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

[aleph_null]

I think a better question will be whether the contents in 4.0 are enough to keep people subbed until 4.1? Personally I don't really mind if they want to take breaks and push 4.1 later than planned, if I get bored I'll simply unsub for a while.

[Arutan]

Oh, if they can go to vacation all together because they decided they deserve to, can I too? Having 1 vacation a year sucks.

On another hand, if they keep doing trash content like diadem v1 and v2 that will just die, I don't see where they deserve vacations. The day they'll realize there's better place where to use their ressources, they may consider deserving vacation. Like, doing 2-3 boss more for raid instead, or doing a 8man savage version of the 24man raid.

[Knahli]

I was nervous about checking back here since post *laughs*

My main concern stems from an interview following Heavensward's release where Yoshi discussed just how much pressure they were under, going as far as to borrow staff from other titles just so they could meet their renewed deadline in time, and even then only just barely. I understand that they are more well-prepared this time and hopefully the expanded budget helps relieve the stress a bit; but even then, considering Japan's culture when it comes to the workplace, it just bothers me that they don't feel (the community believes(?)) they are owed even a small reprieve from the usual release schedule.

I don't mean to trivialize anyone's feeling on the quality of certain content nor their possible distaste with the direction certain elements they may be interested in are going, but that doesn't really factor into deciding just how much time and "effort" went into it's production. If you're not happy with the game nor the expansions then that's unfortunate, but I can't agree that it should be the deciding factor as to whether or not devs have "earned" a little extra time off personally ;

[RaijinSupreme]

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.

Was it normal that every single employee where you worked took their vacation all at the same time, thus completely halting production for a whole month's time?

[Kallera]

wsnip;

While I understand your points, the limited staying power of the content is their own design, not ours. Gordias patch cycle was incredibly annoying for just about everyone involved, and if the decisions they did there is their answer for taking a break, I think people are right to question them.

[aleph_null]

I don't mean to trivialize anyone's feeling on the quality of certain content nor their possible distaste with the direction certain elements they may be interested in are going, but that doesn't really factor into deciding just how much time and "effort" went into it's production. If you're not happy with the game nor the expansions then that's unfortunate, but I can't agree that it should be the deciding factor as to whether or not devs have "earned" a little extra time off personally ;

The thing is, it's up to SE to decide whether or not they can have extra time off, which probably comes down to how well the contents hold our subscriptions until the next patch. It's a business after all.

[Claviusnex]

I retired out of software development. Part of the job is working long, odd hours for long periods of time. It was why I was paid the big bucks and awarded stock bonuses. At least that's what my manager claimed. Time off should be accounted for in the product schedules to allow employees to take their vacation. For me and many other folks I know that usually meant taking sometime after product ship and the inevitable crunch time of the next release. However it never resulted in a slipped product release date.

[ffchampion]

Was it normal that every single employee where you worked took their vacation all at the same time, thus completely halting production for a whole month's time?

The normality was out of each section (single player, co-op, background, qa etc) only 1 or 2 people could be off at a time which generally didn't give people space. also in the last 6 months before release no one was allowed time off meaning after release everyone had to use their holidays up all at once since carry overs into next holiday year werent allowed

[Moonlite]

Also some people that talk about vacation. It sounds like your company still gave you the legally allotted time off. No one is entitled to specific days that I know of. It is at the companies convenience during the fiscal work year. Yes it sucks when a 4 man team is a 3 man team and you have the same amount of work. But SE has had plenty of time to adjust that so a person can be off here and there. In fact I believe it has almost been two years since last expansion.

Lets do some math 3.0 to 4.0 is almost exactly 24 months give or take a day. We got 5 dedicated patches over those 24 months. No 3.55 doesn't count as a whole patch. That says they released a patch just under 4.8 months. The patches had less dungeons, they reused the same quest idea for the main non drop weapon, and not sure how much of hard mode dungeons already have existing assets.

Now to the people who said 3.0 was so full. It only launched with 2 dungeons at cap, it had no dailies, it had no 24 man, it had no 8 man, and it had no pvp. The quests literally all got eaten up leveling one job. The zone was then pretty boring. Maybe they have better planned out launch, but does anything recently show we are getting a step up in production.

Now some things we know won't be in launch inventory fix and housing fix(/laugh)(/cry). If 4.0 launched with the 24 man, 8 man, pvp, inventory fix, housing fix, at least 4-6 cap dungeons, first step of next weapon (why did they not have crystal farm step in when 3.0 launched), and either a better quest hub system or at least a daily. Yes then they could spread 4.0 and 4.1 apart. But we have already heard lots of stuff will not be in launch.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Frankly, it wasn't only the long delay that frustrated people through 3.1. The content simply couldn't sustain interest. Gordias was entirely too challenging and Diadem and LoV were both flops. That meant Thordan EX and the MSQ had to keep people's attention for over seven months. The devs certainly deserve a vacation, but they need to better prepare content to last longer should they opt to delay a patch.