The "Letter from the Producer LIVE Part II" Video & Q&A Summary Released!

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/threads/30508

About time.

Good improvements over the previous one. Timestamps for one.

Hmm.

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Q: You're displaying concept art in the slideshow behind you. I noticed that the white mage was shown with her hood both up and down. Will players be able to toggle between these looks?

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A: We're nearly at the final stage of implementation. Testing continues, but we've been informed that this will be very difficult to implement.

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Why? How is it different from /display head [on|off]?
You could even make it an action that only appears if you wear something with a hood.
I thought they would stop with such lame excuses after moving to v2.0

All /display head [on|off] does is toggle whether the game renders your helmet.

Hoods that can go up or down require: a) a 'hood up' and 'hood down' set of resources for the entire piece of armour, and b) the ability to assign two seperate sets of resources to the armour and have them be toggled by the player, which is a fairly deep-level change, which explains why they are having trouble with it.

I do hope they have stuff like this for 2.0, it's the sort of thing that makes sense to roll in on a systematic re-design of everything. It's non-trivial, though, so I can see why it's not an immediate priority.

As was said before /display head on/off just forces the game to render the head (or not in the case of /display head off), for that to work the WHM hood would have to be a seperate piece, which with /display head off would look bad, the only way they could do it by using 1 dat for the gear would be put animations in for each gender of each race and animations take time and resources to make, then they have to add the animations to pull the hood up and down to each gender of each race, this would take time and resources to do, while hard it is possible to do so we could see it after 2.0 when the devs should have a bit less work to do and they can put the resources into it.

Thanks for the translations Community teams!. I'll check the letter later today at work!.

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Originally Posted by Clair

There is a difference between creating one model for a hat piece and then allowing you to display or not display it, and creating a robe that allows you to have it's hood down or up.

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Solution: create ONE model, add animation of pulling down the hood, save state.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Solution: create ONE model, add animation of pulling down the hood, save state.

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Too bad it's not that simple in an MMO environment. It's not just "one" model when it comes to player characters.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

Too bad it's not that simple in an MMO environment. It's not just "one" model when it comes to player characters.

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How is it different from what we have now? We have models of clothes with hoods and they don't lag your PC more than other equipment.
It would be the same model just "deformed". You don't have to load multiple models, only save a binary flag which will just execute the animation of pulling the hood down if the user has set it to "down" @logon for example. It doesn't affect memory overhead, unless you call one bit "overhead".

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Solution: create ONE model, add animation of pulling down the hood, save state.

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So which on the ONE races gets this divine privelige? also which gender get it as well because they need different models for each gender and race so your solution has just increased the dev's workload by 13 times? just a quick count of races and genders (btw highlander hyur =/= midlander, they need different models for each clan as well).

When you look at it this asthetic change with the workload for the devs is not an efficiant use of thier time, they already have too much to do.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

Too bad it's not that simple in an MMO environment. It's not just "one" model when it comes to player characters.

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hmm all equipment is 1 model lol

It is easy, the issue they have is their current system that hides things. When you have a hood on the engine knows to hide your hair, if you pull your hood down, it would need to display hair, having your hair just pop up magically would look silly, so they cannot do that. So maybe make it hide poly vs visibly, this also cannot be really done as will cause a lot of clipping and will require fundamental changes to engine. They showed this system in the development DVD.

I think people would be fine with just having 2 models and depending on status you switch between them, even if you just reload (like switching gear) people will be happy with.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Hmm.

Why? How is it different from /display head [on|off]?
You could even make it an action that only appears if you wear something with a hood.
I thought they would stop with such lame excuses after moving to v2.0

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I think they were trying to say that they wanted to kind of animate the switch from hood up/down. Being able to do that with a single piece of equipment is going to be difficult, especially in an MMO context. The ad-hoc solution would be to have the item actually be two items, that automatically switches the models out (though that will be jarring with the way the character disappears every time you change items).

So honestly this is a feature I would expect for post 2.0, as part of a "frills and fancies" patch.

P.S. Sou, if you can't understand it, it's a matter of being able to code it properly, and getting all of the elements of the player-character to properly display during both states. Frankly, as it stands now, that will be a very difficult endeavor to accomplish. I'd expect this to be a wish-list item for post-2.0 implementation, not before.

