Famitsu interview with Yoshi

[Kosmos992k]

FF XIV don't have 4 Million active players. It is said to be 4 Million Accounts. Active player are estimated to be around 400k-500k. Means an earning of ~5.5 Million Euro. Now subtract taxes, Salary, Server leasing, services, Development of Content and Expansions, Services, Translation and ofc. profit.

They say over 5 million accounts (actually I think it says 5.5 million on one of the more recent things I've seen), not 4 million. I'm not sure about the active player estimates, 400-500k might be an underestimate of the active player-base if it's not SE's own data on concurrent users. A lot of the metrics used by third parties to gauge player activity are based on progression content, which depending on the type of player may not be a good indicator of activity. They also scrape the Lodestone for the data, and data scraping from websites is not always the most reliable way to obtain information.

For example, I doubt my character counts as active on many of those 'counts' and yet I'm on almost every day for a couple of hours at least. But because I don't run progression content, I'm unlikely to trigger many (if any) of the conditions third party 'surveys' use to determine activity. I know I am not alone in this.

Also, has anyone ever tried to count up all the accounts permanently disabled because of RMT or other illegal activity? If you go through those weekly reports I'd guess that we are *well* past half a million accounts that have been listed as being permanently banned from the game. In an ideal world, I'd hope that their number of accounts that they tout would *not* include those RMT accounts that they have identified and taken action against. This is not an ideal world however, so I don't know if they exclude known RMT accounts from the number of user accounts that they claim.

Hmmm... am I the only one who thought of "Oh hey, personal housing?"

No, but it depends on how many instances within instances their architecture is designed to handle.

[Kuwagami]

snip

The counting is done with public informations one cannot hide. Levelling up, getting minions and mounts, etc... gathered on characters that are above lv20-ish over 2 month or so. This is actually way more accurate than anything else we an have actually as SE refuses to give real data.

The last estimation was about 650k players iirc.

[Kosmos992k]

The counting is done with public informations one cannot hide. Levelling up, getting minions and mounts, etc... gathered on characters that are above lv20-ish over 2 month or so. This is actually way more accurate than anything else we an have actually as SE refuses to give real data.

The last estimation was about 650k players iirc.

I know it's public data, I also know it's scraped from the Lodestone. I'm just saying that the numbers may be an under-estimate because it's difficult to gauge activity of players who are not progression minded, and take their time. I guess it depends on the kind of depth that they go to when obtaining their data. If they obtain the class page from your character summary information on Lodestone, and keep the previous record for a comparison, then they could even compare the number of XP, not just the levels. If they are going to that kind of dept than any concerns I have had in the past would be gone.

[BunnyHop]

Indeed...
Hmmm....I play with JP voice Acting on because the English cast makes me want to burn my UK passport and hide in the wilds of Montana to avoid being judged over the wishy washy, emotionless, prim and proper, oh so very English, annoying and utterly not fitting voices used in the EN version.

As for Haurchefant, my reading of his character has always been that he has kind of a hero worship thing going for the WoL, really wants to help in any way he can and is flamboyant and overtly emotional - not sexual, and can't help being over the top about things. There are characters like him in many Anime for example. They are typically friendly, always flamboyant and a little ambiguous with regard to their orientation. But they always wear their heart on their sleeve and are emotive in speech and manner, sometimes to the point of making the main character a little uncomfortable.

The biggest difficulty watching with JP audio is that you can't read the text of what is actually being said because you get the text from the EN localization. I'd love it if there was an option to display the un-localized EN translation that goes with the JP dialog, but I doubt that is something that they'd add at this time.

However, Haurchefant doesn't come across as 'pervy' (as so many seem to think) so much as he does as an overtly, and overly, flamboyant guy with a huge hero-worship complex for the WoL and a strong bond of friendship to the WoL. Remember, the WoL was the one who helped him when *no one* else would. That strong friendship and Hero-worship is probably due several factors not least of which is the lonely nature of his position, being stationed in the middle of nowhere with the expectation of serving there for a long time with no friends, and no respect (remember he's there by virtue of his birth). Prior to the WoL entering his life, he was in a situation where it doesn't matter how noble he is, it doesn't matter how valorous he is, and with the political intrigue 'back home' it doesn't matter how honest he is, he's gonna get the crap end of the stick no matter what - though he makes a brave face of it. Then the WoL essentially saves his life and family honor, a debt of gratitude that for him seems to literally go to his core being.

So yeah, there are some awkward moments because he's just way over the top about things, but the motives - in my opinion - are not sexual. The dialog is suggestive - deliberately so - apparently in both languages, but more so in JP, but merely suggestive. In the context of the type of character he is and his relationship to the WoL, the dialog actually makes things even funnier because when we reach that point and realize that actually, it's just his 'way' and nothing more, we see how ludicrous it is to suspect anything of him. Like that one scene where Alphinaud sort of intercepts what seems to be a very suggestive moment. If you have a good handle on Haurchefant's character at that point, it's actually quite funny that Alphinaud so promptly steps in to 'save' you. In the great tradition of farcical humor, misunderstanding precedes hilarity.

