Why does Yoshida keep using Covid-19 as an excuse for delays or setbacks?

[CrayonsAndPaint]

Before I begin I would like to say he’s a genius for creating final fantasy 14 and I appreciate his work. I’m going to get a lot of hate for this but I don’t care at this point, this is kind of insane…

I have noticed with just about every single delay, setback, or inconvenience, from creative business unit 3 (Yoshida’s group) the excuse is always Covid. I understand it’s serious, but …

Server congestion
World visit queue
World transfer being down for weeks possibly months
Queue wait time kicks
And even the delay of FF16

Naoki Yoshida’s public statement for just about each of these has been “Covid complications”….when employees have the option of working from home, and I assume each employee is vaccinated and wearing a mask. You cannot just use “Covid” as an excuse for everything that goes wrong. Please own up to your mistakes and just say you were not prepared for this and didn’t plan ahead..

[Bearded]

Oh my another one of these threads.

You are totally right they did not plan ahead for a mass migration of users from another game and have loads of server capacity just sitting around costing hundreds of thousands each year "just in case".

Like it or not - the knock on effects of Covid in the global supply is real also.

[Jin-]

Because it's easy and now gives you a "right to do less". Applies to every company, not Yoshi specific. And they will use it as free from responsibility card

[CKNovel]

Because covid is real.

There's 2 big things about server congestion.
The first is that XIV saw a massive increase of players during covid.
The second is the semi-conductor shortage, it already existed before because of crypto, but it's now even worse due to reduced supplies. Demand increased, supply decreased.

FF XVI delay was explained in the letter.

Yes, XIV is far from perfect and has many, many bumps and rough spot.
But covid complication is real and even vaccinated + masks, it slows down everyone. Especially the semi-conductor supply that is not in Yoshida's control.

[Darkobra]

I'll just get on the phone to him now and ask him. Hang on.

[Anvaire]

Before I begin I would like to say he’s a genius for creating final fantasy 14 and I appreciate his work. I’m going to get a lot of hate for this but I don’t care at this point, this is kind of insane…

I have noticed with just about every single delay, setback, or inconvenience, from creative business unit 3 (Yoshida’s group) the excuse is always Covid. I understand it’s serious, but …

Server congestion
World visit queue
World transfer being down for weeks possibly months
Queue wait time kicks
And even the delay of FF16

Naoki Yoshida’s public statement for just about each of these has been “Covid complications”….when employees have the option of working from home, and I assume each employee is vaccinated and wearing a mask. You cannot just use “Covid” as an excuse for everything that goes wrong. Please own up to your mistakes and just say you were not prepared for this and didn’t plan ahead..

Because that is the reason.

Server congestion started because of mass influx of players far beyond their planned implementation. As a result and due to the high volume of traffic they suspended datacentre travel feature and limited the world visit system. As YP has said countless times the solution is to expand their servers but current due to the ongoing semiconductor shortage, wait times for new servers is far longer than expected and setting up these servers once they have them is much more difficult due to covid and travel. So they instead have to do it remotely which takes a lot longer. The Que wait times kicks they have done serveral maintenance sessions and is vastly better in my personal experience.

As for FF16 well its hardly a delay - we have no known release date for ff16 and what was "delayed" was further information because it wasn't ready. I imagine this is due to either asset delivery or delays in production caused from remote working. Just because people can work from home, wear a mask and are vaccinated, does not mean things are easy. Working from home especially is limiting. I did read that a rendering in the office that would take a couple of minutes was taking several hours when done from home. Im not a games developer so i cant cast judgment on whether its appropiate or not. But given that the same story is repeated from many other game developers, I think its an accurate portrayal of development. Theres also the added possibility that they decided it just wasnt ready for showcasing. It will arrive when it arrives, i dont think its a bad thing they are taking more time before giving any further information.

The reality is that Covid Complications are going to continue for quite some time, especially where it comes to tech shortages.

[Bacent]

Oh my another one of these threads.

You are totally right they did not plan ahead for a mass migration of users from another game and have loads of server capacity just sitting around costing hundreds of thousands each year "just in case".

Like it or not - the knock on effects of Covid in the global supply is real also.

Yup, just another one of these kinds of threads.

[Kokonji]

Oh my another one of these threads.

You are totally right they did not plan ahead for a mass migration of users from another game and have loads of server capacity just sitting around costing hundreds of thousands each year "just in case".

Like it or not - the knock on effects of Covid in the global supply is real also.

I thought these kind of threads has becoming something like a tradition to post on official forum every week or so...? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[van_arn]

Because even if COVID doesn't affect the region you or I are in personally, it's still affecting the supply of server hardware.

[Garnix]

It's not Yoshida, it's basically every single game developer in the world.
+ Yoshida took the responsibility for a lot of the things you listed and said it was his fault...
+ it doesn't actually matter. shit happens. It doesn't matter if it's because of Covid, or because the whole company got food-poisoned at the Christmas party. For us the end result is the same. As long as they apologize for it, I'm fine with it.