The Letter is up

[charliesheen]

I'm just giving people what I guess they want, I just don't know if everyone can handle it. I’m on a quest to claim absolute victory on every front. I'll need to search through the letters and dev. notes to find where it was said, so I will return... with another violent torpedo of truth!

#winning

[Jynx]

That doesn't mean that there wouldn't be a easy way around that. If it's too hard to change the linkshell system, make a new one and abolish the old one. Just brick and mortar the abillity to actually obtain linkshells and force people to use the new improved system.

Not the most "stylish" choice but it's better than just saying "well we can't change it." Considering we could technically listen to over thousands of people in one place means that it's not linked to some hard cap on how many people we can listen to at once. If the demand is strong enough once the bigger changes roll out I'm positive SE can and will find a way around the current limitations or just make a new system and block the old from being used.

[charliesheen]

The warlock has failed. I am unable to find where I read the comments about linkshells. All I could fine was various "difficult to implement" comments regarding other items of a similar nature.

In anycase, as other posters have commented that particular thing is not top of their priority list. Even if it wasn't, if the programming was sound, you wouldn't expect it to be difficult to implement and therefore not required to be top of their priorities. But I will cease with the guess-work and bid you all adieu for now on this topic.

[Mug]

I'm not going to read the 342 (!) replies, so this has most likely been discussed, but Yoshida needs to stop making comments like this:

I estimate that it’ll take two more weeks beyond the anticipated mid/late-June release date to deliver it to our fans.

This can mean anything from 1,5 weeks to a month.

The letter is a tad underwhelming, but adding the video was very effective and has definitely helped tone down the riots I was expecting. I hope he keeps doing things like this, as it goes a very long way! It's very nice to see something completely new, visually, after all this time. Chaos Thrust is breathtaking.

[DurtiMonkeyToe]

I'm not going to read the 342 (!) replies, so this has most likely been discussed, but Yoshida needs to stop making comments like this:



This can mean anything from 1,5 weeks to a month.

The letter is a tad underwhelming, but adding the video was very effective and has definitely helped tone down the riots I was expecting. I hope he keeps doing things like this, as it goes a very long way! It's very nice to see something completely new, visually, after all this time. Chaos Thrust is breathtaking.

Yoshi can only give us general statements like this because he isn't doing all the work himself. What do you want him to do, walk around to every person working on the game and ask for an estimated date for the patch. The work has to get done and you don't always know how long that is going to be until you get there.

[Mug]

All I know is that vague statements, and this game has had more than its fair share of them, is not helping the situation. Even if things are uncertain, I'm sure they know if the patch will be ready by next week or in a month.

[DurtiMonkeyToe]

All I know is that vague statements, and this game has had more than its fair share of them, is not helping the situation. Even if things are uncertain, I'm sure they know if the patch will be ready by next week or in a month.

So you would rather go back to how it was during Tanaka's tenure when we get no information until 2 days before? There is a big difference between a month and a week, especially in programming and development.

[Physic]

actually their are many developers and producers who do just that, make a date, and hit it. most of the time. And yeah he is supposed to be able to get real dates out of people, and get stuff done. Now maybe the things here are unforseeable, but in general one would expect he could get some dates, and get work done by said dates as the rule, rather than the exception. Other directors/developers do it all the time.

[DurtiMonkeyToe]

actually their are many developers and producers who do just that, make a date, and hit it. most of the time. And yeah he is supposed to be able to get real dates out of people, and get stuff done. Now maybe the things here are unforseeable, but in general one would expect he could get some dates, and get work done by said dates as the rule, rather than the exception. Other directors/developers do it all the time.

Give me an example please. Give me an example of a Director/Producer giving a specific date on when something is going to be implemented. It's not the same as saying Patch X.X is going to be released on XX XXX 2011 and then having to push it back. Yoshi told us what is being worked on and said "There is so much work to be done that the EARLIEST we can do it is AROUND THIS TIME, MAYBE." In the development and planning process, you have to finish X project before you can begin Y project. You can give an estimated time frame that it will take to complete project Y but if it takes you longer to complete project X then project Y will take longer too. Obviously Yoshi's estimate was too generous.

[Biggs]

The following is a post i made on FFXIVCORE. Thought some of you would like to see it.

I agree with both camps that have responded here, both those defending SE and those that are pissed. Both camps also have a solid following on the official forums as there are many, many unhappy posts about this letter on the SE Forum site.

