is the recent single, most contraversial decision made by the higher ups (ie, above the DEV team's jurisdiction) having a profound impact on the community, made since that last letter in December, 2010 (possibly even since roadmap was released in April as well)?

That's right...the credit card debaucle.

We have been getting communique on this specific change since June 25. I assure you, the dev. team knew about this change well before that, as I have been involved in setting these things up in the past. The higher authorites did NOT disclose that all BUT the JP clients would loose the ability to pay SE directly with their credit cards. What they did release in fact impled that if we had a 3DS supported card, we sould still be able to pay directly--when in fact (as we discovered July 26), that was NOT true.

The higher authorities opted to withold a very importand "game changing" decision all the way up to implementation, and have remained silent since.

[Septimus]

So update notes, the 12 month road-map, job adjustment manifesto, things leaked by the Community Team, the existence of this very forum: none of those count as communication with the development team in your eyes? What more do you want from them? When will you finally be satisfied that they care about what you want from this game?

[RAIST]

Those are from the developers... we are talking about the executive decisions, and the restraints they put on the flow of information, as well as their silence. And those road maps have already been cut up now because of developmental delays.

For example, they release details on VW and WoE and such...has nothing to do with assuring the future of FFXI (in relation to the billing changes), even though that is the hot topic on the forums for the last couple of weeks, as well as a big issue on the FFXIV forums

[Nashreen]

The "letter from the director" was/is a PR stunt, that pretty much did nothing except give some fanbois something to look at with stary eyes. I doubt many XI players would be as intrested in personalities in the same way.

The problem is that they kind of do have (had) that type of PR with the Japanese press where the producer, director, main planners all appeared frequently for interviews. For some reason that was never done with the NA or EU press as far as I know. I'm hoping they will use the forum in the future. If not a producer letter, seeing a monthly "dev team letter" would be nice (doesn't have to be written by the same person every time, and it could also be about past stories or random anecdotes).

[Septimus]

No executive is going to go on record saying that he/she approved this idea because if (and in this case, when) it goes bad they would have to take the blame for it. This is Business 101. The PR department probably told the Development and Community Teams to say as little about it as possible because it was obviously going to be a fiasco. (And if you pretend hard enough, it will go away.)

They obviously didn't expect it to go as bad as it is though. If they allowed direct payments for everyone like they do for JP accounts, people wouldn't be upset at all. If they didn't allow direct payments at all, I think that most people (besides those in countries that ClickAndBuy and Crysta don't service, which is another tore-down wreck) would have calmed down by now because Crysta really isn't that terrible. (Minimize your mules so that you are as close to even as possible, and pay as little as you can right before the 30 days is up.) They would have to offer a very good explanation as to why they will accept direct payment from Japanese players, such as "there was a law passed that says..." But even then, they would also have to explain why Japanese players also get to specifically choose the amount of Crysta that they pay. (Now that is where it goes to truly ridiculous.)

But there is no way that anyone is going to go on record to be the gardener for when this poo-flower blossoms. Instead, they will more likely blame the current Development Team saying that this is the result of Abyssea (since that is what everyone is complaining about), fire them, hire someone else, and watch their cash cow circle the drain. Management never takes responsibility.

[Insaniac]

Tanaka-san, unfortunately, is not heading up XI anymore. (I liked him on the whole - though equally he didn't communicate with the players that much.)

Mizuki Ito is the current director of Final Fantasy XI. (His Wikipedia page has recently been deleted because no-one looks at it - 'insignificant external coverage' - showing that no-one knows who he is or hears from him..)

Again, I say, Mr. Director, show yourself to your gaming public!!

Tanaka should be repeatedly thrown out of a 2nd story window until he forgets who he is. This game was a pile of garbage for the first few years. Thinking back I don't even know how I played it. It was 90% addictive and 10% fun. The game has only gotten better since he left.

[Nashreen]

Tanaka-san, unfortunately, is not heading up XI anymore. (I liked him on the whole - though equally he didn't communicate with the players that much.)

Mizuki Ito is the current director of Final Fantasy XI. (His Wikipedia page has recently been deleted because no-one looks at it - 'insignificant external coverage' - showing that no-one knows who he is or hears from him..)

Tanaka was never the director to start with (or so I think), he was and still is the producer (according to his Wiki/Twitter, and the fact he's still in FFXI coverage), he only left his position as a producer for FF14 it seems. Tanaka was also the producer for Xenogears, Chrono Cross and other classics, he was a key person in Secret of Mana too.

The current director is one of the FFXI guys who were often interviewed and apparently he's a veteran.

EDIT :
Actually, looking at the Wikipedia I checked and Ito is the 5th director of the game, after Ishii Koichi, Komoto Nobuaki, Ogawa Koichi, and Matsui Akihiko. Sakaguchi also worked as a producer for the game before he left, but that must have been in the early development time-wise, iirc he left SE before XI was even out.

[Trumpy]

also keep in mind we will be gettin a test server sometime in the coming months. so other than them lettin us know their basic plans and lettin us communicate what we think about them, we will aslo have the chance to test said content out and see for ourselves. And have much more impact.