Is SE's Marketing / PR department -severely- hurting the games chances of success?

[Jynx]

Most new players to MMOs (even WoW) join to play with friends and not to play alone. If SE thinks they will magically convince 1000s of new players to join a game which has 5.0 and worse reviews on many sites (and they won't ever disappear) they are kidding themselves.

Negative PR is a double edged sword, you can turn it to work in your favor to mitigate the damage it will inflict upon yourself. I also feel you are overestimating the star-power the few remaining players in this game have. There are thousands of players sitting on the fence waiting for the game to get good, when it does get good they will come back despite how they treated the current players, the on the fence guys could care less if you cry about "Crappy patchers, bad communication, long periods of nothing" Because when they come back the game will be functioning.

There will always be a large enough player base who will spread the word eagerily when the game shapes up, mainly due to them wanting to scream and shout how they endured the grueling process of getting the game back on it's feet. Those few who are still unpleased will be drown out in a chorus of fanatical supporters, new and old players finally hitting that "Play" button after 8 months away from the game.

I've allready explained how easy it will be to turn those 5.0 scores into a positive thing for the game at large. PS3 launch WILL be treated like an expansion pack to more or less force the press to give the game another round in the media outlets. If the game is good it will be lauded as rising from "What many reviewers called impossible to come back from" ashes. Of course this all pans on the game actually being good when they relaunch.

But I doubt anyone is going to say this game will ever suceed without becoming fun first. Your analogy of people never coming to XIV because they don't want to play alone is flawed. Thousands picked up XIV in the first place with maybe a few friends at best willing to pick it up despite the reviews "hardly any reviews were held back at all and most released far before the game hit store shelves". I can guarantee tens of thousands of people will pick it up again if they treat the PS3 launch as a expansion with a shiny new coat.

Negative PR can and has been overcome millions of times before by companies. Companies like Schniders can KILL people with tainted meat and they litteraly ran over the bad PR with a "Ooops our bad" and a few months of people being sketchy of the meat.

Once the reason the hate emerged is gone, the hate will subside quickly as well. People are not as begrudging as you make them out to be.

[Azurymber]

Negative PR is a double edged sword, you can turn it to work in your favor to mitigate the damage it will inflict upon yourself. I also feel you are overestimating the star-power the few remaining players in this game have. There are thousands of players sitting on the fence waiting for the game to get good, when it does get good they will come back despite how they treated the current players, the on the fence guys could care less if you cry about "Crappy patchers, bad communication, long periods of nothing" Because when they come back the game will be functioning.

There will always be a large enough player base who will spread the word eagerily when the game shapes up, mainly due to them wanting to scream and shout how they endured the grueling process of getting the game back on it's feet. Those few who are still unpleased will be drown out in a chorus of fanatical supporters, new and old players finally hitting that "Play" button after 8 months away from the game.

I've allready explained how easy it will be to turn those 5.0 scores into a positive thing for the game at large. PS3 launch WILL be treated like an expansion pack to more or less force the press to give the game another round in the media outlets. If the game is good it will be lauded as rising from "What many reviewers called impossible to come back from" ashes. Of course this all pans on the game actually being good when they relaunch.

But I doubt anyone is going to say this game will ever suceed without becoming fun first. Your analogy of people never coming to XIV because they don't want to play alone is flawed. Thousands picked up XIV in the first place with maybe a few friends at best willing to pick it up despite the reviews "hardly any reviews were held back at all and most released far before the game hit store shelves". I can guarantee tens of thousands of people will pick it up again if they treat the PS3 launch as a expansion with a shiny new coat.

Negative PR can and has been overcome millions of times before by companies. Companies like Schniders can KILL people with tainted meat and they litteraly ran over the bad PR with a "Ooops our bad" and a few months of people being sketchy of the meat.

Once the reason the hate emerged is gone, the hate will subside quickly as well. People are not as begrudging as you make them out to be.

Didn't games like LOTR + AoC make huge comebacks (went from a horrible game to a fun game)? and they haven't really seen success
And just to point out LotrO and AoC Had great reviews on release. they just lacked content or had issues at the start. But nothing close to FFXIV's problems.

And then you have SwG which remodeled the game to attract new players, pissed off all its current players, and essentially failed because of it.

What MMO has gone from being considered a failure to rebounding and becoming a huge success?