So what exactly is driving the developers to keep going?

Been curious about this since I would think after 10 years of this game that the devs would get burned out eventually, and Endwalker being like the peak of what they wanted which is the end of a story arc.

and FFXIV have this really strict set schedule of patches every year, I would think that would be pretty on hard the mind after awhile and especially in a 10 year span so far.

I don't know the devs personally of course, I just think its pretty admiring they handled 10 years of this game assuming their team members have been mostly the same unless they shifted devs around at times.

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It made me curious about something else as well, let say during Stormblood that Endwalker was actually being made aside from Shadowbringers at the time. Does his team actually plan a lot of things out way ahead of time and thus why they can meet Patch Deadlines so easily like that?

Because if so they know how to keep secrets.

Yes, of course they are burned out, why else do you think we got Endwalker.

And those strict schedules? They have broken them all the time since Shadowbringers. You can no longer rely on the "schedule" if you want to take time off for week 1 prog. No one remembers when they screwed thousands of week 1 raiders off because they delayed EW for 2 weeks?

Exactly how is this state of affairs admirable? We're no longer in Stormblood when patch cadence was actually speedy and predictable.

Yikes, sorry I said anything.

I am sure that they would have a planned arc that they want to fit everything in to. I also doubt that every developer there now started with 14. Maybe the managers, but for the typical coders, artists etc, I suspect decent turn over just due to life things over 10 years.

any ongoing development project would have a general "plan" and development sprints which are planned and the overall arc of the main story has to fit in or things start to get dropped. that was a problem with Covid, it could not be planned for. with the lack of in office etc, its going to slow things down considerably which means missed deadlines.

overall, it is admirable that they keep to their plan as well as they can, but what keeps them going is the same as keeping any of us going, its a job, they need to live and pay bills lol.

people cycle in and out of programming positions all the time according to needs behind the scenes. that's part of what keeps things "fresh" and from dev burnout.

Their salaries.

So what exactly is driving the developers to keep going?

Its their Job.
They are Game Devs, Creative Business Unit III. (CBU3)
They are given a Job, and they do it.

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Originally Posted by Zanarkand-Ronso

So what exactly is driving the developers to keep going?

Its their Job.
They are Game Devs, Creative Business Unit III. (CBU3)
They are given a Job, and they do it.

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I think the OP asked more on a personal level - which is not anyone but the person themselves that can answer.

Even if it's my bread maker, I honestly don't think I could keep over a decade following the same modus operandi with my work. Gladly I don't have to and I'm able to reinvent myself every 2 years or so - I work in the art industry. But I personally know people who are spanning 20+ years of career by doing the same thing. I guess it depends on the person.

To answer simply based on the impression on the dev team. They still have more stories they want to tell with the FFXIV world.

There is still a lot of mysteries and unexplored threads regarding the world such as Meracydia, Ilsabard mainland, Aerslaent, and the New World (especially that since thats actually the biggest continent in the world I think)

We also still dont know the ultimate fate of the 13 shards of Etheirys.

So yeah I feel theres still more room to explore with FFXIV.

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Originally Posted by Atelier-Bagur

To answer simply based on the impression on the dev team. They still have more stories they want to tell with the FFXIV world.

There is still a lot of mysteries and unexplored threads regarding the world such as Meracydia, Ilsabard mainland, Aerslaent, and the New World (especially that since thats actually the biggest continent in the world I think)

We also still dont know the ultimate fate of the 13 shards of Etheirys.

So yeah I feel theres still more room to explore with FFXIV.

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Emit at the end also pretty much Drops a Nod to Future Content and adventures.
So I think its pretty obvious they arnt done yet.
How the future of this game will be....will just have to find out.

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Originally Posted by TheDecay

No one remembers when they screwed thousands of week 1 raiders off because they delayed EW for 2 weeks?

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No one remembers it, because that never happened.

Savage didn't open up until a month after release, and the date at which it'd open was revealed when they announced the 2 week delay.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

No one remembers it, because that never happened.

Savage didn't open up until a month after release, and the date at which it'd open was revealed when they announced the 2 week delay.

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Yeah, Endwalker release is very unlikely to have screwed anyone over.
What might have done so is the decision to delay savage by a week in 6.2, iirc that information came rather late.

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Originally Posted by TheDecay

Yes, of course they are burned out, why else do you think we got Endwalker.

And those strict schedules? They have broken them all the time since Shadowbringers. You can no longer rely on the "schedule" if you want to take time off for week 1 prog. No one remembers when they screwed thousands of week 1 raiders off because they delayed EW for 2 weeks?

