Quote Originally Posted by Aenarion View Post
Where did you get your crystal ball - and can I get one too?
I use an ancient form of fortune telling called "reading"

A: First, focusing on housing, we're thinking not only about the interior, but also the garden and exterior and also the appearance of the building. From 2.0, you'll be able to form free companies and decorate your home with crests, install new roofs, renovate of your building, put up a fence, and place objects in your garden. One idea was growing Gysahl greens in the garden. Additionally you could build a stable and raise chocobos. We're planning various ways to expand your home.

It's not like battle classes won't have anything to do. For example, if you defeat an extremely strong monster and get a drop, you can give it to a crafter, who can then make for you a trophy that can be used as a home decoration. It's in these ways that we are formulating the “live” feel with housing. We will be updating these things a lot once 2.0 comes out, so I hope all you crafters and gatherers out there look forward to it.
I hope I don't have to explain how materia doesn't become irrelevant. (Unless they stupidly stick with this no-attachment policy)

As far as your second point that was directed towards me: Crafters can't effectively use parties. Crafters can't use dungeons. Crafters can't fight bosses. Soon, crafters won't be able to do the main story quests. I'm NOT saying crafting should be worthless. I am saying that, for the health of the game, crafted gear NEEDS to take a back seat to dropped gear. Now, "dropped gear" includes things like Champion's Lance (which is crafted from a drop), but that shouldn't mean that every monster just drops crafting parts either, because that gets boring and has its own problems.

Gear that is crafted from common parts (like, say, a cobalt cuirass with two materia) being the best kills that drive to log in and keep on going after that hard-to-get loot. They're re-launching this game, FINAL FANTASY XIV, and the Final Fantasy brand evokes certain images: epic adventures, fierce boss battles, whiny teenagers. The average person isn't going to play this game for the deep (lol) crafting system, so I basically see it going something like this

I like final fantasy and will play the story-> I now enjoy playing the game and want to get the best gear possible-> the best gear is crafted so I will buy it-> I have fought every monster and no items are upgrades, therefore I will stop logging in because I am bored.

Finally, in this long-winded rambling crappy post, I'd like to address the idea that forbidden materia items are hard to obtain. Forbidden materia isn't "hard to obtain, it's annoying to obtain. You can either throw gil or time at them. There's no way you can "play better" to get your forbidden materia to stick like you can improve your skills at killing a boss. Winning at a slot machine isn't hard, it's just rare.