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

[Codek]

Oh please don't be absurd lol. The only reason FFXIV did so well is because at the time there was a huge influx of WoW players leaving WoW due to being bored. Don't believe me? Go look at WoW numbers right before ff re-release? FFXIV just happened to be in the right place in the right time considering there wasn't much else out there. People flocked to it like moth to a flame. But i will tell you... ask SE to publish their active numbers NOW and ill guarantee you'll see a different picture. Even more so when ESO and WIldstar come out.

While ill say that the trip 1-50 with the story line was pretty decent, the rest has just become a complete utter grind (the highest with lockouts). And people are starting to wake up to that fact (aka the honeymoon effect is wearing off). The others and simply having fun because they are with friends.

Hey, im just being truthful here. I want this game to do good too, but lets not kid ourselves hmm?

Conjectures does not equate to being truthful... Just saying.

[Gilthas]

Why is it that when developers don't give us all the changes that we want people pretend that they never listen to us? Because there have already been several changes made to the game after release as a direct response to player complaints (myth caps, WAR remodeling, gatherer experience, increases to battlecraft leve and dungeon experience, etc, etc.).

The real problem with housing is the pricing. If prices were low I'm certain that all the wards would be full by now.

I'll be honest, I hate their response to crafting/gathering endgame, but that's not the same as SE never listening to players.

[Errors]

-snip-

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.

[Welsper59]

Players always have a voice towards what should/shouldn't be in a game. What an unfortunately high number of people don't understand is that a "voice" is not the same as "control".

[Eekiki]

The people developing the game Rust put this short statement on the game's page on Steam that I think sums the whole "SE doesn't listen to the players enough" garbage perfectly:

“We are in very early development. Some things work, some things don't. We haven't totally decided where the game is headed - so things will change. Things will change a lot. We might even make changes that you think are wrong. But we have a plan. It's in our interest to make the game awesome - so please trust us.”

It's amazing how many members of the General Discussion Piss & Moan Club seem to act like SE is going out of their way to make choices they don't like just to spite them.

[ArcheustheWise]

Conjectures does not equate to being truthful... Just saying.

Final fantasy XIV ARR was released August 27, 2013 (24th for early birds). Fact.

WoW had roughly 10 mil subs during last years beginning. Well known fact.

Wow has been dropping exponentially since then. Also fact. http://www.maximumpc.com/world_warcr...n_players_2013

Considering many people look for an mmo after leaving another one (which is common knowledge and practice) it is safe to assume they saw arr, decided to come to this game and walla! The subs we had at launch.

Current game, considering the drop in people logging in (different for each guild), forum complaining, and how much more silent it is (less spam) at certain hubs, Its safe to assume through logic there's some fall in the subscription base. Personally I'd love to see SE release sub numbers just for the curious. But i doubt they would.

Mostly fact and some easy observation and a little bit of common sense (aka no rose colored glasses).

[Gilthas]

Final fantasy XIV ARR was released August 27, 2013. Fact.

WoW had roughly 10 mil subs during last years beginning. Fact.

Wow has been dropping exponentially since then. Also fact. http://www.maximumpc.com/world_warcr...n_players_2013

Considering maybe people look for an mmo after leaving another one (which is common knowledge and practice) it is safe to assume they saw arr, decided to come to this game and walla!

Considering the drop in people logging in. (different for each guild) ITs safe to assume there's some fall in the subscription base.

So as you can see my friend, its far from conjecture. Some fact and some easy observation and a little bit of common sense (aka no rose colored glasses).

I disagree with your conjecture. I honestly think that the majority of FFXIV's playerbase is composed of FF fans and that most people that left were the FF fans that prefer offline games / refuse to pay subscriptions.

While some players obviously came from WoW, I simply don't believe in your assertion that most of FFXIV's initial numbers stem from people leaving WoW.

[Magis]

snip

He's not saying you are lieing, he is saying you don't have all the information. We don't know what the sub numbers are for ARR right now.

[Trell]

Most of ARR's changes were because of the supposed "only 1% who visits the forums", just an FYI.

Partly, yes. You also have to base yourself on the statistical BI you're collecting in order to ascertain what your whole gaming population is favoring in the game. Then you balance it with your own overall vision for the game as a designer. It's not just based on forum user feedback. Forum posters are just the most vocal of these weighed factors. ;-)

[Amberion]

I disagree with your conjecture. I honestly think that the majority of FFXIV's playerbase is composed of FF fans and that most people that left were the FF fans that prefer offline games / refuse to pay subscriptions.

While some players obviously came from WoW, I simply don't believe in your assertion that most of FFXIV's initial numbers stem from people leaving WoW.

I believe that a lot of FF fans left the game because of it's focus. This game is targeted at the general MMO population. Then you have the general MMO player that has also left... because that is what they do, they go back to their "main" game, or the next game.


As for if a lot of players came from WoW.. I think they did, this game had lots of news of it around on gaming sites. Another think that will clue you in to the fact that a lot of WOW players came, is the terminology they use.