[Reminder] Are you ready to cry again? (2° Wave of Alpha invites tomorrow, 3 dec.)

[Velhart]

SE needs to value its current long-term players before getting inactive players involved as well as those who broke the NDA agreements. The only game I have noticed that does still value its players and is still the #1 MMO is WoW. So SE should think about its current players before Beta starts this time around.

This is a gigantic flaw with SE not only in FFXIV, but their state of thinking in general. Alienating their current fan base to please a new crowd has almost never worked in their favor.

[Abriael]

This is a gigantic flaw with SE not only in FFXIV, but their state of thinking in general. Alienating their current fan base to please a new crowd has almost never worked in their favor.

To be fair SE isn't the only one guilty of that lately, not even nearly. They're just those for which it worked the worst.

[Warlock]

This is a gigantic flaw with SE not only in FFXIV, but their state of thinking in general. Alienating their current fan base to please a new crowd has almost never worked in their favor.

Baseless self-entitlement is high on this one...

[Cedri]

Baseless self-entitlement is high on this one...

A bit, but there is some truth in that. It's very hard to keep a fan base interested without anything tangible to try. Releasing alpha videos, sure lifted some frustration, created more problems than it solved. People got a nice sneak peek at the aspects included in alpha but then everyone started taking it seriously like it was the final product and nitpicked it to death. It scared a lot of the player base.

We all want to keep playing the game that we've been playing, and change scares people. I predict that there will be some measure of loss in the current fan base, but we'll gain new fans in return. The thing that scares me the most is people going to other games in this long long gap between 1.0 and 2.0.

[Warlock]

A bit, but there is some truth in that. It's very hard to keep a fan base interested without anything tangible to try. Releasing alpha videos, sure lifted some frustration, created more problems than it solved. People got a nice sneak peek at the aspects included in alpha but then everyone started taking it seriously like it was the final product and nitpicked it to death. It scared a lot of the player base.

We all want to keep playing the game that we've been playing, and change scares people. I predict that there will be some measure of loss in the current fan base, but we'll gain new fans in return. The thing that scares me the most is people going to other games in this long long gap between 1.0 and 2.0.

That might be the case..but SE giving the first month of ARR free will be the perfect solution for that

[Abriael]

Even if they invited 1.0 players only there would not be room for everyone and these same people would still be crying the same song anyway. its simply not enough room for everyone regardless how SE decided to do the alpha but people cannot get that through their heads.

Playing 1.0 does not earn you the right to play alpha you got what you got for playing 1.0 already. Yoshi has stated since day one, his goal is regain players trust back to show them that his game he created is good enough to just do that and a lot of those people think so now.

Then you have the people yelling this bullshit about how they want to test the game so they can make it better, well buddy that is not what alpha is for its there just to stress the servers to the limit so they can see how far they can push the server limits.

I'm sure you have all the data necessary to demonstrate that there isn't enough room for what little was left of the active FFXIV community on the alpha test. Actually no. I'm quite sure you don't.

Reality is that FFXIV has a very small community compared to basically every other major MMORPG, so arguing that fitting everyone in, in the case no inactives were invited (as clearly stated by SE), would have been impossible is honestly ridiculous.

They didn't even need to invite everyone in at the same time so your point doens't really find any application in reality. This isn't WoW, and there aren't 9 million people to find room for.

What Yoshida says is relevant only to a point. While I'm supportive of him like the next guy, and contrary to what some here seem to think, he can make mistakes (like inviting everyone and his mother to the final event, ruining it for everyone. Rings a bell?), so his position is subject to criticism like that of any game developer.

The alpha showcases all the basic systems of the game, and they're fully open to feedback about them, no matter what the primary goal of the test is.

Baseless self-entitlement is high on this one...

It's more reality. Square Enix is one of those Japanese publishers that tried the hardest to change the way they make their games and their themes in order to please "new crowds", alienating part of their older fans. As Velhart said quite clearly, it never really worked well for them, as the rather lackluster reception of every game of the FFXIII series shows.

Marketing teaches that expansion (even radical operations like a rebranding) should always be strongly based on the solid ground of the core customer base. Alienating your core fanbase almost never works.

[Firon]

I'm sure you have all the data necessary to demonstrate that there isn't enough room for what little was left of the active FFXIV community on the alpha test. Actually no. I'm quite sure you don't.

