Yoshi-P Interview Translation Project (4Gamer, GAME Watch)

[Answa]

A common misconception I would like to clear up here is that, while the word 'new' implies that everything will be changed, the old FFXIV and the new FFXIV are essentially the same games. The battle systems already in place and will be in place in the future, Grand Company, etc... it is all the feedback we've received from the playerbase that be used and be reflected in FFXIV is what I call 'new'. But on the other hand, when we do switch over to the new FFXIV, you can say that from a developer cost standpoint that some of the time we've dedicated into the old FFXIV will be wasted.
Take the UI, for example. Under the new FFXIV, the UI will be totally revamped and be replaced with the new UI engine. However, this doesn't mean that we're slacking off in improving the UI we have now lest we make our customers feel unsatisfied with our product. Therefore, we will continue to make improvements to the current UI by reflecting on customer feedback, and continue to provide updates. Things like that won't change.
And then, by taking all the feedback we've received up to that point into consideration, we will replace the old UI with the new. But if you ask: "But what about all the resources you've spent in making the old UI?" the simple answer is "We're throwing it away". We're remaking everything as we go along, because I feel that is the stance we must take in order for us to continue provide services, and express our sincerity as Management/Developers - even our sincerity as a company as a whole - that we are prepared to do whatever it takes to make a satisfactory product.

Amazing response.

Good night!

[Chrees]

Thank you so much for undertaking this, Stanislaw! As others have mentioned, the quality of your translation seems to be very high, which is very much appreciated.

Amazing response.

Indeed, this response really got me cheering for the new development team (more so than I already was), as well as these parts:

4Gamer:
Indeed. Looking back, it's kind of hard to believe you had been working on these two projects in sync with the amount the updates you've made to the game.

Yoshi-P:
We had also been working on the implementation of a new graphics engine, new servers and plans and designs for the new UI in parallel to all that.

4Gamer:
So your statement of "Not getting enough sleep" is...

Yoshi-P:
Yeah, I've been giving it my all with these updates and new designs. *laugh*
If you'd allow me to explain our hesitancy over announcing these plans until now from a different angle, it was necessary for us to build a level of trust between the new Development team and our customers. Just because the game is under new management doesn't mean the customers will be instantly relieved. It also didn't help that I, who was never involved in the development of FFXI and had little to no exposure to the media, be suddenly named as the man responsible for the new FFXIV team.
This sort of undertaking is unprecedented for Square Enix, and even possibly the online gaming industry, so it was only natural for us to think that if a new guy like me suddenly started babbling out promises we wouldn't be trusted so easily.

4Gamer:
Indeed you have a point there. You were a relative unknown in the industry before, so I suppose it's natural for everyone to be worried if such announcements were made at start.

Yoshi-P:
Exactly. First we had to build up trust and provide some proof that we can do these things. If we don't come up with a realistic plan, people will just say "SE is spouting empty promises again".
This is why we decided to continue working with updates to the current game while cooking up the plans in the background, and we decided the time was ripe to make the announcement since we felt that we came up with a presentable plan.

Yoshi-P:
I had explained this several times before too, but under the direction of our new Development team, we treat the 'planning phases' very, very seriously in order to reword not only the game itself, but how we manage the game. This was and is especially true for the new FFXIV. Under the direction of our Technical Director Hashimoto, we had decided to suspend all new coding/programming until March of 2011. We had decided that until we had a solid plan that would allow us to do what we wanted to do, until a plan was laid out to solve issues such as servers, game engine and graphics core came into light, no coding/programming was allowed. Quite the impressive management technique by Hashimoto. We at the Dev team took a step back so to not rush things and contributed well into planning everything out.
Until March... well, I guess it's still true even today, but I continued to explain and convince our staff about my vision for FFXIV in the future. For example, one time I explained to my staff "I want to provide a such and such service, so the server must be designed in a way that will allow for 'worldless' content.", and then come up with plan, determine costs associated with said plan, and then draw up a scheduled to implement the feature.
After to 'Go' sign lit up after April of 2011, we're at full-coding mode. Because we made a very detailed plan beforehand, everything is going very smoothly.

Especially the bolded parts. Really gives me hope that, even if I hadn't believed it before, Yoshi-P truly does understand exactly what went wrong, as well as what needs to be done to save this game, and he's doing everything he can to make it happen.

Now we have a better understanding of what was going on behind the scenes up until March/April, so all those people who complained about there not being any "quality" updates until the summer can kindly GTFO.