Infos on the Real game Direction? WHEN?!

[Sorel]

Well Dragonheart... while all those games did some things well they messed up terrible in other ways to the point that .... If Final Fantasy XIV ARR does all those basic things well and some things more than well it will be able to compete even without any innovation at launch.

You bring up quite a bit of good points there, Dragonheart. A few I never even considered before. I totally agree with having PVP ready at launch for the reasons you mentioned. If the game doesn't have PVP at launch it could hurt the game's initial launch and subsequently have a detrimental affect on overall sales. Just as you state, reviewers and websites will probably be critical of the game for that reason, and that reason alone. As silly as it may seem to most of US that follow the game, or maybe don't care for PVP much, or that played 1.0 that didn't have it.....trying to attract as many players as you can to your new shiny MMO has to have it all.....and ALL at launch.

No MMORPG to date has ever launched with every feature that every other MMORPG had at the same time as the launch. It would be a fools errand for any game development company to even try. Features have to be prioritized, and strangely enough, this community told SE what the priorities were in our responses to the Player Polls (see links below).

First Player Poll Results
Second Player Poll Results
Third Player Poll Results

As you can see, PVP ranked either last or second to last in OUR priority (it never breaks out of single digits). Now, that doesn't mean that SE is not putting any PVP in the game ... it just means they are going to work at getting the stuff we said is REALLY important right and in at launch.

Character Development, Content, Graphics, Combat, User Interface, Economics.

Those are what reviewers are going to look at to determine if FFXIV:ARR is going to be great. If all of those are as good or better than the current MMORPG line up, they will easily forgive that you don't get to build a house, or kill your fellow adventures, or have flying mounts right at launch ... especially if you you have things like Gold Saucer and Crystal Tower at launch.