Exactly how is this state of affairs admirable? We're no longer in Stormblood when patch cadence was actually speedy and predictable.

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Whilst I'm not one of those White Knights who'll jump at any chance of defending SE, I will say that this isn't a fair assessment.

A certain pandemic had a very significant role in delaying (if not outright stopping) just about everything for everyone at the time.

they also seem to have personal influence on what project they want to work... which is a big thing in motivation

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Originally Posted by Absurdity

Yeah, Endwalker release is very unlikely to have screwed anyone over.
What might have done so is the decision to delay savage by a week in 6.2, iirc that information came rather late.

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Info on delaying Abyssos Savage by 1 week had a similar time frame. This was revealed on the 1st of July, during the first preview of 6.2. The patch released on the 23rd of August.

This is Yoshi P's dream come true of living the rockstar life he never was able to because he is a video game nerd instead of a cool kid with an electric guitar.

Have you seen his outfits? The jewelry? Jetting around the world, staying on big stages with thousands of fans.

This man will keep the show running.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

Been curious about this since I would think after 10 years of this game that the devs would get burned out eventually, and Endwalker being like the peak of what they wanted which is the end of a story arc.

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It's been discussed in the backstage interviews series and Yoshi-P has talked about this a lot of times and this is how he solves it.

1. Not overworking themselves (see the increased breaks between patches of 2 extra weeks plus holidays).
2. They are not allowed to overwork themselves (Yoshi-P stamps his foot and forces them to take a break sometimes when they don't want to, so they don't burnout or feel overwhelmed).
3. Switching roles around (different people working on different types of content each patch such as different raid designers or story writers).
4. Opportunity for any of them to switch units or games that they are working on if they get burned out of this game.
5. The passion, excitement and support of the community helps drive them.

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assuming their team members have been mostly the same unless they shifted devs around at times.

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It's changed a lot. They slowly trained new staff over the years and slowly some of them went to work for other companies, other Square Enix departments, or FF16. The most well known to have moved to FF16 is Koji Fox!

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It made me curious about something else as well, let say during Stormblood that Endwalker was actually being made aside from Shadowbringers at the time. Does his team actually plan a lot of things out way ahead of time and thus why they can meet Patch Deadlines so easily like that?

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They have a rough idea of the plot 2 expansions ahead. In fact let me prove it to you.

1. In ARR patches, Doman Refugees arrive to setup Stormblood.
2. In Heavensward patches, the Warriors of Darkness arrive to setup Shadowbringers.
3. In Stormblood patches, we have a lot of Garlean activity and Alphinaud travels to Garlemald. We were told plans changed, but it seems 6.0 was originally going to be a Garlean expansion and Endwalker was going to be 7.0. We did still visit Garlemald too.
4. Arguably, we see Elidibus on the Moon many times prior to Endwalker.

But there is more. Watch this Heavensward cutscene and see how it predicts the plot of the expansions up through Endwalker, including how Zodiark is bound on the moon.

They start thinking about the next expansion after the last one. They start working on a new expansion after the .3 patch. This is obvious for many reasons, but they also casually mention it sometimes that they are about to get very busy. Shortly after the .4 patch, we then see an initial trailer. We have been shown their development system in presentations a lot of times. They start working on models something like 8 months before, where they present the idea to concept artists and then the artists give it to the people who make models and it goes from there. So just think for a moment how many months in advance every item, object or character could have been going through development for.

They usually have a patch ready months in advance. For example, when 5.0 released we were told that 5.1 was already ready! But they waited months to release it. They spend those months having Quality Assurance test it for bugs and reduce the bugs from thousands to under one hundred and we are told some of the remaining ones in the "Known Issues" section.

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Because if so they know how to keep secrets.

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They investigate and sue anyone that doesn't (and have done in the past). They don't put information in the patch files that gives away future patches usually, although you can usually predict a lot of story events anyway if you think about them and see what references from real life and other FF games they are using. Obviously all the trial bosses this expansion were predicted for example.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

No one remembers it, because that never happened.

Savage didn't open up until a month after release, and the date at which it'd open was revealed when they announced the 2 week delay.

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What a blatant lie. Raiders form statics based on the understanding that the first Savage tier releases 4 weeks after expansion launch. The sudden delay in Endwalker moved Savage deep into holiday season when many people aren't available to raid. This caused many statics to quickly need to replace members and many players needed to find new statics. I'm shocked people have the memory of a goldfish.

