Live letters have lost their magic - Zepla

[Canadane]

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

I thank the twelve it's okay.

[Rithy255]

I usually watch a summary.

Live letters would be more interesting if the game itself was in a good spot, but currently I don't think it is.

[User202503201232]

It's not but take a look at Xenosys or Arthar's when they criticize among others. They still enjoy the game, still play the game, are open to new things in the game and will be constructive. Zepla just whines, in her dawntrail playthrough you could tell she wasnt even willing to give the story a chance, she'd made up her mind and WAY overplayed her dislike of every single scene. It was pathetic acting.

Criticizing when you genuinely want to like the game vs when you have already decided it's no longer for you and will not like it no matter what happens come across way different.

Maybe it's because the game has become unfun for most players now? But your attitude is just pathetic.

"You can only criticize the game if you still enjoy playing it!"

Well that's how Dawntrail has reached nearly Stormblood numbers in player population. The feedback from people who used to love the game and has fallen out of love should be important.

[Sylpharia]

Because I can recognize a reasonable issue without losing myself to despair. I'm nothing but consistent I could levy the issues with Dawntrail here and still find myself optimistic for the future. We are not the same.

Rational pragmatic thinking is different then demoralization, disillusionment, pessimism, apathy and vitriol.

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.

Not agreeing is indeed very irrational. How dare people not like the state of the game and actually have the gall to voice their opinions.

[Veritas-Ancora]

I usually don't like Zepla, but she was spot-on in this video.

If you're like me and don't watch Zepla's vids, watch this one. I think it's a home run.

I hope Yoshi P sees this.

It's not a hate video, it's a mourning video. It mourns a game that we've invested so many years playing and loving and enjoying together. There's hurt in this video, and that's what the community is doing: hurting.

[Greyhawk]

https://youtu.be/UnY7PMsV8QI?si=9MCrmXa-iwJ4Is-9



Hearing Zepla talk about the live letter, it really reminds a lot of us just how much wonder and magic has evaporated from the live letters. We still rely on community translators to understand the live letter to this day. The live letters are such a sick joke at this point, and their stale format is a good representation of the staleness of the entire game.

With all the tech out now, and they still show previews on printed paper images.... FFS.

They already show everything in a presentation - put your prints in there!

[Nadda]

Not agreeing is indeed very irrational. How dare people not like the state of the game and actually have the gall to voice their opinions.

Again, I don't know where this is coming from, but I have yet to say that giving an opinion is wrong.

Once more, someone comes to dismiss me—belittle me—and use me as a veil, an excuse to justify pessimism and apathy. We all voice our opinions out of love for the game. I assume you want the game to thrive, just as I do. All I've strived for is to lower the temperature.

I’ve never said people shouldn’t share their opinions. In fact, I want people to voice concerns; that’s how things improve. What I am saying is that the conversation often gets derailed when it stops being constructive and turns into a pile-on of unrelated grievances, making it harder to address the core issues.

Yet, even this message is met with disdain, snark, and cynicism.

But this isn’t how you win people over to your point of view. And when you look at the bigger picture, the meta-narrative, positive change only happens when we approach concerns pragmatically—not pessimistically.

When we fuel our words with venom, all we sow is apathy toward the game and demoralization of the player base. It’s not helpful. That’s all I’m saying.

I don't see how your path creates the positive change you say you want—especially when, faced with even a modicum of resistance, your first instinct is to belittle me. We share the same purpose, just different approaches. But being this way will only create disillusionment and misery for the players who read or engage with it. It won’t change the state of the game if we can’t express our concerns without emotionally charged hostility.

In the end, I do believe FF14 will adapt. I have no reason to think otherwise.

But I worry that if this rhetoric continues, much like what happened with WoW, even if the game does improve, people will have been so poisoned by the surrounding negativity—not by the game itself, but by the sentiment—that they’ll never come back.

And I'd rather live through a thousand lulls than see that manifest. This is a community, after all—and it pains me to see good and kind people twist the dagger deeper into the hearts of everyone here. I share the pain, I truly do. But we don't fix the game this way; we only end up wounding ourselves.

Try to sell the game to someone while carrying that heavy sentiment in your heart—it can't be done. But show a blueprint for a better future, and the results become clear. There are many who’ve made critical videos about the game—direct, honest, and addressing the same concerns we all share—yet they do so without demoralizing the public. And that makes all the difference. We want the same thing.

This is not a time for mourning. You can mourn when the game is dead but we're not dead yet. So we should do our best to keep the will of fire alive not snuff it out!

[yesnt]

Try to sell the game to someone while carrying that heavy sentiment in your heart—it can't be done. But show a blueprint for a better future, and the results become clear.

I want to remind you that we are consumers. Customers. We are not selling anything and it's also not our job to manage the community. You can blame SE for actually all of this. There are no mods communicating with us on the forum and feedback gets ignored. You are making yourself their clown if you try to do their job for them. People will not listen to you because they are not looking for your response, they hope that their complaints are eventually loud enough to be heard by the company.

Nice speech, though, very emotional, I will give you that. But this is pointless.

[Veritas-Ancora]

I want to remind you that we are consumers. Customers. We are not selling anything and it's also not our job to manage the community.

Exactly this. We are paying them. If you can post on this forum, it means your subscription is active. We are paying them.

9 years ago, moderators would respond to posts and let people know that their feedback is heard. That doesn't exist any more. When's the last time a moderator actually acknowledged a forum post? It's been YEARS. It feels like we're speaking to deaf ears.

We don't know where the disconnect is, here. A moderator is reading our messages, they're checking to see if it violates the Terms of Service, and they go on their merry way. Are they sending this feedback to the higher ups? Who knows. We have absolutely no way of knowing that.

Maybe they are, and maybe it's the higher ups ignoring it. Or maybe it's Yoshi P ignoring it. Who knows. But there are clearly people who are doing a terrible job at Square-Enix that used to interact with the community.

The REAL issue is that those moderators reading this, the higher ups, and even Yoshi P are being paid by the people in this forum. And people are getting tired of subscribing. Instead of leaving quietly in the night, they're vocalizing their concerns, fears, sadness, and even anger. Do you know how many companies would KILL for this kind of feedback from their customers when something was going wrong? Focus groups are paid for what has been contributed on these forums.

Reality is, the moderators are being paid by us. The higher ups are being paid by us. Yoshi P is being paid by us. And if there's any disconnect right now where Yoshi P isn't hearing the concerns and cries of the community, then something is horribly wrong.

[Nadda]

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.

Gradual decay? Calling me a cultist for advocating constructive criticism? I’m not here to defend the game blindly. I care about it and want to focus on fixing things, not tearing them down.

The tone has become too negative, and this thread proves it. Positive change requires some optimism. Balanced neutral pragmatic and diagnostic non-emotionally charged verbiage to hyper-focus grievances in a logical format.

Zepla’s influence matters. She helped grow the community, but now her words are driving people away. That’s why I push back. We should be building up, not tearing down.

If she still values the game, her approach should inspire hope, not foster hopelessness. As a public figure, there’s responsibility for what she says and how it affects the community.

Your view seems to be that the game is doomed. I’m pushing back against that. The devs have the lion's share of the blame, but if we, as a community, can’t encourage hope, we’re also killing the game.

Words have power. We need to wield them carefully, especially those with influence.

Let’s lower the temperature. Critique without demoralization. There's nothing disagreeable with that approach.
Acknowledging overstepping and where things can go too far is just as important as the criticism itself.
If we desire the success of the game surely we can do it without driving our own people away.

If you want to snap somebody out of being a FF14 player it's not speaking to Wuk Lamat that'll do it - A Zepla video or your own words just might.
Eventually, FF14 will adapt and change, just like WoW has. Let’s ensure we don’t create an apathetic community like WoW’s, but instead, inspire people to return and enjoy the game.
What the game has to offer is still thousands of hours of enjoyment for newer players, we offer the best free trial experience of the major MMOs. I want to keep those players here.
Be critical, but let’s keep it constructive—less doom, more hope. (I'm saying this hoping this breaks through - Optimism! I esuna your doom!)