About ARR release.

[RexValentino]

The wait will be hard for me but ...

after looking around at the other game options, i think that after 5 months time everyone playing those games will be sick of them and want to try something new XD

maybe the timing of the release will be a good thing and not a bad one ....

maybe

[Hohenheim]

I don't Ming if as long as in get be in beta and alpha all along the way

[Kaldaka]

I would happily wait until Summer for the game to come back.
I have more things in life to get on with and if the game were out during these next few months I would definitely fail my degree!!
So Work and work, then work some more, and then spend much time loving on my Mi'qote. I miss her so much T_T
I don't want to play a rushed game again (even if I did love it anyway).

[RELAXcowboy]

I don't understand the Want/Need for people to have beta characters moved over to release. It completely shows that you don't care to TEST the game and help find problems. All you want is to play the game early. Why is it you want to play beta and when the game is released you are half way done with the games content? Then, all the people wanting beta character transfers cry about the lack of things to do because when the game launches you've already finished half of the damn content in the game.

The way I feel about it is, yea, I may lose interest for a while. I WILL play something else. As soon as ARR releases or is close to release, BAM, I'm on the site everyday. I'm watching videos. Signing up for betas to test the the game and its new mechanics. Then, when the game is out, I'm playing it.

I think as soon as everyone finds out the release date, no matter how long it takes, they will flock back.

[Abriael]

I don't understand the Want/Need for people to have beta characters moved over to release.

While I'm neutral on the issue (IE: I don't personally care either way), there are several benefits to that, but mainly:

1: charcopy of our existing characters to the beta will help with testing of high level content, that normally needs testing DIRELY and that never gets tested enough in betas
2: having characters carrying over to release gives people more incentives to actually test the game. More people test, more people will provide feedback, more polished the game will be. It's a pretty simple statistical matter.

Drawbacks? There's none.

Beta testing isn't some kind of honor or privilege people should be grateful for, nor a mission. It's a service we provide to Square Enix, and there's nothing wrong if the benefits go both ways. Quite the opposite, the more people are encouraged to provide that service, the better.

The only caveat is that data should carry over only since *everyone* of the players that applied are invited. Otherwise it would give an unfair advantage to those that are over those that aren't.

[Elexia]

I think as soon as everyone finds out the release date, no matter how long it takes, they will flock back.

Pretty much. The "unfound rumor" people fought against and said everything is on track is looking more and more likely, so now that SE basically came out and confirmed what pretty much everyone that wasn't overly optimistic suspected, people are accepting of it being a later release date than they hoped (Jan/Feb.)

Besides, it's only really current players that are concerned about keeping progress because they want to play ARR already, not necessarily falling over themselves to actually use a beta test for what they're designed for. Only reason to save data is if they're treating it as an early play period, or in other words basically a demo to keep people occupied.

Otherwise, those who never touched XIV that get into beta aren't as concerned about save data transitioning over since there's a good chance they'll probably start over on launch anyway if there's any significant changes.

[Arourie]

@ Cynthis i am sooo green with envy for all those 50's lol, I only got my Dow and Mages there and arm /sigh

[Enma]

I don't think that the ACTUAL players won't come back to try Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, even if it will take one year to come out.
But most of all, you have to keep in your minds that Square-Enix needs and wants NEW players, and they will be the majority (We are not so many on the game), and for them there is no "time in which people will loose interest".
So I can understand perfectly that Yoshi wants to take the time that is needed to fulfill all the tasks he has before releasing the game.

[RELAXcowboy]

While I'm neutral on the issue (IE: I don't personally care either way), there are several benefits to that, but mainly:

1: charcopy of our existing characters to the beta will help with testing of high level content, that normally needs testing DIRELY and that never gets tested enough in betas
2: having characters carrying over to release gives people more incentives to actually test the game. More people test, more people will provide feedback, more polished the game will be. It's a pretty simple statistical matter.

Drawbacks? There's none.

Beta testing isn't some kind of honor or privilege people should be grateful for, nor a mission. It's a service we provide to Square Enix, and there's nothing wrong if the benefits go both ways. Quite the opposite, the more people are encouraged to provide that service, the better.

The only caveat is that data should carry over only since *everyone* of the players that applied are invited. Otherwise it would give an unfair advantage to those that are over those that aren't.

You make good points, but beta testing for games have been around forever and no one ever didn't play a beta just because that progress wasn't saved. It's all falling into the same area as games like WARZ. Everyone is complaining about that game and some of is bugs and glitches and how they will quit if blah blah blah. They treat the game as if it's launched. THAT is what happens when you start saving alpha and beta progress. Bug reports will be people threatening to quit if said glitch is fixed. It no longer becomes testing phases when the things you do transfer over. What if something is bugged in a quest line and it skips cut scenes or dialog? You now missed out on that unless you pay for another character slot and play it again.

For some reason though if feel like even if everyone played beta, they still wouldn't save. Just doesn't seem like their style?

[Totorixiii]

A simple matter of the fact here is, current players and new players will not forget about ARR because they won't I promised
The same people who can't wait impatiently will definitely come back including the ones who left and the new ones.

It's best that SE not rush 2.0 ARR because they''ve already learned their lessons with 1.0.