I'm concerned for ffxiv's future

[Kalise]

You might want to readdress this topic when you learn what passion towards one's work entails.

I know what passion towards one's work entails.

What you stated is exactly why just throwing more money and resources at FFXIV won't work, and your arguments are self-deflating.

It is not. You've yet to create a tenable link between "Throwing money and resources" at something and that thing not working.

Heck, even Kaedan whom I originally responded to had a better link, which one was where they mentioned:

You can throw as much money as you want at something, it won't make it necessarily successful. There are thousands of examples of companies throwing money at a project and it still going belly up.

In which the argument is that money spent =/= success. Which is true.

Since success is determined by profitability and sustainability. If you throw tons of money at something and don't get back that money, your venture, however good, will fail as you will eventually run out of money.

If you look at Yoshi as the George Lucas of FFXIV; if his passion towards it was to wane much like Lucas's did for SW and/or gives it to someone with maximum funds and minimal insight, the very same thing will happen to FFXIV.

Hiring programmers and artists and other members of a team doesn't necessarily mean replacing Yoshi as the lead designer and thus handing over the reins of creativity over to someone else.

Nor does it mean Yoshi trying to maximize profits for little investment and so start writing any old trash and selling it because of the name on the tin rather than the actual content.

Which is the difference between Star Wars and FFXIV.

George Lucas, was very successful with the original Star Wars films. His creativity and passion was unmarred by anything such as greed and it was truly a work of passion.

Then he got lazy and then wrote the prequels to cash in on the licence (Just like had been done with the PLETHORA of Star Wars merchandise which was actually terrible but sold because it had the Star Wars name on it). He had no passion and thus the creative force in the content was non-existent.

People who worked on the films, the actors, the CGI team, the film crew, the make-up artists etc. THEY might have had passion for their job and might have been super stoked to be working on a Star Wars film. But that's all for naught if the creative lead who wrote the script and directed the film was anything but.

You can't talk about throwing money at a project in the past tense when it is directly the cause and consequence of people being too concerned with profits to make quality content.

I very much can.

Especially when I did in fact mention, that it was crucial to manage monetary expenditure.

You know, if you bothered to read my initial post the whole way through.

You'd know I mentioned that the Developers of the game need to weigh costs versus profits because they have to sustain the business.

This includes stymieing their own creativity by the nature of they might have plenty of ideas but it's not feasible for them to implement them.

At the end of the day, if someone had infinite amounts of money to throw at a project, as long as it was invested properly, that's how you create the best product, as you give your creative team the freedom to work on what they feel would be good additions without worrying about manpower, resource management (Other than time) and can focus on putting their ideas out there and polishing them to perfection.

This includes, taking into consideration fan feedback about certain things.

However, money is not infinite and thus developers, including Yoshida, are bound by costs and manpower.

This is wholly different to Star Wars, which basically did have infinite money when doing the prequels, but at that point George Lucas didn't give a crap about it because he was already ridiculously rich and thus couldn't care less and so put together any old tosh and sold it for another fortune.

Then he sold it on to a corporation, which, much like the parent company Square Enix, doesn't give a crap about creativity and only cares about making stockholders happy and making predictable income by rehashing the same formula over and over until people stop opening up their wallets.

It's a really good thing you're not making the decisions for FFXIV.

It's a really good thing that no-one reads my posts. Otherwise you'd have made yourself look quite the fool.

[WaterShield]

It's a really good thing that no-one reads my posts. Otherwise you'd have made yourself look quite the fool.

That's awfully rude and uncalled for. Also, are you a game developer? Can you prove that throwing more money at the problem will fix it?

I'm legitimately curious where your information comes from.

Edit: Why are people calling Yoshi a liar? I don't get how they understand game development more than the director of this game.

[DrWho2010]

there's also the fact that there's a limited pool of "talented" programmers that can also A. speak japanese, and B. live and work in Japan. there's also that Square Enix can't have a humongous department solely dedicated to FFXIV just so that OP's wish for everything they want can be fulfilled. there are limits to what a company wants to spend and do. more people equals more salary, more overhead, more computers, etc. also where are you going to put all these people that you want to have them hire? can HR handle all these people?

[Anselmet]

As much as I am pro male viera, but glamour is never going to be the death of this game... unless they released playable children (bc lets be real, ppl would do bad things with said children and the media would destroy us all). That being said, yes it sucks we are not getting male viera/female hrothgar. Who knows, maybe they will expand and get more workers and money in a later expansion. If ShB does really well then perhaps this may become a thing. But its just glamour. Its not the core feature of the game... that being gameplay. If the game itself breaks, the ui becomes befuddled and bad, if the servers start crashing nonstop, and none of these issues are fixed. