Bad decision by SE

[Vahlnir]

If you took off work for week one of an expansion that's 100% on you. Why anyone would do that when basically every mmo xpacs release has been sketchy is far beyond me.

Not quite. FF XIV's launches post ARR have mostly been smooth and stable and on time, but any launch isn't going to be without a maintenance or two. Scheduling time off for Endwalker seemed like a no brainer for those who wanted to. I understand the frustration, even though it doesn't affect me quite as much as others, though it still does indeed affect me in a couple ways. Some are going way beyond what any reasonable person should in expressing their disappointment, but that's not everyone. Like I said, I get it.

[Ronduwil]

Scheduling time off for Endwalker seemed like a no brainer for those who wanted to.

And that's the problem. They should engage their brain going forward. For software companies, and especially game companies, release date announcements reflect the hopes of the marketing and production teams. Good development teams try not to make liars of them, but even the best teams fall short of the goal from time to time. This isn't something new that suddenly came to be in 2021. It's been true even since before Blizzard delayed Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans back in 1997 only to cancel it completely months later. If you must take vacation days to play a video game, then do so once it's come out.

[Vahlnir]

They should engage their brain going forward.

Kinda thinking that a few in this thread and others on these forums should do the same if they simply fail to understand the circumstances that led to some people, namely those of the working class, being a bit frustrated about the delay.

[Artemiz]

And that's the problem. They should engage their brain going forward. For software companies, and especially game companies, release date announcements reflect the hopes of the marketing and production teams. Good development teams try not to make liars of them, but even the best teams fall short of the goal from time to time. This isn't something new that suddenly came to be in 2021. It's been true even since before Blizzard delayed Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans back in 1997 only to cancel it completely months later. If you must take vacation days to play a video game, then do so once it's come out.

Industry standard actually seems to be to release a buggy mess on time. It's why so many people are losing patience with games like Cyberpunk 2077 and CoD ships every November unfinished. I certainly don't blame people for assuming this expansion was going to ship on time, especially once it got so close to the wire. If SE could have done something better here it was to sound the alarm sooner, only they knew how close they were cutting it with this deadline.

As for only booking time off after release, a common demographic of the people who seem most frustrated by this are retail workers, they don't get to book time off in December and January due to market demands, November was their only shot and if they waited until February then all of the hype would have died down quite a bit, the whole point of booking time off for it was to enjoy that new release hype train. Even outside of the retail sector time off isn't easy to come by for many people which is why I commented before about work/life balance being the real villain here. Some countries have this much worse than others and that leads to frustrated people, and frustrated people vent.