Tickets are all gone for fan fest

[Melchar]

What I personally would like to see is, at the very least, an apology and an admission that things went very wrong and a promise that this will not happen again. Ideally, I'd like to see customers' e-mail addresses run (or contacted) to verify they had a legitimate access code, and if any codes were found to have been used multiple times (which apparently was also possible), those transactions should be investigated.

I agree with you Boxworm. Based on Bayohne's statement, the messages sent out on Twitter, and the silence now it would be nice to see some for of an apology. It would also be nice to have more transparency. As it stands, the communication has been very PR damage control and honeyed to the point that I feel like we're being treated as though we were stupid. I love this game. I appreciate what the devs and community team does for it. But I have to say, the way this has been handled is souring my enjoyment of the game knowing that something that started with being all about listening to the players who stuck through the bad times and driving towards the better has now become this? It's not a good feeling.

I'd love if more tickets were available. But that's not gonna happen. Even if there was wrongdoing found, are they gonna do another queue for what they deem a "small number" of tickets that were bought without codes or through less savory means? No. At this point it'd just be nice to see some damn empathy and a demonstration that they know they messed up and take some ownership about it instead of kicking it back and forth between Showclix.

[Boxworm]

do you think SE will release more tickets at a later date?

No. Not unless they investigate and revoke the illegitimate tickets. They've stated that they are sold out. Not that the first wave is sold out, just plain sold out. They can't release more tickets because the venue has a strict fire code limiting the number of people that can attend. (Technically, as I recall, in 2016 we were slightly over the limit and the staff were very upset about it.) So, unless they are able to rent an additional room at the Rio, which they seem to have no interest in doing, then that's all folks!

[JunseiKei]

I don't think the majority of us are calling for a total re-do. We fully recognize that many players did in fact legitimately obtain their tickets. It's not their fault if they were able to purchase when someone who queued 5 minutes before them was not able to. It's not their fault if they weren't prompted for an access code. It's not their fault if they were one of the lucky ones.

What I personally would like to see is, at the very least, an apology and an admission that things went very wrong and a promise that this will not happen again.

Honestly, this. If things were all 100% legitimately, I'd at least like to see a "we put up z_number_of_tickets and y_number_of_unique_IP_addresses were up at the site on release" to give up a scope on how massive the scale of demand has gone up for FFXIV and it's biennial festival (it doesn't really matter if each unique address [tries to] buy 1 or 4 tickets - just to see the scope of demand would be a nice thing to see in this situation). If things have, indeed, gone awry, I'd definitely like to hope SE would come forward and apologize for it, even if they cannot find a reasonable way to fix it. I'd rather them acknowledge it than sweep it under a rug.

[Catwho]

I'd like to chime in something here that SE doesn't seem to realize.

To them, FanFest is the Big Official Event. It's got the JP development team, a nice rock concert, a big formal merchandise room, formal programming, and delicious details about the direction of the game, like new expansions or new jobs.

But really? The reason most of us go is to have an excuse to hang out with friends, and other people who play XIV.

Given the demand for this one event, SE clearly has the necessary fan base to support smaller, 1 day, regional "official" mini fan fest meetups. I used to host Final Fantasy fan panels at anime cons, but the anime cons started denying panels for all but the most recent games and I stopped trying.

In the off years between expansions, coordinate 1 day mini cons with the Letters from the Producers Live. Don't just piggy back off other conventions. Give us something closer to our big cities in NA to look forward to in the off years. While getting to meet fans from CA while I'm in Las Vegas is kind of cool, I'd much rather meet up with other Georgia players in Atlanta. And I'm sure people in other big cities feel the same way.

We don't need all the bells and whistles, the LAN setups, the merch lines, of the big Fan Fest. We just want an excuse and a place to go meet up with other XIV players, that we don't have to self organize entirely as fans on our own. (Or try to get an anime con to give us some love.)

[Boxworm]

I agree with you Boxworm. Based on Bayohne's statement, the messages sent out on Twitter, and the silence now it would be nice to see some for of an apology. It would also be nice to have more transparency. As it stands, the communication has been very PR damage control and honeyed to the point that I feel like we're being treated as though we were stupid.

Exactly, couldn't have said it better myself. I don't want to jump to conclusions and say that all SE cares about is $$$, because it's still somewhat early and things could change. But their actions thus far have really left a bad taste in my mouth. It really feels like they might as well tell us, 'we don't really care if the tickets went to the hands of fans or scalpers. As long as we get paid for them, it's not our problem.' It's like all this shady stuff is getting ignored and they're just going to pretend everything went more or less according to plan, and downplay the glitches that we know for a fact occurred.