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Originally Posted by viion

hmm all equipment is 1 model lol

It is easy, the issue they have is their current system that hides things. When you have a hood on the engine knows to hide your hair, if you pull your hood down, it would need to display hair, having your hair just pop up magically would look silly, so they cannot do that. So maybe make it hide poly vs visibly, this also cannot be really done as will cause a lot of clipping and will require fundamental changes to engine. They showed this system in the development DVD.

I think people would be fine with just having 2 models and depending on status you switch between them, even if you just reload (like switching gear) people will be happy with.

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Development DVD? You mean the Collector's Edition DVD? I never did see that.

I hope you guys enjoy it! I really appreciate everyone being so patient while we completed this. Hopefully the timestamps and summary will make it simple to easily reference specific questions and see the things that Yoshida showed off during the event (of which there was a lot... haha)

Also in the past I saw some people saying they couldn't see the subtitles. Just hit the "CC" button on the YouTube player to enable them! :)

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Originally Posted by Delsus

So which on the ONE races gets this divine privelige? also which gender get it as well because they need different models for each gender and race so your solution has just increased the dev's workload by 13 times?.

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You seem to misunderstand what I'm trying to tell you. There is virtually no difference between items we have now and what I'm suggesting.

- You load a model of an item with a hood, just as you always would, each race/gender having their own, scaled model
- You then add an animation where you deform the hood so it's not over the head, but hanging down the back (this is STILL the same model!)
- You save the state in a binary variable, depending on which you either leave the model unchanged or deform it.

The reason the equipment has this semi-realistic look is not just the texture but also the way vertices are animated. When you animate stuff, you just move the vertices (simplified) - no difference between movement/deforming/deformed movement load-wise

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Originally Posted by SilvertearRen

P.S. Sou, if you can't understand it, it's a matter of being able to code it properly, and getting all of the elements of the player-character to properly display during both states. Frankly, as it stands now, that will be a very difficult endeavor to accomplish. I'd expect this to be a wish-list item for post-2.0 implementation, not before.

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I just don't see a problem. I'm learning animation at the uni at the moment and sure, I'm only a beginner, but I definitely don't see a problem. The state would be one more entry in the character save file, that's what they already do with /display main on/off. They would need one more animation for the hanging hood, but that's it. I don't even ask them to animate the change, though it's possible, it would be like adding a new action.

I'm not asking them to implement it now either, since they are still using the Despa-- I mean, Crystal engine, but it sounded to me as if they won't be able to implement it like, ever.

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Originally Posted by Clair

The other method is create a robe that can move, this isn't simple. No other piece of equipment in this game has it's own animations associated with it, only some physics. Having a robe hood that animates fluidly when a player grabs it and pulls it over is extra animations that need to be done and for each race. What happens when future hoods come out that look completely different, more animations specifically for those?

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Seem to have overlooked this. If it's really just physics as you say (you can turn them off btw), then wouldn't the same engine take care of it when pulling the hood off? They do have their own animations and it's not like they will never add new items. When they add new items + animations for them, why not an additional animation for the hoods? It has to be done, but again, saying it is "difficult" leaves an impression it's almost impossible to implement.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

You seem to misunderstand what I'm trying to tell you. There is virtually no difference between items we have now and what I'm suggesting.

- You load a model of an item with a hood, just as you always would, each race/gender having their own, scaled model
- You then add an animation where you deform the hood so it's not over the head, but hanging down the back (this is STILL the same model!)
- You save the state in a binary variable, depending on which you either leave the model unchanged or deform it.

The reason the equipment has this semi-realistic look is not just the texture but also the way vertices are animated. When you animate stuff, you just move the vertices (simplified) - no difference between movement/deforming/deformed movement load-wise

I just don't see a problem. I'm learning animation at the uni at the moment and sure, I'm only a beginner, but I definitely don't see a problem. The state would be one more entry in the character save file, that's what they already do with /display main on/off. They would need one more animation for the hanging hood, but that's it. I don't even ask them to animate the change, though it's possible, it would be like adding a new action.

I'm not asking them to implement it now either, since they are still using the Despa-- I mean, Crystal engine, but it sounded to me as if they won't be able to implement it like, ever.

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Seem to have overlooked this. If it's really just physics as you say (you can turn them off btw), then wouldn't the same engine take care of it when pulling the hood off? They do have their own animations and it's not like they will never add new items. When they add new items + animations for them, why not an additional animation for the hoods? It has to be done, but again, saying it is "difficult" leaves an impression it's almost impossible to implement.

