My two cents on development.

[NefarioCall]

There's been a certain amount of vague about just what is being done behind the scenes on this game, and the pessimists argue that things are moving rather slowly.

Yoshi says there's a lot of stuff in the works, but nothing gets released until it is ready.

Here's why i think that the next 3-5 months are going to provide us with a mind numbing amount of content.

EVERYTHING.. and i mean EVERYTHING tracks back to a couple of major projects and nothing can really be released until those two major projects are good to go.

#1) Battle system.
#2) Geographical redesign.

Every monster, every fight, every dungeon and every everything having to do with anything you fight in game, is designed with a purpose in mind. it would be silly to release any significant new battle content that is designed under the current smash the attack key till its dead battle system.

Lets face it, the current battle system is a button mash, and the new one is geared towards what FFXI did so well. PARTY BASED TACTICS, with some solo if you'd like.

In any case, why waste hundreds of human work hours designing new battle content, only to redesign it as soon as you implement the new battle system? You know they're going to have to completely rework these 2 new raids and put a lot of double up hours into them as the new battle system expands right?

But you all demanded the content NOW.

Ah well, it's only two.

But furthermore, for the next 10 dungeons, or all the beastman camps.
We'll get em in a big explosion as soon as the new battle system is up to snuff.

Also, the geography.. i mean it's nice to say there's new content from hubs to beastman tribes and such, but they have to go somewhere, and well...

if you're making a new beastman camp in the Ul'dah region that is a mountain maze like the orc camp outside of sandoria in FFXI, well, it would be really strange if it suddenly appears in the middle of a big flat field. >_> it would be like some kind of big GLITCH.

Anyways, i am excited for what is to come.

[SydeBeheln]

If SE was smart, they would release the new dungeons pre-made for the new battle system and everything involved in it. They said they are already aware of everything going into the new system, so the dungeons (And like I said, if they are smart) will reflect that.

About the geography, SE said they are redoing the maps, with that in mind, they will have the opportunity to create placement for these new beastmen strongholds they are talking about, and any of the new HUB's. These strongholds will most likely be new zones.

[Cendres]

Excellent topic, however I'm afraid your battle is already lost as people just don't bother to actually think this all through. Yoshi and team have already said numerous times why this is all taking so very long (which is why I was AGAINST battle reforms), but it falls on deaf ears.

We all want, want and want some more and have absolutely no patience to wait for the devs to make all these changes for us.

IF after the battle reforms and geographical changes are made content still comes in at a trickle then yes there will be a huge problem of an undermanned team, right now though it's pretty much going as I expected and feared. :S Still I am excited for chocobos and the like...

[Jennestia]

Heh like FFXI, once this is all said and done we'll get content at a steady pace -- XI is their other active (and highly successful) MMO for those that don't know/choose to ignore it. If XIV was in the same position as XI (no need for foundation reform) we'd be at previews of our second expansion pack right now.

[Mug]

I always think it's hilarious when people call the playerbase impatient and claim that we want things "now", when in actual fact we've waited almost ten months for them to give us something (of substance) to do.

SE are the only ones at fault here, and I'm pretty sure they'd tell you that too.

[SydeBeheln]

I always think it's hilarious when people call the playerbase impatient and claim that we want things "now", when in actual fact we've waited almost ten months for them to give us something (of substance) to do.

SE are the only ones at fault here, and I'm pretty sure they'd tell you that too.

I think most people speak out about being patient and calm, because no matter how we look at the problem, it doesn't change the fact that it will take a good amount of time to repair. If you rush the devs then you get exactly what you asked for, rushed/ incomplete work. Just like with the release of this game, it wasn't ready, and we shouldn't expect them to rush new content if it's not ready, or else this game will go right back where it started.

[zaviermhigo]

I always think it's hilarious when people call the playerbase impatient and claim that we want things "now", when in actual fact we've waited almost ten months for them to give us something (of substance) to do.

