New interview from JP 4gamer site

[Holland]

the only one of those things that is foundation in an rpg is the area design, the foundation of the game is the engine, and online is the servers. The truth is battle class system etc, are not the foundations of an rpg. Just because you do something a alot doesnt make it a foundation.

the foundation of any rpg is progression, story and adventure. you can swap any and many battle systems in. Alter it, change it, add to it whatever, its not required.

the foundation of something, is something every building has, and cannot do without, without not being a building.

The fact is battle class systems and econmoy are all features, and they are things they can change on the fly as long as they have the other things. You could litterally swap out the entire battle system from one ff title to any other, battle is just a feature of an MMO, and it is a feature they decided to do first because they wanted to. In fact neither the class system nor the battle needed a complete rework for this game to succeed. It does however need content.

At this point all they are building is leveling game, and a battle game. I have played rpgs where you tell people to attack, and you see a flash, and a pixel image shakes. that is not the foundation of the game.

Battle system is one of many foundations of RPG's. How the mobs are created, how to beat them, how they react, how you react to their attacks, spells, abilities, how to traverse through dungeons and clear stages, etc. Is based on the battle capabilities of your character. So if you were to suddenly swap a battle system for another, you would need to redo the design of a dungeon, how monters deal attacks, cast spells, activate abilities, you would need to redesign how your character clears dungeons. One of the main content-related features an MMO has, revolves around battles. Seeing all these ramifications (me listing just two, shows how fundamental a battle system is.) is quite obvious Yoshida and his team decided to do the right thing. I am no game developer, I just play the games, I dont understand how, based only on common knowledge, can you say what part of a game is fundamental or not. If you are indeed a professional game developer, my apologies.

Edit: What makes me, a person who is not a Game developer, be so sure that is a fundamental part. Well, the FFXIV Director/Producer said so. So why not?

[Betelgeuzah]

the only one of those things that is foundation in an rpg is the area design, the foundation of the game is the engine, and online is the servers. The truth is battle class system etc, are not the foundations of an rpg. Just because you do something a alot doesnt make it a foundation.

the foundation of any rpg is progression, story and adventure. you can swap any and many battle systems in. Alter it, change it, add to it whatever, its not required.

the foundation of something, is something every building has, and cannot do without, without not being a building.

The fact is battle class systems and econmoy are all features, and they are things they can change on the fly as long as they have the other things. You could litterally swap out the entire battle system from one ff title to any other, battle is just a feature of an MMO, and it is a feature they decided to do first because they wanted to. In fact neither the class system nor the battle needed a complete rework for this game to succeed. It does however need content.

At this point all they are building is leveling game, and a battle game. I have played rpgs where you tell people to attack, and you see a flash, and a pixel image shakes. that is not the foundation of the game.

"Gameplay mechanics are not the foundation of a game."

Cool story, bro.

[Elexia]

Battle system is one of many foundations of RPG's. How the mobs are created, how to beat them, how they react, how you react to their attacks, spells, abilities, how to traverse through dungeons and clear stages, etc. Is based on the battle capabilities of your character. So if you were to suddenly swap a battle system for another, you would need to redo the design of a dungeon, how monters deal attacks, cast spells, activate abilities, you would need to redesign how your character clears dungeons. One of the main content-related features an MMO has, revolves around battles. Seeing all these ramifications (me listing just two, shows how fundamental a battle system is.) is quite obvious Yoshida and his team decided to do the right thing. I am no game developer, I just play the games, I dont understand how, based only on common knowledge, can you say what part of a game is fundamental or not. If you are indeed a professional game developer, my apologies.

Edit: What makes me, a person who is not a Game developer, be so sure that is a fundamental part. Well, the FFXIV Director/Producer said so. So why not?

