[Stormblood Budget] Where all the money's gone ?

[Katana190]

I'm going to reserve my judgement on this until next week. I'm giving SE this upcoming live letter to give us a tonne of surprises. At fan fest they only have a limited amount of time, and they covered a very basic overview - the announcement, the lore, the locations, the jobs, and very light information about gameplay and features. This upcoming live letter will be their first opportunity (other than interviews) to really delve into the gameplay meat.

I don't have a source so don't quote me on this, but didn't they say they aren't going to discuss the meat until May? This upcoming live letter is still in April and to top it off, it's a Q&A so we're relying on the community again... I hope I'm wrong to be honest so feel free to correct me.

Some very important things we need to know still, what are they gonna do with casters? The current state of slashing and pericing down, and how will they balance PLD and WHM, and much more.

[AstralKaos]

I don't have a source so don't quote me on this, but didn't they say they aren't going to discuss the meat until May? This upcoming live letter is still in April and to top it off, it's a Q&A so we're relying on the community again... I hope I'm wrong to be honest so feel free to correct me.

Ah, my favourite - the Q&A. They choose the safest and not revealing of info questions, or ones that have already been answered numerous times, as well as the worst questions - the "what's your fave colour, Yoshi!?" and "can you high-five the screen!?" and so on... made even worse by the number of these "questions" they waste time answering. It's a complete waste of time, and utter farce.

[ToasterMan]

Ah, my favourite - the Q&A. They choose the safest and not revealing of info questions, or ones that have already been answered numerous times, as well as the worst questions - the "what's your fave colour, Yoshi!?" and "can you high-five the screen!?" and so on... made even worse by the number of these "questions" they waste time answering. It's a complete waste of time, and utter farce.

Meanwhile if someone does ask a major question about game play, we basically get, "Please look forward too it."

[Vaer]

I don't have a source so don't quote me on this, but didn't they say they aren't going to discuss the meat until May? This upcoming live letter is still in April and to top it off, it's a Q&A so we're relying on the community again... I hope I'm wrong to be honest so feel free to correct me.

Some very important things we need to know still, what are they gonna do with casters? The current state of slashing and pericing down, and how will they balance PLD and WHM, and much more.

Battle changes, combat and stuff related to jobs are not allowed to be asked, that info will be next month. Their excuse is most likely "It's still in development." Whether you believe it or not is up to you.

* Please note: Information pertaining to job actions, action adjustments, and the battle system revamp is planned to be released during a Letter from the Producer LIVE scheduled for May. Please hold onto any questions related to those topics until then.

April's will probably be a recap summary on all the stuff coming, maybe a live demo of a character running around in some of the new areas, swimming demo, showing off the new housing area and stuff like that is possible. Then again it could just be nothing.

[Berethos]

Battle changes, combat and stuff related to jobs are not allowed to be asked, that info will be next month. Their excuse is most likely "It's still in development." Whether you believe it or not is up to you.

Given how "in development" by their definition could include the number crunching/balance passes and tweaks (and based on how they don't talk details much until its implementation ready, I'm inclined to believe that "in development" for them includes everything up until it's ready to be added), and most MMOs I've seen with more transparent development are often doing that particular phase of things up until the month or so before a launch?

I'd actually have a harder time believing that they've finished all that - art, effects, UI elements (since those are getting added), testing of those, and the initial balance passes - and are just sitting on it for...reasons?

Can't miss the taste of nice things if you never eat nice things.

Missed my point entirely.

[Vaer]

Given how "in development" by their definition could include the number crunching/balance passes and tweaks (and based on how they don't talk details much until its implementation ready, I'm inclined to believe that "in development" for them includes everything up until it's ready to be added), and most MMOs I've seen with more transparent development are often doing that particular phase of things up until the month or so before a launch?

They've always been very secretive so I'm inclined to believe it is just the way they do things. We'll never know really, they could be holding back because it's not ready (this is more likely, since they are literally trying to cram an expansion out the door in 6 months which is actually really quick IMO), or because PR said they are going to do it this way. Actually on many different occasions, Yoshi's replies was something on the lines of "I'd like to tell you, but PR."

Blizzard for example just does things differently. They usually have a huge info drop at one point, not the slow vague drip that SE does, and then they allow people to test some of it on the PTR sometime down the line. Eventually the fansites get all the info and most of it is known, and anytime they change anything and iterate the information is made available if you know where to look. I think most MMOs have some sort of alpha or beta period for expansions before they release where people pull info from.

Personally I think it's a calculated decision to have this info out right before the release, since the game will be in a lull where there hasn't been a substantial update to the game in a while. It'll be a "Hey guys we're still alive, here's some stuff" hype infusion. Certain competitors will be releasing updates around that time (at least 1 expansion) as well.

[Berethos]

Personally I think it's a calculated decision

That's likely part of the reasoning behind the calculated decision, but it's also probably to avoid situations where players get hyped about a new feature they heard about 6 months out and said feature ends up getting significantly changed or removed by the time the expansion launches. While it can be really cool to know a lot of details about an upcoming feature or change...you can also end up in a situation where it goes from "Oh that looks awesome" to "Oh...that's okay I guess" to "Where did it go?" Garrisons in the WoD expansion in WoW are a perfect example - what started as a sort of customizable version of housing that was hyped to be something you could have in a chosen zone and would be a fun side attraction became a much more on rails experience with much less customization.

Avoiding those kinds of swings in player reaction is definitely a calculated decision.