Do players still have a voice in the direction of development for FFXIV?

[Errors]

A company should never let the fans directly influence their game.

This has beaten into the ground more times than I can count, and not only that...years before FFXIV.

[Aniforani]

Subscription numbers are the only thing the developers will listen to at this point. I'd try to organize an unsubscribe/subscribe day for crafting if I thought enough players cared enough to do it. A loss/recovery of 10% of subs in a day would require some attending to.

[Arkista]

A company should never let the fans directly influence their game.

This has beaten into the ground more times than I can count, and not only that...years before FFXIV.

FFXIV should be in a different category. The game already went down the drain once and there won't be a 3rd chance. Every suggestion doesn't have to be implemented. But they should listen to their player base because we are the ones who pay the bills. If the game keeps going in the direction it is it might not be able to turn around. Lots of good games are coming out this year and ESO looks amazing, We'll just have wait it out. Don't want to be a doomsayer.....

Someone did suggest that SE should do Polls via Moogle Mail service in game and I think that would be a great way to get customer feedback.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...inions-from-us.

[Errors]

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FFXIV shouldn't be treated any differently than any other game being developed. It's not any more special than a game that was developed once or ten times over. You're assuming that 2.0 is going down the drain as the first one did. I don't see that happening, if anything I see it thriving. Again, we are two people bringing our own personal opinions to the table. Neither of us have any facts, just speculations.

The concept of "we are paying the bills so they should listen to us!" is flawed. Who do you listen to? The person who want's X or the person who want's the opposite of X? If people really want to go with that line of thought, just stop paying for the game. People have a wrong sense of what they are actually paying for or for that matter how much their 1 account is actually worth. For $14.99 a month you are paying for a months worth of entertainment. That's roughly $0.49 a day. And since no one plays 24 hours straight, lets say an average player plays for 2 hours a day in any given month. So 60 hours in a month (30 days), you are paying roughly $0.24 for an hour. I'm hard pressed to find that same amount of entertainment value at that cost. Even going to the movies for a 2 hour film costs much more (tickets, popcorn, and we won't consider drive/gas).

If I did everything my clients wanted me to do on a project, the project would either never get done, turn out horribly, or be way over budget and flop. How about you let the folks who actually have experience in this field do the work. Also, the fear mongering of, "OMG a new shiny is coming out and will knock out whatever we currently have out of the park" is something that everyone says constantly, it means squat. Companies don't plan for the next big thing they plan years down the road. Planning is where it's at, not knee jerk reactions.

Getting customer feedback is great, managing customer expectations on that feedback is another thing. Just because someone shares an opinion doesn't mean someone has to act on it. The problem is that folks feel some sort of entitlement that their opinion should be implemented now because it's the best for the game...as does the next person, and the next person and the next person. The customer is not always right nor do they tend to have any sort of insight on how things are actually developed. Folks have a hard time looking past the trees to see the forest.