Quote Originally Posted by Mijin View Post
I've decided to redraft the post in order to better explain my argument, as it seems a lot of people were getting confused and angry. If you're interested in the first post you can easily find it quoted below.

In the following text I will explain what is, in my opinion, an easy and cost effective solution to a development problem that stems from a lack of knowledge regarding MMOs.

There are people in this world who have invested tremendous amounts of time (13+ years) playing MMOs nearly everyday. In spite of the warning messages displayed before each log on, these people have made lifestyle choices out of this game and many others unfortunately. While this can almost wholly be viewed as a negative, there is one small thing that could be considered positive. These life choice gamers have amassed tremendous amounts of knowledge of what a MMORPG should be, and what it shouldn't. It is my suggestion, that it would be beneficial to put the knowledge of such people to use.

The current development team has been doing a much better job than the last. The team however lacks in experience when it comes to making, let alone playing MMO's. As can be verified in this interview, the current game director Naoki Yoshida stated that he had to ask members of his team to play MMOs because they were unfamiliar with them. Naoki Yoshida himself has played some MMOs in the past, but he's stated here, that he no longer has time to play games. That being said this is also the first MMO that hes ever worked on, let alone directed.

So my proposition is simple. Find obsessively hard core players from various MMOs with various gaming history and put them on payroll. Their purpose would just be to give feedback on new content and suggestions on how to improve it before it's released, that's all. I'm not suggesting that they do anything else other than that, and it's not like you would have to pay these types of people much because it's most probable that they are unemployed as it stands anyway.

I think it's important to note, highly valuing customer feedback isn't a radical idea. Some of this games competitors it very seriously. Some games open beta test every one of their patches just to make sure people approve of the content. This is a much more costly solution that I doubt this game can afford however.

In the following pages filled with flames and trolling, the three biggest arguments and my responses to are as follows:

A= Argument R=Response (paraphrasing)
A: Gamers aren't qualified to make games, they don't know how to code and stuff.
R: Well that's not what I suggest they do, I'm suggesting their job would be correspondence and nothing else.

A: That's what community reps, the QA team, or the forums are for.
R: The community reps aren't enough. The quality assurance team tests for bugs and stuff like that. They have nothing to do with deciding if content will be fun or successful. The forums aren't a reliable source for a number of reasons. The forums are filled with trolls, and because so few XIV players post here things can get very clicky. Very few of the player base posts here, and of them that do post many are inexperienced with MMOs themselves. Trolls go on feeding frenzies with people who make suggestions, most people don't even bother. Who really knows how much information that the community reps hand pick on the English forums actually make it to those in charge in Japan anyway?

A: I'm stupid.
R: You're stupid.


In conclusion I doubt that this thread will ever make it to the eyes of anyone important, however I feel strongly about it so here it is anyway.
Would it really be any different than how it is now? Who is to say the feedback from those said people are going to be any more liked than the ideas they come up with? I don't think you have a strong enough point here to even make a forum post, you should be content that they offer us player polls from time to time and actually read our feedback on forums.