Letter from the Producer Vi

[Shura]

That video doesn't mention anything about companies, in fact it doesn't mention anything at all its very vague as far as game content goes. The person who's talking the most is not from the development team, he just says out whats happening. its hard to tell whose talking when but i'll translate in order.

Guy1(he might be a dev but i'm guessing, voice sounds similar to the dev):seems like alot of people
[i can't hear the first sentence very well but seems like thats what he said]
Guy2: it seems so, not something you see every day
Guy1: when you say fantasy... (gets cut off by Guy2)
Guy2: that went by quick "referring to the slides).. what do we have now.. seems like a cannon..
Guy1: wonder what it is..
Guy2: i don't get it(understand it) at all.. [referring to the scene]
(everyone laughs)
Guy2: but it seems we are seeing it get built bit by bit

*next scene on the video
Guy1: this is a boat
Guy2: ya its a boat
Guy1: it seems like two of them are doing something together.
Guy2: wait so this is not something a npc is doing on its own?

[the way guy1 said two of them, makes guy2 think its PC characters and not NPC. Its just the way Japanese is; u use different words depending on who or what your talking about, male/female/animal/age/status in society and so on... in this case it makes guy2 assume its people and not a computer.]

Guy1: so it seems... i wonder indeed..
(everyone laughs)
Guy2: you prepared the video, its unfair that you can't answer
[unfair doesn't feel like the right word but i can't think of an English word that translates to what hes saying, in terms of his sentence, unfair seems to have the closest meaning]
*so im assuming guy1 is part of the dev team based on what guy2 said*
Random guy: ah there's chocolate(referring to the cake)
Guy2: ah the top decoration has changed (referring to the cake)

[boat scene]
Guy2: huh...... isn't this some kind of war..
Scene change
Guy2: huh...(referring to the sudden scene change) he looks fancy (referring to the galka's cloths)
Guy1: can't make out what hes saying, hes talking at the same time as guy2
Guy2: ah shes cute (referring to the female hume) but this is....
Guy2: huh this didn't exist (hes talking about the character model)

[he says it together with the earlier sentence but with a small pause.. so im not sure if hes referring to the female hume he was talking about or the drawing of the mithra that was on the screen when he said it]

Guy2: this one i remember (talking about the taru drawing)
Guy2: the last thing he says was going to be about the service but video ends before he says it.

[Abriael]

Actually Yoshida said quite clearly in an interview that the "collaborative crafting" idea has not been scrapped, but it's priority isn't the highest, simply because before letting you make giant cakes and such, they need to devise what those products would be used for.

Public companies, now renamed grand companies, are an entirely different thing.

[SirEdeonX]

I'm very excited for the companies. And that boat scene in the video, I really hope it's the pirates attack to the ferry boat XD

[Abriael]

My bad, it was on Eorzeapedia:

Q. At the Ebisu event back in September we saw what looked like group crafting – where a group appeared to jointly craft a cake. What can you tell us about that?

A. Yoshida-san indicated that he wants to keep developing this system, but its priority is still to be decided. He went on to joke that he needs to address how the cake would be used before addressing how the cake was made.

http://www.eorzeapedia.com/2011/03/0...naoki-yoshida/

The same interview also gives a bit of detail about grand/public companies.

Q. The third Producer’s Letter also mentioned the addition of “public company quests.” What can you tell us about this feature?

A. Yoshida-san was not ready to reveal details on this system yet, except to say that public companies will be one of the most important aspects of the game and will play a critical role regarding the threats to Eorzea. He indicated that more information will be announced at the end of March

Also from ZAM

ZAM: Players have been excited about the Company system as well. Can you give us any more details on Companies and how they will affect the current Linkshell system?

Yoshida: In some aspect, the Company system will have aspects that are similar to and can link with that Linkshell community. But it's also going to be something larger. It's going to be more of a global type of community on a larger scale. I can't really say much more than that. I can tell you that toward the end of March there will be revealing stuff coming up on the Lodestone.

Before I became producer/director, in the old 1.2 patch notes it mentioned that we will be releasing player Companies. The thing is, we realized that we could bring out player Companies, but then if there's nothing for the Companies to do there wouldn't be any reason to bring it out. We decided to reverse that and first make sure that there's going to be content and stuff for the Companies to do before releasing the Companies. The whole coming danger that's approaching Eorzea is going to play a big part in something for the Companies to do.

http://ffxiv.zam.com/story.html?story=25503

Those are the only facts we know for now about public companies. Everything else is wild speculation.

[Turtle]

From what my buddies have told me, Companies are a group of people that are a bit more exclusive than linkshells. Exclusive in the sense that you have to devote yourself to a single company as appose to several like the current linkshell system. It will also be alot more involved rather than just a social deal. We anticipate a community home and possibly airship battles.

[TheVedis]

From what my buddies have told me, Companies are a group of people that are a bit more exclusive than linkshells. Exclusive in the sense that you have to devote yourself to a single company as appose to several like the current linkshell system. It will also be alot more involved rather than just a social deal. We anticipate a community home and possibly airship battles.

your post right there says it all

its what people assume, and expect, and anticipate

but there are facts in it too, the fact they arent "linkshells" but something different, but along the lines of a linkshell(groups that strive towards something, we just dont know what that something is "yet")

i really cant wait for the official word on it so we can put all the rumors to reset and know whats coming, and im sure everyone can agree on that

[Shura]

We really don't know anything about companies, from the above reply by yoshi-p from the interview it implies companies themselves are not an event but a group you join.

"we realized that we could bring out player Companies, but then if there's nothing for the Companies to do there wouldn't be any reason to bring it out"

so even after u join a company u need an event to go along with it, the words they use can have double meaning though. he mentions companies would be a global community but that doesn't imply it would be a large scale event, it might be a small scale endgame event that has a global impact. first thing that comes to mind for me is conquest points from ffxi, which had a global impact but the way to earn CP for your nation all involved very small scale events.

The way i see it, players will join a company and under go events, both large scale to do with 15ppl and small scale to do with 4ppl and u get points which u then change into rewards. Thats just my guess, we really wont know anything till its posted.

[Abriael]

The way i see it, players will join a company and under go events, both large scale to do with 15ppl and small scale to do with 4ppl and u get points which u then change into rewards. Thats just my guess, we really wont know anything till its posted.

That's probably a realistic assumption. He did mention at a previous date that the companies we'll see at the beginning won't be player-run, but NPC based, and centered around the three cities. So I'm inclined to believe that each city will have it's own, with it's own events, and people will possibly have to chose an affiliation, But again, what he said is not very specific, so this is no more than a probable interpretation.

I wouldn't be one bit surprised if company activities were akin to the concept of public quests introduced by Warhammer Online.

[Neptune]

I feel bad that he probably posted this letter because of 2 idiots in the thread I posted about his safety. It's even more clear now that things are disrupted in Tokyo and not much work is going on. Some people can't get to work and there are fears about radiation exposure in Tokyo, which means people think they might get radiation poisoning if they leave home to go to work. Good job you 2.

[Abriael]

I feel bad that he probably posted this letter because of 2 idiots in the thread I posted about his safety. It's even more clear now that things are disrupted in Tokyo and not much work is going on. Some people can't get to work and there are fears about radiation exposure in Tokyo, which means people think they might get radiation poisoning if they leave home to go to work. Good job you 2.

Actually I'm watching the NHK at basically every waking hour that I'm home, and they state quite clearly and multiple times that there's absolutely no danger of harmful radiation exposure in the tokyo metropolitan area or anywhere nearby. Same for every other reachable and reputable news source.
Tokyo and Fukushima are 150 miles apart.

Secondarily. He posted this producer letter simply because he's dedicated to his job (a quite common and admirable trait of the Japanese), and he wanted to let everyone know that the team is still at work. That's all there's to it, and if I were in your shoes, I would seriously avoid using this letter as an excuse to promote your personal feuds.