Development Officially Delayed due to COVID-19

[Gula]

Glad to see everyone's support and understanding. Such unity on the forums is as rare as an alignment of stars. That's as good of a silver lining as any in my book. As is the fact the servers will remain online. SE can't very well charge subscribers for a service they cannot provide, so this is really good news for everyone that we can still play the game we love so much. Hopefully this let's us all know to not take privileges like that for granted.

On a lighter note: could you imagine if SE was able to maintain patch schedules despite things like national sports and global economical shutdowns?! The task forces of all the allied nations would have to do whatever the hell SE would be in that situation. xD

Thank you Yoshida. For everything you do.

Honestly it feels like everyone is acting out your signature to keep the gaming going strong.

(As of the date of this post lest it be changed)

[NanaWiloh]

Too FF14 staff thank you for your work during these times look at yourselves. We will be here waiting when you are able to fully return.

[Barraind]

On a lighter note: could you imagine if SE was able to maintain patch schedules

You mean like US developers and publishers are having to do cause they're considered non-essential in California, Washington and Texas? Some of those have already been working entirely remote for a month now.

Guess Japan doesnt do the working remote thing?

[Lersayil]

You mean like US developers and publishers are having to do cause they're considered non-essential in California and Texas?

Guess Japan doesnt do the working remote thing?

Are they though? We've had numerable game delay announcements the last few weeks. And even if so, working from home slows things down, even if the required infrastructure was already in place.

[Barraind]

Are they though?

AENet is still releasing scheduled content and hasnt been in the office since March 6.

Darkpaw (formerly Daybreak formerly SOE) is hitting their monthly update schedule from home (their one delay had to do with a different kind of stupid) and is doing developer q&A's on the topic.

SWToR moved their monthly patch back a week due to issues in their Vancouver studios recording voice work, but have their next content patch targeted for the original date in june.

ESO is delayed a week for a similar reason; they couldnt get French translations.

Blizzard hasnt announced any specific delays, but Blizzard never releases anything on the first few dates they give anyway.


The only other major MMO suffering delays right now is Runescape, and JagEx UK handles that for western releases, not Netease NA.

[E4EO]

Inevitable that this would happen at some point considering just how good Coronavirus is at spreading, I didn’t expect sqeenix to pull a GameStop and continue operating.

Its good too, we wouldn’t wanna risk loads of SE staff getting sick cause of Coronavirus, wouldn’t just be bad for development but their health and well-being.

The only question is what we we’ll do with the lull in content, maybe I’ll start crafting again...

[Gemina]

AENet is still releasing scheduled content and hasnt been in the office since March 6.

Darkpaw (formerly Daybreak formerly SOE) is hitting their monthly update schedule from home (their one delay had to do with a different kind of stupid) and is doing developer q&A's on the topic.

SWToR moved their monthly patch back a week due to issues in their Vancouver studios recording voice work, but have their next content patch targeted for the original date in june.

ESO is delayed a week for a similar reason; they couldnt get French translations.

Blizzard hasnt announced any specific delays, but Blizzard never releases anything on the first few dates they give anyway.


The only other major MMO suffering delays right now is Runescape, and JagEx UK handles that for western releases, not Netease NA.

Meh? There's too many unknown factors that determine the productivity any company is able to sustain. Much of what you mentioned pertains to content already released for those particular games and platforms, and by all retrospect, we could add FFXIV patch 5.25 among those as an 'on time delivery'. We don't know exactly how much content is going to be delayed. That is TBD.

[Tsumdere]

You mean like US developers and publishers are having to do cause they're considered non-essential in California, Washington and Texas? Some of those have already been working entirely remote for a month now.

Guess Japan doesnt do the working remote thing?

Maintaining patch schedules now is living hell - I would know since I work for a company that isn't delaying games/patches despite everyone working from home. It's absolutely awful and they are pushing forward at the expense of the physical and MENTAL health of their employees. Several people have already quit from my company because of how horrible and taxing it is to keep up the corporate schedule while all of this is going down.

Good on SE for taking the health of their employees into consideration.

[Paladinleeds]

Good on SE for taking the health of their employees into consideration.

Exactly this. I'd rather have delays than the staff literally riding roughshod with horrible physical/mental health. A delay to the game just means I have to wait until a later date to enjoy the content, but staff having horrible physical/mental health from being pushed too far in these times means they could end up hospitalised, or potentially even dead from the stress causing their immune system to fail on them. yeah, I'll take the delay over hospitalised staff thank you very much.

[DynnDiablos]

Seeing as by the end of this pandemic I will most likely be homeless, jobless and facing years of financial ruin and misery, the delay is the least of my worries.