PLEASE Learn from your mistakes......

[ViolentDjango]

If they communicated properly there wouldn't be rage threads every day and there wouldn't be massive amounts of speculation. Other games do -not- experience this anywhere near the amount that FFXIV does. It results in a forum with almost no positive threads.

It doesn't take a year to reform an attribute and battle system. It shouldn't even take 2 months. It's a collection of variable and simple formulas and should be easy to tweak and adjust. If you look at posts from 4 months ago every white knight was arguing that 1.18 would fix the "core battle mechanics" problem and they would be able to release patches much faster after. As it stands the "core battle mechanics" won't be stable until after 1.20 which going by the 2-months between patches history will be november or december.

Edit: and the fact that people consider common sense to be childish or negative is just an example of the blindness of white knights.
Not pissing off your players every week with dooms-day speculation should be common sense
Not changing the entire core system of a game and breaking parts of it every patch should be common sense.

Lol... What "other games" are you talking about? Because in my experience, just about any game with regular updates deals with this... People speculate, even when they know exactly what's coming. Unless SE gives line-by-line explanations of the code in the game, they'll be something people spend hours wondering about.

Its just part of the human condition, and there's nothing wrong with it, especially when the Development Team is actually looking into people's opinions and ideas for insight into things they can work on.

Edit: and the fact that people consider common sense to be childish or negative is just an example of the blindness of white knights.
Not pissing off your players every week with dooms-day speculation should be common sense
Not changing the entire core system of a game and breaking parts of it every patch should be common sense.

Presentation counts for a lot. Your point could be as factual as "air exists", but if you present it childishly, people will always call you on that. Retreating to rebuttals about how people are "white knights" doesn't help you get taken any more seriously, and the defensive insults definitely don't help drive your point home.

Frankly I disagree with most of what you said. They are working hard and making considerable progress with improving the game. We already have an ETA for when they want to be ready to relaunch, and we have a relatively detailed map of what they plan to do. I don't think we can really ask for more within reason. And its not "White Knight"-ism to say that giving them time to do work and make progress is reasonable. Its hard enough to program and design a game -- its even harder to design and adjust one that was built with lack of foresight.

Its not like we're paying for anything, or like we will be paying before the game relaunches -- so I don't feel there's a reason to rush any of it.

[Azurymber]

Lol... What "other games" are you talking about? Because in my experience, just about any game with regular updates deals with this... People speculate, even when they know exactly what's coming. Unless SE gives line-by-line explanations of the code in the game, they'll be something people spend hours wondering about.

Its just part of the human condition, and there's nothing wrong with it, especially when the Development Team is actually looking into people's opinions and ideas for insight into things they can work on.



Presentation counts for a lot. Your point could be as factual as "air exists", but if you present it childishly, people will always call you on that. Retreating to rebuttals about how people are "white knights" doesn't help you get taken any more seriously, and the defensive insults definitely don't help drive your point home.

Frankly I disagree with most of what you said. They are working hard and making considerable progress with improving the game. We already have an ETA for when they want to be ready to relaunch, and we have a relatively detailed map of what they plan to do. I don't think we can really ask for more within reason. And its not "White Knight"-ism to say that giving them time to do work and make progress is reasonable. Its hard enough to program and design a game -- its even harder to design and adjust one that was built with lack of foresight.

Its not like we're paying for anything, or like we will be paying before the game relaunches -- so I don't feel there's a reason to rush any of it.

when i played Hello Kitty Online when it was with aeria games (and i was a gamesage on it) the game sucked. It was broken and mobs were like impossible to kill even in the first area and everyone knew it. But everyone still had fun. There weren't many complaint threads and most people focused on community and fun events (some of which i held). It was a -very- different environment and the community was like 90% 25-30 yr olds.

Star Wars TOR boards right now seem a lot less trollish and complainy than here.

And while XI had complaint threads, there weren't nearly as many, because they never really told anyone what was in a patch till it was out

Perfect World (which essentially suck) also has/had way less complaint threads than here

i dont believe EVE online has a lot of complaint threads

And since when do we have an ETA for relaunch? Isn't that speculation -right there-? link to where the ETA is?

[ViolentDjango]

when i played Hello Kitty Online when it was with aeria games (and i was a gamesage on it) the game sucked. It was broken and mobs were like impossible to kill even in the first area and everyone knew it. But everyone still had fun. There weren't many complaint threads and most people focused on community and fun events (some of which i held). It was a -very- different environment and the community was like 90% 25-30 yr olds.