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The problem is the amount of code and testing required to make the animations realistic, first they have to design the gear, then they have to make a model of the gear in real life to fit people of different sizes, then they have to motion capture people pulling hoods on and off because the character movements are motion captured in this game, then they have to get together the raw data from the motion capture and convert that into code the game understands, then they have to check how it looks on all races, then iron out any bugs and graphical glitches.

They have to do these (except the motion capture cos i covered that) for each of the possible character models ensuring the raw data from the motion capture is imitated as close as possible.

You could be looking at about 1 month of work to ensure the animation is of the graphical quality of the game, not to mention the costs involved, although the motion capture (of which they will need to take a decent amount of time to check the data is as realistic as possible) could take 1-3 days, the models they use will probably want paying quite a bit, then theres the money to pay the designers and animators, for a game that has not taken any money its not viable to take the time and money to implement this at this moment, but come 2.0, maybe 2.01, 2.02 or something they may add it if thier workload has dropped a bit, the poor devs have been working so hard to keep the game running and will be until 2.0, how many other MMOs get as many patches as we have in 1 yr?

I am not saying we will see it and I am not saying we wont see it but the amount of time and money to implement it means we definitly will not see it before 2.0, also the current engine may not beable to do somthing like that, Crystal tools seems decent on ffxiii, but for some reason it isnt able to work for a MMO so there is alot we cannot do.

Well if that's why they say it's difficult then I guess I'll just leave it at that. Thanks for taking your time to explain it.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

Well if that's why they say it's difficult then I guess I'll just leave it at that. Thanks for taking your time to explain it.

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Its ok, glad we agree on it now :)

The concept art look interesting. I want to see them in game.

Hopefully the game is good in other respects, and not merely graphics.

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Originally Posted by Soukyuu

[...] I just don't see a problem. I'm learning animation at the uni at the moment and sure, I'm only a beginner, but I definitely don't see a problem. [...]

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3D animation - especially for game engines - is always more complicated than it seems.

On top of what Delsus said, if you want to animate the hood instead of just toggling between an up/down mesh, you have pretty much no choice but to use a mixture of bones and morph targets[ (or blend shapes, for the fellow Maya users), which not only means a ton of extra work for the artists and programmers, but could also lead to an additional render pass for the character and thus a hit to the performance.

Depending on how their engine, character rigs and their general work flow is set up, there could be tons of complications, so please don't call their statement a "lame excuse" if you know nothing about the actual development process.

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Originally Posted by Bayohne

I hope you guys enjoy it! I really appreciate everyone being so patient while we completed this. Hopefully the timestamps and summary will make it simple to easily reference specific questions and see the things that Yoshida showed off during the event (of which there was a lot... haha)

Also in the past I saw some people saying they couldn't see the subtitles. Just hit the "CC" button on the YouTube player to enable them! :)

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From what I have found, the iPad doesn't support that feature :( oh well, guess I'll have to go to my pc.

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Originally Posted by Delmontyb

From what I have found, the iPad doesn't support that feature :( oh well, guess I'll have to go to my pc.

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Dont wanna start an Apple sucks argument but Android 1, Apple and iOS 0

am I the only one who thought Yoshi-P would tell us everything if he could lol. "No one is holding back today" LOL

So much to love in this live letter. My favorites were the Magitek armor, and the entire part about possibly adding a dual-wielding dagger class with Ninja as its Job counterpart. I am fully in favor of both of these!

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Originally Posted by Efrye

Depending on how their engine, character rigs and their general work flow is set up, there could be tons of complications, so please don't call their statement a "lame excuse" if you know nothing about the actual development process.

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Well if they actually explained what they meant by "difficult", then maybe it wouldn't sound lame?

And again, I didn't even want the change to be animated, that was a misunderstanding.

My best part was "crown... crown... ah here it is, *shows a pic to the cam* ahh thats not a crown its a raindeer" lol

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Originally Posted by Delsus

Dont wanna start an Apple sucks argument but Android 1, Apple and iOS 0

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*force close*

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Originally Posted by Jericho

*force close*

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Dont see that very often, and I am running a custom 2.3.7 on an underpowered phone hopefully 4.0 a couple of weeks after the nexus is released, managed to watch the whole live letter on my phone with full subs and no problems. But this is just derailing the thread and we all know apple release hugely overpriced hardware Android 2, Apple 0 on value, its not looking too good for Apple is it.

