Grading the social success of FFXIV:ARR part 1

Disclosure: I have been a customer of SE since 2003 ( post split into 3 due to character limitation) :(

Things to consider about an MMO, its player base, and the playability of the game / Enjoyment.

1) Social Aspect : Multiple things players can do with ease together with minimal wait time. Grade: B+

2) Challenging content: Instances/Dungeons, Raids, Variety of Paths of progressive content that it takes time and skill to reach the goal and cannot be done in a solo fashion. B- (Gating content merely to make it last longer between updates as opposed to developing enriched and fast paced adventure growth with the vast subscription base leans more to greed than limitations so that gives the B-)

3) Personal Growth: Solo content that a player can relax and enjoy in a flexible manner in their own time constraints as much or as little as they so chose. A+

4) Retention Value: Content that encourages players to log in often, maintain their subscriptions and feel like a valued customer. C- (development arc is behind and not as promoted at launch. For casual players this is tolerated but for hard core players you only need look at the party finder to see the trend of losing serious gamers due to boredom from burning up the gated content faster than it is being released.

5) Satisfaction: C Serious consideration has to be given to the feedback that the player base is split between the opinion that the game is fine vs. those that feel the game is failing its promise to be a worthwhile investment of their valued gaming time and money.

6) Loyalty: F Any company that fails to deliver, or more importantly, makes a promise then reverses upon delivery of that promise loses the trust and belief in its customer that anything the company says or does can be trusted and therefore their loyalty is lost.

In reading the release of the 2.38 update notes and the subsequent rage that is following them the question needs to be asked and answered.

1) Why was personal housing even discussed with the player base if it really isn't a viable option for the entire player base.

2) Regardless of where you sit on the housing issue everyone plays the game for different reasons and personal preferences of their own enjoyment. If it happens with personal housing, what else can and will it happen with in future patches, expansions and updates?

Players can and will be indifferent to each other's opinions on just about everything accept one. Don't promise one thing and either fail to deliver or make a change that only serves to contradict yourself to your customers.

Only the re-subs or un-subs will be the judge. Trying to be objective. Replies should do the same or the company will never take the forums seriously.

being a customer for that long and not knowing work arounds for the the post limit? (lol jk)
the only thing i think people really can complain about is housing. "more affordable" imo means under 3 mil. with a baseline of 5 mil for some servers, that is just insane for one person to try and get.

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Trying to be objective.

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Not really. It's pretty clear this entire thing is being driven by emotions and a pretty thinly veiled "I'm mad about the personal housing". I mean,

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6) Loyalty: F Any company that fails to deliver, or more importantly, makes a promise then reverses upon delivery of that promise loses the trust and belief in its customer that anything the company says or does can be trusted and therefore their loyalty is lost.

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Originally Posted by Zepheron

1) Why was personal housing even discussed with the player base if it really isn't a viable option for the entire player base.

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This right here.
With something that takes so much work to create, all of the housing items by the artists, the programming from the programmers and everything else inbetween, why restrict it to literally about 20ish players on each server that are staying all night to get a house? This is just small houses, mediums and larges are really only for the high-end gil farmers (or rmt buyers) or FCs.

I do not understand why to put this much work and effort into something not to be enjoyed by the masses on a whim

@ Garlyle Um: No! I have an FC, we Own a house, I have plenty of gil. I don't need a personal house. I was observing the game as a whole and posting a synopsis of the general feed back of the community.

And then there is this from the horses mouth which is why everyone else is so angry

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Originally Posted by Kaze3434

being a customer for that long and not knowing work arounds for the the post limit? (lol jk)
the only thing i think people really can complain about is housing. "more affordable" imo means under 3 mil. with a baseline of 5 mil for some servers, that is just insane for one person to try and get.

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Not when you can do treasure hunts at get pets to sell for 1-3 mil on some servers this is not out of reach for anyone. plus getting random goodies from your retainer adventures that can sell 100k+ if your lucky

from a previous dev post

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Personal Housing

While I cannot give a specific date on when personal housing will be implemented, I can say that prices will be completely separate from free company housing, and, naturally, far more affordable.

In Summary

• The final price of land on all Worlds is subject to adjustments, and may fall lower
• Over the course of three months, prices on legacy Worlds will fall to match those of World Group 3
• Personal housing will be far more affordable than free company housing

We realize that these measures will not immediately satisfy all players, especially those on legacy Worlds who are either new to the game or returning from extended absences. We ask for your patience and understanding as we strive to create a balanced housing system.

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This was posted to actually get people to read, think, post about a topic, not just rant or flame.

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Personal Housing

While I cannot give a specific date on when personal housing will be implemented, I can say that prices will be completely separate from free company housing, and, naturally, far more affordable.

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Okay, yeah.

I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt though. The reality of game development is that shit changes. You can't always deliver on your plans, and that's a core danger of choosing to have an open dialgoue with players instead of just a "we release and you deal" method. If you wanna show me any developper with a flawless record I'm pretty sure you'd be either deliberately cherrypicking or simply missed these things. XIV has a pretty solid record overall, especially in terms of direct communication; even if not everything works the first go 'round.

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Originally Posted by Zepheron

1) Why was personal housing even discussed with the player base if it really isn't a viable option for the entire player base.

2) Regardless of where you sit on the housing issue everyone plays the game for different reasons and personal preferences of their own enjoyment. If it happens with personal housing, what else can and will it happen with in future patches, expansions and updates?

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1) PR, the same reason politicians make campaign promises.

2) Worse case scenario, it regresses back into the flop that was 1.0 and SE will start lying to XI subscribers about content that will not be implicated to their expectations and then they will lose money on the whole thing. XI and XIV will cease service and the franchise might pretend they never existed and change the numbering to reflect this (for an ironic example, the upcoming XV for example will becoem XIII. Other examples are XIII being XII and XII being XI. I-X are excluded for obvious reasons)