I'm a legacy player who has supported this game since before its very beginning, and I know many others here have done the same. It hurts to get shafted like this and our concerns brushed off like they're unimportant. If SE has any respect for their fanbase, they owe us an investigation, an explanation, and an apology. This isn't a case of us being butthurt because we didn't get tickets. It's a case of the system being very broken, and things happened that never should have been able to happen. If we are told that it's a queue system, that an access code is required, and that there is a limit of four tickets per code, then I think we're entitled to expect all of those things. If that isn't what we receive, we deserve an explanation.

[TThibi]

Welcome to Japan's luck obsessed culture, we're all Japanophile's here it's to be expected, the ideals of free market, supply and demand and meeting demand boggle the Japanese businessman's mind while being kindergarten simple for Americans. If it exists you can buy it is an American mindset, Japan is obsessed with rarity, and creating false value via shortage, we all knew what to expect. Very sorry to the victims in this, laughing at the scalpers yes they exist the world groups on facebook are already calling them out and posting pics of their ads on facebook, hilarious the tickets are non transferrable which will create more victims via pidgeon sacrifices. These fan festivals are not the game they are real life distractions don't get it messed up you don't need this, if you have the time sure go have fun but otherwise use that money to do something else. Next time remember Japan is not America, they do not think like Americans, their economy is focused on Monopolies and sleight of hand marketing, If you are not generally lucky buy Japanese stuff on Ebay and never put faith in a company which is notoriously harmful to it's customers to do the right thing.

[Paladinleeds]

Given the demand for this one event, SE clearly has the necessary fan base to support smaller, 1 day, regional "official" mini fan fest meetups. I used to host Final Fantasy fan panels at anime cons, but the anime cons started denying panels for all but the most recent games and I stopped trying.

I wonder if I could try and see about working with Square Enix to host some UK mini events with the letter from the producer. It'd also be awesome if they could partner up with gaming conventions like Play Expo, EGX (if they don't already do this), etc. Keep that hype train rolling.

[swiss_Momo]

wow, this is pretty sad to read even as a EU player, and makes me a bit worried about 'our' fan fest (Frankfurt one had a similar fail with the tickets for the Uematsu signing mini event)
Also someone playing on a JP server actually made a thread about this on the Japanese forums, which even got a response from Foxclon on page 2. On the good side this means people all the way up are definitely aware about this problem. On the bad side basically all Foxclon did was link to Bayohne's response in this thread and say that this is the problem of the NA community team.

[StrangerFanatic]

Mostly, I'm wondering how much of the hall is going to be empty despite the fact their tickets sold out. Hopefully very, I'd rather not find out a lot of people bought tickets to the event off of scalpers who are selling them for twice their worth on Facebook and other Social media platforms right now.

[Boxworm]

Welcome to Japan's luck obsessed culture, we're all Japanophile's here it's to be expected, the ideals of free market, supply and demand and meeting demand boggle the Japanese businessman's mind while being kindergarten simple for Americans. If it exists you can buy it is an American mindset, Japan is obsessed with rarity, and creating false value via shortage, we all knew what to expect. Very sorry to the victims in this, laughing at the scalpers yes they exist the world groups on facebook are already calling them out and posting pics of their ads on facebook, hilarious the tickets are non transferrable which will create more victims via pidgeon sacrifices. These fan festivals are not the game they are real life distractions don't get it messed up you don't need this, if you have the time sure go have fun but otherwise use that money to do something else. Next time remember Japan is not America, they do not think like Americans, their economy is focused on Monopolies and sleight of hand marketing, If you are not generally lucky buy Japanese stuff on Ebay and never put faith in a company which is notoriously harmful to it's customers to do the right thing.

Thanks for informing us that Japan is not America. I have referenced Google Maps and it appears you are correct. I had no idea. Truly wild stuff.

Regardless, remember that Square Enix does in fact have a sizeable North American division. Also remember that Showclix is based in the US. Also remember that the previous two Fan Fests were not lottery-based. Also remember that we entered a 'queue' which informed us our tickets were 'reserved'. So, no, we did not 'all know what to expect'. We certainly didn't expect this. And, by the way, cheating the system isn't considered 'luck' in any country. It's considered, well, cheating.

But thanks for the comment that 'it's not the game it's a real life distraction and we shouldn't get it messed up we don't need it' (whatever that is even supposed to mean). I'm sure that's going to make a lot of people feel much better. Just what we needed, incredibly confusing advice from someone out of touch with reality.

Mostly, I'm wondering how much of the hall is going to be empty despite the fact their tickets sold out. Hopefully very, I'd rather not find out a lot of people bought tickets to the event off of scalpers who are selling them for twice their worth on Facebook and other Social media platforms right now.

As far as I understand, the tickets supposedly can't be transferred/sold now. If that is in fact the case, I suspect the hall will be pretty damn empty! lol hope they aren't betting on making good sales at the merch booth