He knows they're the foundation, he's just one of the people who firmly believes just because it's FFXIV, an RPG and Yoshida, Battle System is no longer a major part of an MMORPG and yoshida is wasting his time "doing nothing" instead of catering to his needs. I mean, if my RPG was titled "Battle Arena" and I spent 99% of my time battling, I'm pretty damn sure the foundation of that game would be the battle system. If my game is called Street Fighter and I spent most if not all of my time fighting, I'm pretty sure the fighting system is the game's foundation.

If my game is called Dance Dance Revolution, pretty damn sure the rhythm mechanic is the foundation of the game. If I'm playing an MMORPG where you have to progress through killing and leveling...I'm damn sure the battle system is a big part of the foundation and no one plays MMOs just to read/hear dialog, they play to fight and get loot, even the most jaded cynical soandso can't argue this.

of course no mention of Auction house, mog house, mailbox, chocobo's, or airships

Auction house un-needed. Mog House they already mentioned they have something in the works soon, mailbox is honestly unneeded, most MMOs that have one people barely utilize and it's largely used by RMT anyway. Unless you mean a delivery box, i.e retainers sell something and you get the money or item, yeah they already mentioned that would be happening. They also mentioned by 1.19 they hope to get Airships functioning.

Do you even read? Or just skim then complain?

[Leonesaurus]

However..I dont see Cid really coming in. I dont see any place where a "Cid" figure would be appropriate at the moment. Maybe in Ishgard.

Edit: Cant read at 1am in the morning too well. So Cid IS coming in??
Very interesting..

From what I've seen, read, and played... Cid (the engineer/pilot/mechanic/ so on, so on, so on...) seems like he'd be an engineer for the Garlond Ironworks or something. Doesn't necessarily imply he's a bad guy, even though he's been one in a past FF title, since other innocent Garlond Ironworkers have fled from Garlemald in the popular sidequests in each main city. However, it is possible, he flees from there too and comes to one of the major cities in an update or what not?

I don't think he'd be in Ishgard, since all the Ishgardians are Elezeen, as far as I know. But who knows for sure?

[Betelgeuzah]

Yoshida posted again. Letter next week, seems to talk about guildleves in further detail.

[Holland]

Nice to hear that. Hope someone has spare time to translate it also. Looking forward to the letter from the producer ^^

[normalforce]

Mog House they already mentioned they have something in the works soon, mailbox is honestly unneeded, most MMOs that have one people barely utilize and it's largely used by RMT anyway. Unless you mean a delivery box, i.e retainers sell something and you get the money or item, yeah they already mentioned that would be happening.

That brings up thoughts of contract boards, where people put up contracts for items they want, and what prices they are willing to pay for it. Crafters come along, look through the list and make what they want, turning in the finished item gets them the payment. I know that you can seek items in the bazaars, but as I haven't used the market wards search feature all that much, I don't know if you can search for what people are seeking, or even for people looking for repairs. Can you?

[Reinheart]

Reinheart, you rock man! Thanks for taking the time to share this with us!

Yoshida posted again. Letter next week, seems to talk about guildleves in further detail.

we should get a long producer letter from him this week. also for airship dont expect too much on individual map, right now they are working on it as quicker method of transportation with changes to it in the future.

[Holland]

we should get a long producer letter from him this week. also for airship dont expect too much on individual map, right now they are working on it as quicker method of transportation with changes to it in the future.

I assumed that's the route they would take. A placeholder for transportation and then fleshing out the aesthetic part of it later. Makes sense since it seems that with companies we might have to travel to different areas for assignments. Hope the Airship travel is not restricted to cities only and includes the platforms in the field. If this is not the case, I will rage quit! (WHY SE!!? WHY!!?)

[Evangelus]

we should get a long producer letter from him this week. also for airship dont expect too much on individual map, right now they are working on it as quicker method of transportation with changes to it in the future.

i think the airship way will be :

airship>zoning> airship fly with cloud far away> zoning>exit airship.

and includes the platforms in the field

it's platforms for the small airship actually in the game (but not accessible)