Not to mention - the first raid tier was a disaster in terms of stability. The moment someone disconnects, you can say goodbye to your prog night.

You should try not to write fake news like that in the future, particularly seeing as you have not even cleared Asphodelos until July, so you have zero knowledge of what occurred in week 1 of the raid tier.

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

Yikes, sorry I said anything.

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Don't mind Titanmen, he is on his edgy alt again after screaming into the void how much he loves the game. Better than his pride month alt tho!

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Originally Posted by Kaliesto

It made me curious about something else as well, let say during Stormblood that Endwalker was actually being made aside from Shadowbringers at the time. Does his team actually plan a lot of things out way ahead of time and thus why they can meet Patch Deadlines so easily like that?

Because if so they know how to keep secrets.

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I'm pretty sure the plan for after Stormblood was always to go straight to Garlemald next, but then Yoshi-P decided on a whim to make Shadowbringers instead.

Also I think in some pre-expansion talks they mentioned what percent of the new maps were done at that time. I'm pretty sure they're always just working on the next thing and not anything further down the line.

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Originally Posted by Fawkes

I'm pretty sure the plan for after Stormblood was always to go straight to Garlemald next, but then Yoshi-P decided on a whim to make Shadowbringers instead.

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A huge travesty. While ShB was decent as a story in isolation, the effect it had on the rest of the story was palpable.

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Originally Posted by TheDecay

The sudden delay in Endwalker moved Savage deep into holiday season when many people aren't available to raid.

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What kinda holidays were you celebrating on the 4th of January 2022? Y'know, the release date of the patch that unlocked the Savage version of Asphodelos.

This might not be obvious to younger people to whom 3 years is an eternity but people work 30+ years in extremely demanding jobs without quitting. Sometimes it's because you love your job, sometimes it's necessity. Plus in spite of what the internet thinks being a game dev might be long hours but it ain't a "mission critical" job like being a doctor working in a major hospital or an engineer building aircraft that stay in the air or criminal defense lawyers keeping people in/out of prison. People also just work grueling physical jobs for 30 years until they simply collapse.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

What kinda holidays were you celebrating on the 4th of January 2022? Y'know, the release date of the patch that unlocked the Savage version of Asphodelos.

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Yes I'm sure all these people are just making up their issues. You're welcome to search this in multiple recruitment discords, balance, reddit and see people talking about this issue + frantically recruiting new people. People talked about this not just on the day of the announcement btw but for multiple weeks as statics broke up because of the sudden change.

https://i.ibb.co/yVrvKYV/image-2023-06-26-035325224.png

You don't even raid so why are you pretending like you know what happened?

Then again, casual players do very much like to feel that they are always correct despite not doing any of the content.

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Originally Posted by thevanguard

Random stuff

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You didn't answer the question. I'm curious about the 4th of January holiday.

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Originally Posted by Zaniel

This might not be obvious to younger people to whom 3 years is an eternity but people work 30+ years in extremely demanding jobs without quitting. Sometimes it's because you love your job, sometimes it's necessity. Plus in spite of what the internet thinks being a game dev might be long hours but it ain't a "mission critical" job like being a doctor working in a major hospital or an engineer building aircraft that stay in the air or criminal defense lawyers keeping people in/out of prison. People also just work grueling physical jobs for 30 years until they simply collapse.

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Sad fact is, though, that the customer/patient etc won't care about that. The majority of customers/patients don't give any consideration whatsoever to the fact that the employees of whatever company/service it is have a life outside of their work.
Though I guess it might be slightly worse in the gaming world due to high expectations and low patience from the sort of gamers whose life revolves around the game(s) they play.

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Originally Posted by TheDecay

You should try not to write fake news like that in the future.

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Maybe... just maybe you should take your own advice before giving them to others.

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Originally Posted by Nezerius

You didn't answer the question. I'm curious about the 4th of January holiday.

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Never heard of Orthodox Christmas?

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Originally Posted by Lauront

Never heard of Orthodox Christmas?

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Orthodox Christmas is always on January 7th, not the 4th.

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Originally Posted by Striker44

Orthodox Christmas is always on January 7th, not the 4th.

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I knew some pedant would try this, so it's fitting it'd be you. You do realise there's always a lead up to holidays like Christmas (hence, "holiday season" - it's common for people to book time off around the actual day), and if you're doing savage, most people aren't going to clear it same day, right? So there needn't even have been a holiday around the 4th, but as it just so happens, there is.