[4.0->4.1]Would you be okay with a longer delay?

[DamianFatale]

You know what I think? The way the Japanese business structure works is culturally different. I don't think we have any right to say how that should work, unless we are actually from that country as an origin. Second, I do think a break could be healthy, because breaks from art allow us to come back refreshed, and ready to work on projects. Even with that said, I am not from Japan. Take my comment with a grain of salt.

[Sylve]

Fifty-Two weeks in a year, no time to spread vacation out? Lots of developers talk about stages to game development. You telling me they can not schedule some people off from each section.

Also starting to wonder at this point if SE has some other issue for hiring talent. We don't get specific excuses, just not enough people. They should have been able to hire enough people to develop a whole new game by now. Or at least enough people so we don't need to have this discussion about cancel all content for at least another month while everyone gets a month off.

Depends on the company in question and who is taking that break.
In my workplace, when my boss takes her time off at the end of the year, I'm available to just step in and do the work she normally does. Likewise, we spread our time off around so others can cover the shifts. But where i work, we must be open every day of the week and the same work needs to get done every single day.

For a development studio, taking the whole team off for a rest period at the end of a project and the start of a new one actually works better. Keeps everyone on the same page when they get back, No need to catch up the guy who was on break with all the developments that occurred while they were gone.
You also don't need to deal with constantly having less staff than you actually need to do the job.

I'm perfectly fine with the Devs all taking 2 - 4 weeks off after Stormblood launches. They deserve a rest regardless of what you think of the work they did.
The only players such a break affects are the speed runners. Those who no-life the game to get to 'endgame' as fast as humanly possible.
Knowing the next wave of content is going to be delayed means you can relax a bit just enjoy the game. If the 'endgame' is the only thing you enjoy, the problem is you. Not the game.
But of course, they wont take their time leveling, those evil casuals might catch up to them! How will the scrubz know who their overlords are if they don't get to cap and have all the best gear before them!? Can't have that now can we.

PS: I'd say their talent is perfectly fine. Considering they release 4 times the number of content patches as a certain other MMO that has a Dev team the size of a small country...

[Aronys]

3.0 - 3.1 period was 5 months. That was 5 months of running the same 2 dungeons daily. I can't stomach that again. Sure, they needed that vacation as they didn't take any since they took over from Tanaka's team back in 1.0. They didn't have any vacation in 3 years then, so that one was a much needed one, sure. Since then, they worked as normal, so I don't see the need for the entire team to go on a long vacation immediately after 4.0 launches. But if they do that again, I wish they get us through that period with minor patches at least. Give us the relic so that we have something to work on, for example. But not a single piece of content after 4.0 until 4.1? No.

[DynamoAce]

If it means making the expansion really good then I wouldn't mind the wait. I'd rather have something fully complete to everyone's expectations rather than a rushed product that flops.

[Bacent]

I kind of want a longer break for 4.1. It'll let people get better acquainted with the two new classes, and let people like me work on getting as many jobs as they can to 70 before new currency is released. Really bloody curious in how they all work level 61+ and looking forward to trying everything out.

[YokeM]

Because no one want to see the dev team burned out because of the output asked of them.

If devs start quiting cause the workload is too demanding or their health or moral starts to suffer it will negatively effect the game. Its not like established team members are quick and easy to replace. FF14's team has been hiring for a long time and it takes time to find people with the right skills and integrate them. You cant just throw money at it and magically solve it.

Employees aren't slaves. Companies should value their customers but at the same time customers should have realistic expectations of what they expect from those they are buying from.

Pretty much this.

Scheduling the development process can be very hard. A Good Software Manager adds a margin into the schedule to have some buffer. But even this buffer sometimes isn`t enough if something really bad happens, like for example your framework suddenly isn`t capable of handling all the incoming data.

So you can say now: "Meh, just plan ahead for this...bla...bla, get qualified staff...bla...bla". I have never seen a developer that could plan for everything there was to come. And I frequently see some of my colleagues freak out because they try to. When Yoshi was asked if they could add a specific type of content, he made a good statement: "You really think it`s that easy..."
It isn`t. Especially as your project grows.

And no, getting more staff isn`t always the solution. If you want to know why, go and read "The Mythical Man-Month".

So give them some time off. They most likely need it. Especially while dealing with the demands of some people here.

[ffchampion]

No. It is a companies job to work vacation time into production..

You've clearly never worked in the games industry. I used to have to do 50 hour weeks with restricted periods as to when we were allowed to take vacation.

[Pomelo]

It ultimately depends on how the community receives Stormblood if its a disaster surely they should work harder so 4.1 rectifies as many mistakes as it can?

[ShinMetsu]

How about this?

If they finish their work early, they can take a break until they need to start working on the next content to stay on track with the release schedule?
Or maybe if they introduce better content that has more longevity and can afford to ease up on the tight release schedule?

[Rufalus]

Expansion content will be enormous. I can wait longer for patches. Heavensward was huge too, but some people had the idea that leveling content isn't real content and only endgame matters. If you take the time to level multiple jobs instead of just one and do some side stuff like gathering, then an expansion can last you a really long time. With pvp factored in, it's pretty much limitless.