Star Wars TOR boards right now seem a lot less trollish and complainy than here.

And while XI had complaint threads, there weren't nearly as many, because they never really told anyone what was in a patch till it was out

Perfect World (which essentially suck) also has/had way less complaint threads than here

i dont believe EVE online has a lot of complaint threads

And since when do we have an ETA for relaunch? Isn't that speculation -right there-? link to where the ETA is?

They've expressed that they have loose expectations on when the release will be, which is sometime next year. Its speculation to try and claim a specific quarter, but its been clear for a while that their ultimate goal is releasing the PS3 version (which is ready to go) before the end of next year, if not earlier.

/sigh/

The community of a completely broken game run by a company that doesn't care enough to balance the primary functions of the game is NOT good indication of a good community. And how can you assess the age range of the ENTIRE community of the game? Final Fantasy is a 24 year old series -- One can easily assume that most of its core fanbase had to have been old enough to appreciate its better games (3~7, which is debatable but beside the point), meaning meaning that 25~30 age range is probably applicable here as well.

Star Wars TOR hasn't come out yet. So you can't talk about how its community is amazing when most of them don't even have access to the game yet. Wait until a couple of months after they've gotten used to/tired of the baseline content and then come back.

Final Fantasy XI-era SE gave us LESS information. So bringing up that community by saying it is better is contradictory to your entire argument. Apparently, to appease you and create a dream community, they should tell us absolutely nothing (which I assume is why the first community you listed was so "good" -- I can't imagine a broken game having very much information flowing from the Developers -- especially when starting areas were overpowered and impossible to fight in.

EVE is a game you can play without touching your computer for a week, and the lengthy and exhausting requirements for becoming a top tier "player" off it lends itself to a style of gameplay only hardcore enthusiasts can really enjoy for extended periods of time. Hardcore games tend to have less complainers as the grassroots communities tend to drive away "whiners" who are new to the game before they've rooted themselves enough to want to stick around. Its a common thing among gaming communities, though its more common in competitive ones (which is why many more hardcore gaming communities experience very slow flow of new players in high tier play) -- and its something I see constantly as founder of a company that deals primarily with competitive gaming. This point doubles up when you consider that Final Fantasy XI was significantly more hardcore when compared to say, World of Warcraft, which has a notoriously "bad" community. Final Fantasy XIV is purposefully more casual, and casual communities have much larger low-ends; i.e. less grind-it-out style hardcore gamers.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing; it's not something to chastise the community for. Its the nature of people and the way they respond to scenarios. Negativity, like positiveness, has its goods and its bad. Just like you say people who are overtly in-favor of SE's approach are "white knights" and blind to their fallacies, those complainers you bark about are representative of the kind of players who will be integral in helping the game become more successful. This game has problems, and until there are more people willing to support it than there are condemning it (i.e. when there's something to fight for), there are going to be LOTS of complaining threads.

And that's a good thing.

It means, at the very least, those people care enough to express their opinions and voice their concerns about how the game could potentially be better. They may not always be right, and SE definitely won't always go with their point of voice -- but a forum full of thousands of people who, despite how badly the game has done thus far, are willing to stick around to play, give feedback, and brainstorm improvement ideas to help the game become better and more enjoyable for everyone is the definition of a good community.

[Anapingofness]

I really liked what you had to say, mainly because you made some very valid points. However... I do take umbrage with one comment.

Final Fantasy XI-era SE gave us LESS information. So bringing up that community by saying it is better is contradictory to your entire argument.[/B]

You are correct that SE gave us less information. It's been an issue that has been happening since the game was launched and just now, 9 years after launch it's starting to improve. We can credit this to FFXIV ladies and gents, but that's not what I have umbrage with.

It's the second part of that comment.

I'm one of those that feel that XI has a much better community than XIV simply because the design of XI doesn't allow for a bad community.

SE didn't release much information so it was up to the players to well, help the players.
Players were willing to help each other out more and communicate with each other. You couldn't progress through the game otherwise.

As a result a very tight knit community ended up forming. Which also meant that because you had to rely on other people you couldn't wantonly be an amazing dick to others and expect no consequences for your actions. Yeah, XI had their fair share of dicks (such is life) but overall it was a fairly welcoming game, and much more tolerant of new players.

You also mentioned WoW in your post and yeah, I'd say as someone who has both played WoW and XI, WoW's community sucked. The overwhelming majority of the players I, my friends, and my sister ran into while playing WoW were rude and were jerks. (Not that all players are like that, just... most...)

