Live letters have lost their magic - Zepla

[Valence]

Zepla bailed on WoW during its hardest times, but the people who stuck around got rewarded. I have no doubt FFXIV can course-correct too—it just takes time. Zepla built the narrative of FFXIV being a safe haven, but now she’s burning it down over a rough patch. It’s disheartening, and I’ve lost respect for her. She made me love the game, but now it feels like she's stabbing me in the heart over a stumble. Forget it. Forget her.

A stumble that has been ongoing since 2020? Please.

[ViinaS]

To me the live letter sure was just "eh..."
For one cause I just don't give a damn about the story right now and it may just be eyerolling combined with skipping useless dialogue like 7.0 and 7.1.
The other big factor being shown what we get.....
except we don't get that.
The content-starved community (and no, content from 5+ years ago does not count) has to wait another few months to get what the update promises.

Why should I care? Maybe in 2 months?
But for now it's just barely anything once more.

Imagine another company of a life-service game doing that. They would (rightfully) be called out for that. Smaller ones definitely would get loads of backlash for something like that.
It's not even "you gotta do these things to unlock it so we give people time so everyone can start at the same time after unlocking" no, it's just "no you can't just cuz"

[Auro_Seldaris]

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding, but it seems like you are saying that constant harassment, vandalism, and (possible) assault are what players should be doing if they want to see change. I would rather the game stay in its current state than see anyone from the dev team be put through this. It's just not right. I don't care how angry people are.

Shooter communities are toxic by default. I'm using that as an example of how even us people who disagree with Yoshida on the direction of this game treat him with far more respect and politeness than other people in other game dev situations would do, even though we're accused of "being mean" and "Angy" and "toxic". I'm just saying he's got it easy compared to some other game devs. Many other playerbases would treat him far worse. We still have a modicum of respect for him. I'm not directly advocating that, but it's hard to disagree that the players got what they wanted in that situation.

What I'm saying is that negativity in and of itself is not actually bad. Anger is a valid emotion, it's ridiculous of society to try and pretend it doesn't exist and stifle it except for when it's politically expedient. Anger and confrontation do effect change.

And even if you do disagree with someone, that doesn't give you a right to shut down their opinion with "NO NEGATIVITY IN THE DOJO! YOU'RE JUST A HATER!"

Especially when it's being presented in a well-thought out manner.

And also... Yoshida? He's not my friend. Parasocial relationships with devs are toxic and harmful as any negativity.

[Auro_Seldaris]

I feel like Zepla's tone in her video was way over the top—it’s like a neighbor coming to tell me they ran over my dog. Dawntrail has issues, but people are acting like it’s the worst thing ever, as if we’re in WoD/BfA/Shadowlands combined. She’s misrepresenting Yoshi-P’s words like he’s Ion Hazzikostas, which is bad faith stuff. She says, “I’m trying to be positive” while pouring on nothing but depression in every video. Enough already.

The forums are full of vitriol and pessimism, and it’s draining. Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. Zepla used to call FFXIV her lifeline, making people believe it was a paradise. But now, she's adding fuel to the fire with endless negativity.

I get that there are valid issues with Dawntrail, and there’s a difference between blind optimism and reasonable critique. But the constant doom and gloom isn't helping anyone. Positive change requires some optimism, not just tearing things down.

Zepla bailed on WoW during its hardest times, but the people who stuck around got rewarded. I have no doubt FFXIV can course-correct too—it just takes time. Zepla built the narrative of FFXIV being a safe haven, but now she’s burning it down over a rough patch. It’s disheartening, and I’ve lost respect for her. She made me love the game, but now it feels like she's stabbing me in the heart over a stumble. Forget it. Forget her.

Good lord. First of all, this is more than a stumble, this is a gradual decay that's been going on slowly for years. Second of all... You act like she's an ex-girlfriend that broke your heart. She's just a talking head on a screen, why did you put so much of yourself into her? Also, you must not have valued her that much, because you started to hate her the picosecond she disagreed with you.

Unironically, you sound like a cultist. This is how cultists treat people that betray the cult. This is how Scientologists treat people who they feel betray the church. They're "heatbreaking and evil" and they're suddenly the worst person in the world for the sin of disagreeing or going against the gospel of the cult.

[Zarkovitch]

oh man, copium players wanted the game to be like SB era when the game is on other direction. Those player need to wake up and accept this game will never U turn back to HW nor SB. You can hope 8.0 be something else, but I think it will go back to SHB at best. Live letter where always boring, you lose interests on game. The live letter does what they being doing since day 1 and wont change it.

[Kaurhz]

oh man, copium players wanted the game to be like SB era when the game is on other direction. Those player need to wake up and accept this game will never U turn back to HW nor SB. You can hope 8.0 be something else, but I think it will go back to SHB at best. Live letter where always boring, you lose interests on game. The live letter does what they being doing since day 1 and wont change it.

I can assure you, many of us have absolutely no faith in them whatsoever in returning to the game to the quality standards in HW or SB... Heck, don't really even expect them to return to quality standards established in Shadowbringers. If anything then are just going to continue veering in the direction of removing as many fail states from the game as humanly possible.

I also disagree on the comment about Live Letters... You could feel the enthusiasm from the developers, and you could see the passion put into many of the trailers and the general Live Letters, so even if you weren't as enthusiastic, the game still managed to capture some excitement... Sure they follow the same... 'Schedule' with how that approach the LLs, but passion is absolutely missing.

[CapaxInfiniti]

This thread is everything wrong with the game.

"Nuh uh the game is fine, Zepla is wrong and is stupid."

White knights saying this as sub count continues to drop off of a cliff and the game slides further and further into decline and irrelevance.
The argument "You cant expect the wow tourists to stay" is getting old, now that they are completely gone and the slide continues.

Even as the game begins it's descent into failure, they will still make excuses. "The game had 100 people log in today! It's NOT DEAD!"

Perhaps propping up someone who apparently has no idea how to run an mmo as "MMO Jesus that can do no wrong" was not in the best interest of an mmo?

But, by all means, continue to attack the people passionate enough to complain and try to shout for things to change for the better.
When someone complains, it's a sign that they still care enough to complain. They want things to turn around.

Once they go silent, like a lot of people already have, it's completely finished. That's the current trajectory of XIV. Complete silence, complete apathy, minimal player count.

[Canadane]

Who is this and why would anyone put so much stock into someone else's opinion instead of forming their own?

[NanaWiloh]

I have lost interest in live letters. They happen early mornings for me. I work swing and get my son off to school. So unless I they happen on my day off I don't try and catch them.

[Kaurhz]

Who is this and why would anyone put so much stock into someone else's opinion instead of forming their own?

I suppose it didn't cross your mind that people have formed their own opinion, long before Zepla even expressed her own, and that people are just highlighting that some content creator channels express a similar opinion. -- and whether you like it or not their opinion holds more weight than our own to the developers.

Didn't cross your mind though, that's OK