I actually find it funnier still that so many people take him so seriously and ascribe labels like 'pervy' and sexual motivation to him. I just find it very difficult to take that aspect of his character as anything other than comic relief.

Very well written, I thank you for it. This is exactly what I feel about Haurchefant as well.

People express themselves differently in each culture. In Japanese culture it is normal to love people around you in a pure friendly way, but here in western culture you are labeled a perv, lesbian or gay very quickly.

People should stop overly using the word " perv" already and be open for more kindness. People should stop judging others so quickly.

[Kuwagami]

snip

it's just easier and faster to look at big pictures (gear change, change in big numbers like mount count, minion count, levels) rather than nitpicking exact number changes.

Anyone who play the game at least a few hours in the spawn of 2 month is likely to have changed at least one piece of gear. Pretty easy stuff to use to figure out active accounts. I'd een go as far as saying that the underestimation (people not progressing on any level for the entire scan duration) is beaten by the overestimation (people can come in and out in the span of 2 month, and may not be active anymore when the numbers are compiled)

[Kosmos992k]

I'd e(v)en go as far as saying that the underestimation (people not progressing on any level for the entire scan duration) is beaten by the overestimation (people can come in and out in the span of 2 month, and may not be active anymore when the numbers are compiled)

That's a good point, I wonder whether the two 'sides' of underestimation and overestimation may simply balance each other out?

Either way, 650K active players (as mentioned in your previous post) translates to a pretty decent regular income for SE and the FFXIV 'franchise'. If it is 650K active players that averages out to about 10K per server doesn't it?

Very well written, I thank you for it. This is exactly what I feel about Haurchefant as well.

People express themselves differently in each culture. In Japanese culture it is normal to love people around you in a pure friendly way, but here in western culture you are labeled a perv, lesbian or gay very quickly.

People should stop overly using the word " perv" already and be open for more kindness. People should stop judging others so quickly.

Indeed, and thanks.

I was thinking about this and India came to mind. In India (and other nations/cultures), it's perfectly acceptable (and normal) for men to hold hands, hug, or walk with their arm around their friend's shoulder. If we had a couple of male characters in FFXIV doing that I wonder what the typical reaction would be in the western player-base? To use your quote (about Japan) "it is normal love people around you in a pure friendly way". In India (for example) two men holding hands is an act of friendship, another word for friendship is love. If someone does not in fact love their friends, then why are they 'friends' and not merely acquaintances.

Actually, now that I think about this, I would rather the localization team did not make such changes as they made with Haurchefant for a very simple, and important reason. By leaving in such things, they expose people to aspects of other cultures, something that brings more understanding and tolerance for others. I'm not saying it should be the role of this game (or any other game) to educate society. But instead of giving in to the parochial fears and intolerance of some players who need to open their eyes and minds to the world, I think that they should leave these things in the game. Instead of trying to hide it, or change it, perhaps it would be better to add a bit more context so that people can understand the character type better.

My God, can you imagine if people actually learned to celebrate their differences in culture and belief, rather than criticize and belittle each other over those differences?

[Kuwagami]

Yeah sort of. Just pulling that out of my memory so numbers could be off, but the range was from 5k (typical low pop server) to 20k players (balmung ftw) per server

[Magis]

Some number scrapped from lodestone:

Total Player Characters: 7,819,881
PCs with at least one class at 50: 1,324,414
PCs with at least one class at 60: 385,651

From https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/comme...ta_and_charts/

This doesn't include people who are leveling pre-lvl 55 of course, but it puts a dire picture on end-game if there are only 386K people to choose from (not counting the regional splits). Also one's experience on how the game is perceived at end-game may change depending on what server they roll on:

(Graph is level 60's only)



http://i.imgur.com/qupGctE.png

It is too bad SE doesn't publish proper data making us rely on the loadstone... however I do think it's accurate for the majority of players. 90% of the content is done at end-game, so using "how many level 60s are there" is a good way to judge how population numbers would effect a level 60 player.

[Deathscythe343]

Have to wonder how much of the total accounts are made up of spammers?

[Jim_Berry]

"Anything that we should try?

Yoshida: Well, I think working on mechanics should be the first priority rather than focusing on damage. Try a section 10 times, and give priority to getting through that part of the fight 10 times without any issue. If someone doesn't understand what to do or makes a mistake, practice for that person. If you proceed through the fight without everyone on the same page, the differences will get exacerbated. Instead of setting really high goals, work on the fight one phase at a time and you'll get better results. Let DPS be the last thing you focus on. If you're playing with a focus on DPS from the start, you'll be neglecting how to properly deal with certain mechanics. It's a much better goal to be certain that you can get through the mechanics of phases instead of being able to reduce the boss to a certain HP percentage. Part of avoiding the mechanics has nothing to do with DPS. Once you are at a point where all eight players are able to cleanly deal with mechanics, that's the first time you should start thinking about DPS. The first goal should be to kill it before timing out, and then you can think about ways to shorten the time spent in each phase."

The thing about this is, people want high DPS right away, expect everyone to know ALL the mechanics right away from watching videos, and demand TeamSpeak.