Personally I feel like I have the right to be a little pissed, and so do others. Are these changes needed? Without a doubt. Can SE move forward without making these changes first? Probably not. I understand exactly how something as large as changing the core game mechanics can not only take a great deal of time (they have to go through thousands of lines of code people, its really not a 1,2,3 process) but can also take up a great deal of effort on the dev teams part. I have no desire to get into a pissing contest over how others feel about auto-attack. They are implementing it. Accept it, and lets move on. In short, my tiny gaming brain understands the need for and length of time it takes to do all of the things they are doing here. I get it.

Now let me explain why myself and others can understand all of these things and still retain the right to be pissed off.

The few thousands of us that still play this game on a regular basis at this point (so more than once a week folks) are the most loyal of the loyal. When so many others have written this game off, we have stood by it. Many of us have defended SE and the decisions they have made over the last 6 months time and time again. We make posts telling SE our opinions of the game, we take player polls, and we trudge onward. I make no qualms about quilifying myself as a FF fanboy. Over the course of the last few months SE has been posting all of their ideas and changes for upcoming content. Not fixes, but CONTENT. They have posted time and again about how this summer will see Player Dungeons, enemy camps, npc camps, new means of travel, new gear, more nms. In short they have made quiet a few grand claims about how the game is about to improve CONTENT wise.

Let me be clear in saying that auto-attack and the job and combat system changes is NOT content. These are fixes. The purpose of them is to improve the game, but in NO way do they add anything to the current gamestate for the thousands of us that have continued playing a game that SE is still running as a released title. Is it free? For sure. But for all of those that use this as a defense to let SE do whatever they want (myself included, I have made the "its free" defense on their behalf many times) let me just say this. The sheer amount of money Se is saving by having thousands of us test this game for them and provide feedback more than makes up for whatever cost keeping the servers online is running them. Game testers and Q @ A testers cost money, and typically you only get a few dozen that test for you, not thousands. So the "its free" defense no longer holds water for me. Simply put, we are being used. And to be honest, I am ok with that. Its not like they are trying to hide the fact that they are using the PC players as a means to improve the game. What I DO have problems with is them in no way rewarding us for our efforts. They show us all this new content but never give us clearly defined release dates for it (content mind you, not fixes) all the while showing us all these great things they are working on. After this last letter I think many of us are begining to feel like all that stuff is just a giant carrot on the end of a string. To make multiple refrences to adding new "dungeons" for months, then saying you plan to drop them on us in the next update, only to have this asshat post in this letter that they have completed ONE Dungeon and are working on the second one (but it wont be out till July now) is a complete slap in the face. When I hear the word DUNGEONS, I think of mulitple places, as in, more than ****ing 1 maybe 2. I understand they need to fix this game, but they also need to make the people that have continued playing it feel like they are important and needed. The only way to do this is to mix the fixes with actual content thats specifically for those of us that have a shitload of gil and nothing to spend it on, and one if not mulitple jobs at level 50. One level 50 "Dungeon" (notice the lack of an "s" on the end) after a release 9 months ago is not even close to enough, I dont care how good you think they are gonna be SE.

I could go on but the size of this post is getting out of hand. At this point my loyalty is waning, and I seriously think that them delaying this patch longer (however neccissary it may have been) is only setting our expectation even higher. (Not to mention throwing words around like "tremendous size" patch). We have all seen time and again how well huge amounts of expectation has worked out for SE in the past, and frankly, I think they are setting themselves up for failure with 1.18. I am positive that on top of auto-attack, 2 dungeons, and the combat tweeks they will add new gear and new nm's to the game in 1.18. But I am also now convinced that the majority of this "tremendous size" patch will be memory required to change the core game mechanics. As much as thats needed, its not content.

How about we see some rewards for those of us that are staying with you on this shitshow of a ride SE? Enough dangling the carrot in front of my face with talk of a materia systems and artifact gear. Give me something tangible and do it soon. If you cant do that while also fixing this game, then what you should have ****ing done is shut the servers down when the game flopped and told everyone that they wont come back online until you have fixed this mess. This using us to make the game better crap is actually starting to drive your most loyal fanbase away in a way they wont come back to you from. Ever.

Also, to those of you that say good ridance to people that quit, your idiots. Everytime someone rage quits it brings this game closer to never recovering. And nothing says " I am a douchebag" faster than cheering for your own team to lose. Everytime a player states they are quiting and not coming back , we should see it as a loss to the community, not cheer on our own demise.

I hope 1.18 is as awsome as they are trying to hype it to be, but frankly, many of us are getting battered wife syndrome SE. And it will only be so long before we no longer believe the "I swear I wont do it again baby" speech before we just pack up our **** and move out for good.

You are now free to flail me alive for this post my CORE peeps.

Sincerely,
Your Ol' Pal Biggs

P.S.
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