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

[Loth]

I too would like to say thank you for doing this translation.

Also, no offense to others that are doing translations for us, it is greatly appreciated, but your work here reads as if the interview was done in english, kudos for a job well done.

[Zantetsuken]

If FFXIV had been the product most any other gaming company. They would have conceded it was a failure, tossed a couple updates out to keep the small group of die-hard fans happy, and moved all internal resources to another project.

The fact that we are getting a both a fixed version of the current game AND a new version as well is something I've never seen any company do before.

Bravo SE, and Yoshi-P!

[PrettyPrincess]

....OH MAH GAWD. Those interviews are so long lol

[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.

[Stanislaw]

I'm awake now. I'll be resuming work on the translation shortly.

[DNO]

Awesome thanks this is awesome.

[OG_Balbanes]

Stan, you are godlike. Thanks.

[Travesty]

This is awesome, well done.

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.

That's a pretty impressive quote. Seems they very much have a "we don't fail" attitude.

[ChiefCurrahee]

Thank you Stanislaw. This is amazing!

[Stanislaw]

Is seems that my other thread, which contained a translation to an earlier Yoshi-P post translation, was deleted by a forum moderator. While the thread was somewhat being derailed by others, the OP contained information that probably should've been seen and spread to other members of the English-speaking community, so I would like an explanation to why it was outright deleted and not just deleting the derailing-posts.

I would repost the same translation if it weren't for my mistake in failing to save the original copy. As I don't know how to contact forum moderators, can someone please do so and ask them to revive the thread, or at least allow me to recover the OP so I can re-post it? I don't like to see my work go to complete waste.

Thanks in advance.


Edit: Nevermind, it's back. Whew.