But thats enough of derailing the thread with the old Android > Apple thread.

Just something to leave you with http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ls...0i9eo1_500.jpg

When can we expect to see a translation of the 2.0 battle picture slideshow?

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Originally Posted by Szabtom

When can we expect to see a translation of the 2.0 battle picture slideshow?

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Just scroll down its under the video. :)

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Originally Posted by Firon

Just scroll down its under the video. :)

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Yeah, shame on me, I was super excited when I got to this part of the video on youtube and posted the question before reading the article... :o:o

I don't want to beat a dead horse nor do I want to troll.....

first let me start by saying, I will pay for the game, not because I like what they are offering, but because I want to see this game better.

that being said, billing customers at the current status of the game is a huge mistake and they are going to suffer badly from it.

Now I started playing since alpha, me and many others gave many feedback about the game back then and how it does not meet FF fans expectation, and they should not release it, we said that in alpha, in closed beta and open beta, but that didn't stop them.

now me and many others are telling you SE, what you are doing is a mistake, what you need to do is hold on to the current customers you have and attract more, billing should only start when you have new customers coming to your game, and that's when PS3 gamers join the PC gamers, and that's after 2.0.

billing customers now will do 2 things:
1- many will leave the game.
2- some of the people that decided to pay will hammer you with bad reviews about how they pay for a un-finished product.

writing this, and deep inside I know they will keep going with their plan, they didn't listen to us before so why now?

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2- some of the people that decided to pay will hammer you with bad reviews about how they pay for a un-finished product.

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You are aware it's completely voluntary, right? It better be worth it to them, paying and then bitching makes no sense in any possible way imaginable.

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Originally Posted by Heat

writing this, and deep inside I know they will keep going with their plan, they didn't listen to us before so why now?

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The reason XIV is being overhauled and in such a flipflop state is because they're listening to players, but they can't continue to dump funds into an active MMO and get zero in return. People had a free year to play, it's time to pony up or ship out, the choice is yours and yours alone.

everyone is entitled for his opinion, and I call it as I see it, 1.8 some people came back, others didn't like the change and left, 1.9 same thing happened, 1.2 people would like to see if things changed for the better or not, but they can't since they need to pay.

who can see the changes? the people that got the game before and decide to stay and see what 1.2 has to offer, what about new players? wait for PS3 or 2.0.

I log in everyday, play 5-6 hours a day, I see new faces but I also know old faces are leaving, and I don't want to get to the point where you can't group with others because few people are around, its already hard to get a group to do things, and it will get harder after 1.2.

and where does this leave us? even the people that want to stay won't have groups to do things unless you have an active link, and how many dose?

not even to mention the gap between the old and the new players.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

The reason XIV is being overhauled and in such a flipflop state is because they're listening to players, but they can't continue to dump funds into an active MMO and get zero in return. People had a free year to play, it's time to pony up or ship out, the choice is yours and yours alone.

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And here I thought you'd be worried that FFXIVCore won't have the advertising dollars to sustain itself if the player base shrinks even further. And if it goes under, what title could you use as a trophy to lord over the rest of us?

We're getting discounted till 2.0 for a "half finished" game as it seems to be said (XIV will never be finished until it dies so this statement makes no sense).

What more do you want? You can't honestly tell me you expected to play free till 2.0 that is just absolutely laughable.

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Originally Posted by Jennestia

The reason XIV is being overhauled and in such a flipflop state is because they did not listen to players, but they sold 240k copies of game in return. People had a free year to play a broken game.

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there i fixed that for you.

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there i fixed that for you.

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If you honestly think they haven't been listening to the fan base, there is something significantly wrong with your mental faculties. Zone remapping, Class reforms, Job titles, auto attack, storyline participation requirements, jump, alternate mounts, armor with required levels; all of that is because of player feedback. Agree or disagree with the changes all you want, but claiming they haven't been listening is plain asinine on your part.

The game sold 600k+ copies :D

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Originally Posted by AlexNiculaie

If you honestly think they haven't been listening to the fan base, there is something significantly wrong with your mental faculties.

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Take your time and re-read that fixed version. The reason ffxiv failed at release was indeed because they did not listen to their testers, be it alpha or beta. The game was not ready, we told them so. They released anyway. The kick in the crotch made them change half of the dev team including the producer and now they listen to us...

The positive part is that they at least changed their mind, some companies don't learn to listen to their customers till they have no customers left.