The Letter is up

[Biggs]

Mis-post sorry

[Biggs]

People need to relax and let them do their thing. This game wasn't ready, but the suits upstairs decided that the deadline still had to be meet and they pushed it out. That's what got us into this mess.

Yoshi and this team have set the deadlines as being when the quality is right. I infinitely prefer that over simply pushing crap out to meet a specific date.

While I agree that it will be done when its done, as a current player, its hard to relax about when its done when they give false dates (or any dates at all) for when THEY think something will be done.

Its funny, most of us have been saying for years (from back during ffxi even) that Se needs to have more PR and inform the players whats going on more, but now that they are, I kinda wish they would just shut up lol. I like being in the loop to an extent but, they are way better off saying such and such will be ready when its ready than saying ambiguous statements like "mid-june at the earliest". Whether we want it to or not people, that sort of thing creates a false expectation that leads to the kind of dissapointment that fuels this current thread.

[Cutriss]

First of all, stop taking stuff so personally.

Not taking it personally, sorry if I sound that way. Plenty of vitriol around here after all, I meant no offense myself.

I never said that you "don't have to spend money to make money." My argument originally was that SE can't or won't assign more resources to a game that is not making profit when they can be used on resources that can and will make money. This is basic business. If the gamble on FFXIV gets TOO big, believe me they will shut it down in an instant.

Certainly. My point is this: 20 people working on the project for the next six months compared to 40 people working on the project for the next three months (mythical man month issues notwithstanding), you're more likely to stem your losses than extending them, and by the end of those three months, if it appears your product will still be viable, you can re-evaluate your staffing priorities at that time.

Basically - if you're going to commit to the project, *commit* to it. Give it the supplemental staff it needs to get back on track, or cut the project.

As the saying goes, piss or get off the pot.

Secondly, There was an article on these very boards that SE lowered there financial forecast due to the recent earthquake. They either have already written it off, which is common practice for a company that KNOWS its taking a huge loss, or have PLANNED to write it off.

That's much different. It's a write-off due to declining sales resulting from reduced marketability. It's not a direct result of the earthquake, it's an indirect result.

In a sad way it's actually lucky for them because they can attribute more of their failures to external factors without coming off as incompetent or poorly-performing.

[Jynx]

While I agree that it will be done when its done, as a current player, its hard to relax about when its done when they give false dates (or any dates at all) for when THEY think something will be done.

By this logic SE should just majorly piss all of us off and just say "It will be done when it's done. Peace out bitches"

[DurtiMonkeyToe]

Not taking it personally, sorry if I sound that way. Plenty of vitriol around here after all, I meant no offense myself.Certainly. My point is this: 20 people working on the project for the next six months compared to 40 people working on the project for the next three months (mythical man month issues notwithstanding), you're more likely to stem your losses than extending them, and by the end of those three months, if it appears your product will still be viable, you can re-evaluate your staffing priorities at that time.

Basically - if you're going to commit to the project, *commit* to it. Give it the supplemental staff it needs to get back on track, or cut the project.

As the saying goes, piss or get off the pot.That's much different. It's a write-off due to declining sales resulting from reduced marketability. It's not a direct result of the earthquake, it's an indirect result.

In a sad way it's actually lucky for them because they can attribute more of their failures to external factors without coming off as incompetent or poorly-performing.

I see your point and I understand it, but it would still probably be hard to justify in a business environment. We would need far more details than we have to know for sure, such as why is it taking so long? Is it the programming side of it that is taking longest? Or the management side of it. Arguable it is the planning phase that takes the longest but doubling the amount of leadership in charge for setting the visions and goals of the games is going to cost more and probably make things slower than adding 20 programmers to just make the work go faster.

Also, I did the required research and SE did take damage to some of their assets from the earthquake, about 0.6 billion Yen loss.

http://www.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/110512.pdf

Just so that I am backing up my big mouth, lol.

[Biggs]

By this logic SE should just majorly piss all of us off and just say "It will be done when it's done. Peace out bitches"

No, they could easily tell us what they are working on without giving any dates. I would much rather they just not give dates or even date estimates until its a lock was my point. In regards to pissing us of, either way they do it they are gonna piss someone off, it cant be helped. I just happen to be in the "no dates, but official ones" camp is all.

[Jynx]

No, they could easily tell us what they are working on without giving any dates. I would much rather they just not give dates or even date estimates until its a lock was my point. In regards to pissing us of, either way they do it they are gonna piss someone off, it cant be helped. I just happen to be in the "no dates, but official ones" camp is all.

Why would they get our hopes up with even telling us what they are working on? Your logic is that trying to set a deadline is bad because it gets our hopes up to only be dissapointed when they delay it "Even though they said it could be delayed"

So by following this line of logic it would be better if SE just stood up and said "Game will get better, eventually. peace out bro"

Setting deadlines helps them as well as a team focus on working hard to hit those deadlines they set out for us. Unfortunatly it wont always be the case but I'd rather see some dates than none.

[Cutriss]

Also, I did the required research and SE did take damage to some of their assets from the earthquake, about 0.6 billion Yen loss.

http://www.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/110512.pdf

Just so that I am backing up my big mouth, lol.

Which is less than half of one percent of their market cap. I personally think it has more symbolic meaning than anything.

[Gramul]

Why would they get our hopes up with even telling us what they are working on? Your logic is that trying to set a deadline is bad because it gets our hopes up to only be disappointed when they delay it "Even though they said it could be delayed"

So by following this line of logic it would be better if SE just stood up and said "Game will get better, eventually. peace out bro"

Setting deadlines helps them as well as a team focus on working hard to hit those deadlines they set out for us. Unfortunately it wont always be the case but I'd rather see some dates than none.

Why not increase communications so that we have a better understanding of why things take so long or the logic behind decisions and release dates.

[Jynx]

Why not increase communications so that we have a better understanding of why things take so long or the logic behind decisions and release dates.

What don't we understand allready?

Why did it take so long to do? Well one can only assume it's reasons not fully under there control. Could be the suits upstairs, could be that people don't understand how much work it takes to actually change the battle system, could be a number of things.

What do you want Yoshida to sit down and give us a page of code and tell us "Here you go guys make this the Auto Attack system, then you will understand how hard this shit is."