Reality is that FFXIV has a very small community compared to basically every other major MMORPG, so arguing that fitting everyone in, in the case no inactives were invited (as clearly stated by SE), would have been impossible is honestly ridiculous.

They didn't even need to invite everyone in at the same time so your point doens't really find any application in reality. This isn't WoW, and there aren't 9 million people to find room for.

What Yoshida says is relevant only to a point. While I'm supportive of him like the next guy, and contrary to what some here seem to think, he can make mistakes (like inviting everyone and his mother to the final event, ruining it for everyone. Rings a bell?), so his position is subject to criticism like that of any game developer.

The alpha showcases all the basic systems of the game, and they're fully open to feedback about them, no matter what the primary goal of the test is.



It's more reality. Square Enix is one of those Japanese publishers that tried the hardest to change the way they make their games and their themes in order to please "new crowds", alienating part of their older fans. As Velhart said quite clearly, it never really worked well for them, as the rather lackluster reception of every game of the FFXIII series shows.

Marketing teaches that expansion (even radical operations like a rebranding) should always be strongly based on the solid ground of the core customer base. Alienating your core fanbase almost never works.

Again the main scope of the alpha test was to mainly see if they could achieve 1k npc's/pc's in one area so the need of the entire 40k FFXIV player base is not needed. You just need to admit you are sulking cause you did not get in, the final event has nothing to do with this at all your just grasping at straws now.

Also to note FF 13 has had a big enough fan base for 3 games so that's not true.

[Abriael]

Again the main scope of the alpha test was to mainly see if they could achieve 1k npc's/pc's in one area so the need of the entire 40k FFXIV player base is not needed. You just need to admit you are sulking cause you did not get in, the final event has nothing to do with this at all your just grasping at straws now.

I don't need to "admit" something not true just because it'd please you. Sorry to burst a bubble. Mind you, you do not know the numbers of the "entire FFXIV player base", and the 40k number is something you pulled out of thin air.

Even if it was anywhere near to a realistic number, fitting 40k players in three servers when you use staggered invites and you could even easily implement a hard turnover is nowhere near an impossible task. They don't need to be all online at the same time.

Primary goals aren't the *only* goals, and asking anyone currently in the alpha will easily grant you the knowledge that they have been taking feedback on all the aspects of the game. That's why alpha forums exist.

But you have the Informations about everyting to say there is enough room for everyone. I bet SE told you how many active acounts they have and how many ppl they invited and how high the server capacity are for the alpha. Yesterday you complained about ppl making statistic etc. and you do the same without any facts.

Aside from the fact that they did tell us the server capacity of the alpha if you din't notice, the fact that the active population of FFXIV is low is a fact in front of everyone's eyes. We saw it very clearly on the last days before the save, when everyone was scrambling to complete the last achievements. Servers were still a ghost town compared to every major MMO out there. There are ways to count population online at any given time, if you din't notice (it's called search).

It doesn't take any stretch of the imagination to know that using staggered invites and/or a possible turnover would have most probably made room for everyone.

Even if staggered invites weren't enough (unlikely, but lets assume), a turnover invariably solves the problem. All you have to do is to limit each user's access to the alpha to a certain number of days (say 10). After that, his access is revoked to make room to the next guy.

Given that the content of the alpha is very limited, 10 days (but even less) are plenty to test it throughly and provide feedback, and this way you easily multiply the available room by a lot, while giving everyone a fair chance.

Mind you. If they wanted to be fair they could still do something like that. On monday they could rescind access to everyone that was invited to the alpha before December the 10th (since they already had plenty time to playtest and provide feedback) and use those slots to give access to everyone within the active userbase that didn't get it yet. Of course no further inactives should be invited.

Simple, fair, everyone gets a chance to provide feedback.

[moriandrio]

Alpha Test is not to please everyone, its to test certain stuff out and apperently you don't need every single person for that. If you know everything better and can do everything better, pls go ahead and apply to SE.

But there is no point to use these unrealistic theories to complain about not getting in alpha, maybe thats even good cause if you would mess the alpha forums with all your complaints nobody would find the feedback anymore.

Everyone always thinks his feedback is so important and he supports the game so much more then everybody else, wake up thats totally bullshit.

[Velhart]

Baseless self-entitlement is high on this one...

This has nothing to do with me. Square-Enix even before FFXIV has shifted a lot of elements in their popular franchises to attempt to please a new crowd, and all they end up accomplishing is disappointing their current fan base.