The thing that has been bothering me the most lately is the silence we're getting when compared to the FFXIV forums. Granted, XIV is going into a huge reboot. I get that there is going to be some focus on that side. However, go look at their Dev Tracker. At least 2-3 responses a day. Sometimes in the same thread. There is back and forth communication between the players and developers through the community team. While I can't speak for anyone else but me, that level of communication is what I'd love to see on these forums. September had nearly complete silence with the exception of the Mog House contest.

There are a lot of people on these forums, on Blue Gartr, on Allakhazam, and on FFXIAH (sorry if I've missed anyone). I'm seeing the same thing across the board. Silence. There's just a general lack of news to get people excited and talking again. Vanafest 2012 gave the most activity the boards have seen for a good long while. People were legitimately excited again. Look how quickly that faded because of the silence.

Community Reps and Developers: There are a lot of people here who are passionate about this game, myself included. We bring you our ideas because we want to see Final Fantasy XI succeed and flourish again. We want to see this game be the best it can be. While the delivery can vary greatly from person to person and thread to thread, the underlying message is the same. We believe in the game. Many of us have forged friendships with people we've never met. Some people have even gotten married after being introduced through the game. When we look back at FFXI, that's what we want to remember - the good times.

As much as I would also like to see more communication, I'd also like to have better communication. What I mean by that is simple: tell us how you came to a decision. Almost all of us went through multiple levels of education and now have careers. At every turn we were or are required to show an amount of work to prove our results. Again, while I don't speak for everyone here, I would like the same in kind. I would much rather be told "We're sorry, we can't implement 'Idea X' because it would violate 'Rule A' and interfere with 'Event Q' by [insert explanations here]." I'd love to have a logical response like that because it tells us why something can't happen. Lately the responses have felt more like "Sorry, we aren't implementing 'Idea X'. Now go to your room and play with your toys." Final Fantasy XI cannot survive with responses like that.

Thank you for reading and considering my thoughts in this post. I apologize if I've come across as accusatory in tone.