Something the FFXIV developers should learn from the WoW developers

[Jojoya]

One of the main reasons SE has stated they don't want a Test Realm is they want to keep the story a secret.

I'm pointing out that the lead developer of the most successful MMO ever thinks that the benefits of having a PTR outweighs the need for secrecy.

He's a Game Director that just inherited a dying MMO because those who made it successful have moved onto other things. While he shares some of the credit for success for the years he spent as the Lead Encounter Designer, the overall success of WoW is due to people like Rob Pardo and Jeff Kaplan. They were the visionaries that led WoW to its popularity.

He's also a Game Director that isn't trusted by the player base due to many design changes made to the game since he was promoted from Lead Encounter Designer to Assistant Game Director and then to Game Director. He has been deceptive in his communications with the player base, twisting words to imply things later found not to be the case at all. The last thing you want to do is bring up something said by Ion Whatsitcostas/Fuzzikoalas with the WoW player base if you want to be taken seriously.

The benefit of public testing to Blizzard is publicity and to get enough bodies grinding through the content to find game breaking bugs missed by their small Internal Testing team. They want the game trending on Twitter. They want the streamers putting out content on Twitch and YouTube to advertise the game in advance of release. They don't make changes to content. A lot of the content in WoW still ends up raked over the coals by the player base after release just as we see in FFXIV.

The OP wants a better game experience than he feels he's getting in FFXIV. Public testing isn't going to create it.

[KaldeaSahaline]

The benefit of public testing to Blizzard is publicity and to get enough bodies grinding through the content to find game breaking bugs missed by their small Internal Testing team. They want the game trending on Twitter. They want the streamers putting out content on Twitch and YouTube to advertise the game in advance of release. They don't make changes to content. A lot of the content in WoW still ends up raked over the coals by the player base after release just as we see in FFXIV.

The OP wants a better game experience than he feels he's getting in FFXIV. Public testing isn't going to create it.

The thing is though, they HAVE made changes based on feedback. Sure they don't make all, or even intelligent ones sometimes, but to imply that they never make changes is nothing short of a exaggerated lie.

From a FF14 perspective an open beta would have likely identified a few low hanging fruit for fixing if SE was interested. Stuff like WHM lilies, Raubahn/Pipin EX, Eureka being barely serviceable as content instead of a barrens chat simulator.