There was no reason you had to be nice. You could go through the entire game without having to deal with people at all. The only time you relied on others was when you hit end game and you needed players to help you get more stuff.

In WoW you get crap for asking questions. The worst thing you can do to some of the WoW players is tell them you're new to the game. Dear God, sometimes it's like you spat in their face. But I digress.

So now, here we are, in FFXIV and no, I don't think it has a very good community. I don't think it's as bad as WoW's, I mean you gotta try to be that bad, but I wouldn't call it good.

The fact that I ran into kind players more than once in a blue moon on XIV speaks for itself. Which means that the community is kind of stuck in-between.... which is unfortunate, but I choose to take it as a positive sign. ^^;

[Dargoth_Draconia]

You got way too much time on your hands Azury...

[ViolentDjango]

I really liked what you had to say, mainly because you made some very valid points. However... I do take umbrage with one comment.



You are correct that SE gave us less information. It's been an issue that has been happening since the game was launched and just now, 9 years after launch it's starting to improve. We can credit this to FFXIV ladies and gents, but that's not what I have umbrage with.

It's the second part of that comment.

I'm one of those that feel that XI has a much better community than XIV simply because the design of XI doesn't allow for a bad community.

SE didn't release much information so it was up to the players to well, help the players.
Players were willing to help each other out more and communicate with each other. You couldn't progress through the game otherwise.

As a result a very tight knit community ended up forming. Which also meant that because you had to rely on other people you couldn't wantonly be an amazing dick to others and expect no consequences for your actions. Yeah, XI had their fair share of dicks (such is life) but overall it was a fairly welcoming game, and much more tolerant of new players.

You also mentioned WoW in your post and yeah, I'd say as someone who has both played WoW and XI, WoW's community sucked. The overwhelming majority of the players I, my friends, and my sister ran into while playing WoW were rude and were jerks. (Not that all players are like that, just... most...)

There was no reason you had to be nice. You could go through the entire game without having to deal with people at all. The only time you relied on others was when you hit end game and you needed players to help you get more stuff.

In WoW you get crap for asking questions. The worst thing you can do to some of the WoW players is tell them you're new to the game. Dear God, sometimes it's like you spat in their face. But I digress.

So now, here we are, in FFXIV and no, I don't think it has a very good community. I don't think it's as bad as WoW's, I mean you gotta try to be that bad, but I wouldn't call it good.

The fact that I ran into kind players more than once in a blue moon on XIV speaks for itself. Which means that the community is kind of stuck in-between.... which is unfortunate, but I choose to take it as a positive sign. ^^;

Not when you consider that half of the current community only plays for a week or two after major updates -- myself included.

As a side note, have you played FFXI lately? The massive amount of BS you get from people with regards to Abyssea is painful and was enough to make me quit again, even though I just bought all of the expansions. In-game communities =/= out-of-game communities. You can't really assess the quality of FFXIV's community because 90% of the ingame communication is between people who know each other irl due to the limitations of the current systems. Forum communities suck regardless of the game -- some are better than others, but all-in-all they are far from indicative of the -real- community of the game , i.e. the people who actually play.

As it stands, what made FFXI's in-game community so good is the fact that cooperation and good communication among players was mandatory to get anything done. If anything, the quality or lack thereof with regard to FFXIV's community is due to a lack of content that brings players together. Instances and raids are far from a unifying activity structure, because 90% of the time most of the people you're dealing with are your competition for rewards.

Ultimately it brings us back to the understand that a good community is made up of people who just play the game -- all SE needs to do to recreate a community of caliber similar to early FFXI is foster more content that brings people together, which they are already doing with the reworking of the EXP system to facilitate parties better.

[Cendres]

As a side note, have you played FFXI lately? The massive amount of BS you get from people with regards to Abyssea is painful and was enough to make me quit again, even though I just bought all of the expansions.

Insane amount of BS was always a constant in XI, you either conform or bugger off. I need to get off these forums and just enjoy the game or these posts will just remind me how behind the curve SE always is and maybe I should just wait for Kingdoms of Amalur.

[AsterBarnivere]

Insane amount of BS was always a constant in XI, you either conform or bugger off. I need to get off these forums and just enjoy the game or these posts will just remind me how behind the curve SE always is and maybe I should just wait for Kingdoms of Amalur.

D: YOU'RE A WAR WITH NO NIN SUBBED?? GTFO OF MY PARTY!