Improvements they could make for Fan Fest 2015

[Kisik]

A small nitpick, the name badges, they really could have been better quality, a proper hard plastic badge that will last years as a memento of attending Fan Fest. I understand that the paper printed badges worked much better for an in the moment situation, but other conventions send their badges out ahead of the event via mail, I don't see why this couldn't have been done that way too. Guests could then swipe the badge, show ID, and be good to go.

Lastly, I feel the time for the fanfest was misrepresented. The first day felt like a tremendous loss being exclusively reserved for registration and the reception, combined with the time it took to get through the lines, it got to be rather challenging to completely partake in all the activities in just the two days that fan fest took place in, the full 3 days of actual fan fest would have been much nicer.

[Magnesium02]

Thank you all for this thread!
We're definitely looking for ways to improve the show experience for all those attending and are anxious to get more feedback like this!

Can you have a 4th Fanfest in Australia?

[Zeno_McDohl]

I only have 1 suggestion! Please please make Fan Fest yearly. GE's interview with Yoshi-P indicated they're thinking of doing this not yearly because there won't always be an expansion announcement.

We fans go to meet other fans, buy merch, meet the FFXIV team and generally to have fun. I don't care if there would be an expansion announcement or not, I'll go no matter what!

[Seyrr]

I agree that lines were a problem... I was a retainer, and it was frustrating to see how long people had to wait. I wanted you guys to play and win! (You may remember me as the one at the Odin battle with the fishing hat who shouted a lot.) We had a few retainers ditch orientation, and I think more dropped out as FanFest went on. We were responsible for resetting systems, so fewer retainers meant longer before we were ready for another group.

Also, there were cases where people took lots of extra time to set up keybinds, or started arguing with the staff. We can't keep the line moving if the players aren't cooperative, y'know?

Don't get me wrong. I had a lot of fun ordering you all around and cheering you on - I held off on taking breaks a few times to see some of you finish off your fights! But I did feel like our job was harder than it needed to be at times. (And I'm very grateful to those of you who understood that and did what you could to make it easier.)

[NaohaLanbatal]

First of all, dump Eventbrite. I barely managed to get a ticket the first day they were put up for sale, and got screwed out of a VIP ticket because Eventbrite just can't handle the traffic.

Like everybody else seems to be saying, the lines. The lines were just horrendous. It was so hard to tell what line was where, where the lines ended, and so on. On registration day the signs for the lines were just flat-out ignored. They were putting regular people in the VIP/media line and people buying tickets at the door in an unmarked line (but there was nobody to say that, of course, until we're already going down the wrong line!) My feet were killing me because of so much standing.

[NaohaLanbatal]

The in-game events should have been ready to go before the day started. Odin didn't open until way after the keynote ended; they were totally unprepared to start. Just have 2 tank stations, 2 healer stations, and 4 DPS stations, where each character has the levels/gear for all the jobs in that particular role, so it works just like the DF. There was too much bickering about "I can only play this/that" and trying to put together parties in the line and it contributed to the slowness. From what I've heard the Ramuh events had full high Allagan gear, so why i100 gimped soldiery gear for Odin? And everybody should get the same amount of time to prepare for the same event. Not 1 minute for some and 15 for another.

And finally, about the Rio. Too small, bad layout, bad restaurants, and the license plates were stolen off my rental car in their garage in broad daylight. Please, please find a better venue next time.

[Sol_Aureus]

As others have said, picking up badges was sort of a nightmare on registration day given how long it took to stand in line just to get a flimsy paper badge, it would have been much better to mail out hard plastic badges like other events and have the Friday be like an all-day reception thing with an area with Server-labled tables for players to meet up without having to worry about running around and doing events.

The lines were also pretty discouraging given how long they were, having a number or kiosk system with monitor displays showing the current numbers or queued groups so that stuff with a long line can be registered for and then checked up on occasionally without having to stand in line for so long would be nice.

Having a some plain sign-in station with a time limit where people could log on to their characters would be good as well, especially given the fact that some game systems require daily checking such as Gardening. I had to not plant anything in my garden before going to the event because otherwise it would have died since the event was more than 48 hours.

The Archery thing was really fun, but the Garlean Artillery was...meh. As others have said it was just sort of a cheesy carnival game. There's a reason the line for archery was an hour+ long and the Artillery was only about 10 minutes.

Overall Fan Fest was really fun though and I'd definitely like to go again if there's another one!

[Sol_Aureus]

My biggest complaint was honestly the fact that there was NO MMO MICE at any of the stations. A lot of us play with an MMO mouse that has multiple buttons on the side where the thumb rests that we can use as keybinds for abilities, and at least for me, not having that option was crippling and made me play a lot worse during the events since I'm not used to not having that option available. For next Fan Fest I'd really highly recommend that you seek out a sponsor that is willing to supply those for the gaming stations, the most common mouse I hear used is the Razer Naga. But if you can't get Razer as a sponsor, Logitech was sponsoring this Fan Fest and I know they make gaming mice like that as well. Or if you can't get a sponsor that's willing to do that, let players bring their own mice!

[Roelon1st]

If players bring their own mice, setup their keys and all that junk. The wait time in lines would double. I think this is atleast one of the reasons why they didnt allow it. People had to spend atleast 5min to reset and apply their own stuff before each battle. My first Odin battle I had like 2 min to setup.

[Ryuko]

I know this will PROBABLY never happen, but it would cut down on the issues... something to consider when the budget/technology allows (years from now?):

Allow us to set up premade characters on Friday, after registration. We'll take our time to save our UI, adjust our keybinds, make sure everything is as we like it... and then we'll save those settings (temporary character) for the rest of the weekend. Your temporary login could be printed on the back of your ticket for easy reference. So, when we sit down at the computers, we won't have to waste 5+ minutes adjusting everything (and occasionally forgetting some things). My first time trying Odin, I outright forgot to set LB. Oops. Every character will have decent gear, and every single job at 50. Repairing gear will be easy because the character will be stocked with grade 5 materia. To restrict groups that enter difficult fights, make it so the duty finder requires a certain combination: 2 tanks, 2 healers, 4 dps. Let people choose any combination within this restriction that they want to use. This will also benefit SE in that they'll be able to see how the real playerbase will deal with these fights. (Please, utilize the data collected at fanfest as though we are betatesters). I don't think Odin would have been THAT much easier if they let us have two PLDs, two WARs, two WHMs, two SCHs, etc.

The real restrictions I see here: Creating thousands of 'temporary accounts'. Also, storing all of the UI/keybind data on some sort of server that everyone can simultaneously reference. I know the current data is stored client-side (and if you log into your account from someone else's computer, it's all back to default). So, this would be different to implement, and would take a long time, but it would make the fan fest more efficient in the end. I don't expect anything like this to happen for years, if ever, but I wanted to share my thoughts since I know SE reps are reading this.