SE are the only ones at fault here, and I'm pretty sure they'd tell you that too.

I also "love" when they say we're notorious for "rumor mongering" and then they still don't ever give us complete information. You don't have to be a student of law to ask the questions we ask them, we see obvious holes in their information and ask questions. Any questions we don't get we search for the answer there, if answer is in different languages forum people want to know that info, we can't rely on SE to do this faster than the players, so the players put up a rough draft.
Like c'mon, its human nature to be curious, are they saying people outside of the NA/English speaking forums aren't...curious? :/ I hate surprises. Maybe that's an american thing now :/ (take all stereotypes as sarcasm)

[Seif]

It's players like these that make SE's fumbling seem really sad when there are still naive players like the OP who think the SE's unseen slowness in development of XIV is about to change somehow.

Even when all the evidence points to just slow speed and this is really all there is for the next patch. People though chocobos take a lot of time because there's going to be something new about the way they're implemented. Almost a year in the making and we'll be just getting the bare-bones version first. Same for the companies. An unseen amount of hype and all the plans seem to be reduced to them being just quest hubs even though previously we were led to believe they're going to be something completely new player run we haven't seen in MMOs before.

I'd like to have my head in the clouds as much as the OP but it's about time you wake up and smell the Lodestone updates. SE is scrambling to get even this patch out of the door in time for Thursday they even made the absolutely ridiculous claim that one set of gear takes half a year to complete.

To wish for them to achieve something over the bare minimum after all these disappointing patches and MW still being a code-mess then I think that's a bit unrealistic really.

When content arrives they're forced to make it extremely grind oriented and repeatable to play time for future because if players burn through the new quests in days they'll be no closer to achieving a playerbase that's willing to pay than they are now.

[Delsus]

It's players like these that make SE's fumbling seem really sad when there are still naive players like the OP who think the SE's unseen slowness in development of XIV is about to change somehow.

I'd like to have my head in the clouds as much as the OP but it's about time you wake up and smell the Lodestone updates. SE is scrambling to get even this patch out of the door in time for Thursday they even made the absolutely ridiculous claim that one set of gear takes half a year to complete.

First they are completly redesigning a game that took 5 years prior to release to develop, so its going to take a long time, if you take that into perspective they arent really going that slowly, the reason people say development is slow is because of SE's priorities, a complete battle system overhaul which needs to be top priority to accomodate how, in practice, the changes will make will affect how content works. SE say they are going to release x, y, z and people think it will come instantly when it requires alot of work to get it, then there are unforseen problems or the current systems dont make it viable for release until some battle or geographic overhauls are done, then everyone says development is slow.

Also you comment saying that them saying its ridiculous that it takes half a year to make new gear, they have to make a model for each race which is about 15 differant models, then they need to add stats to it, and make sure it affects said stats, then they need to add the physics to it, for example if you were running around in a full length coat and it didnt move around your legs, basicly like it was left in the starch too much, what would you think? Programming anything takes time, and appart from the most simple programs there are always unforseen problems, look at FFXI's latest patch, there was a glitch that made cures always do 99,999 to undead mobs, and there were no changes to cure mechanics, which is why it got through to the final patch because no one would have thought somthing would cause a problem to that completly unrelated piece of code.

The only people that can talk about slow development are programmers that know the problems of programming, I have done some, admittedly not much, but enough to know how hard it can be, I have never done as big programs as FFXIV, but i find it hard enough to sift through 50 lines of code to find that I missed 1 semi colon from the end of a line, never mind over 1 million (which FFXIV is bound to have).

[Mug]

Well, no one is going to wait around forever just to be nice to SE because they're having programming problems (and you don't need to be a programmer to say that).

For me, a lot depends on these next few patches. How fast we get them and the quality of them. If the pace picks up and we get fun things to do, then that's awesome and I only see good things for the game, but if it continues to be this slow, then I struggle to see how it will work in the long run.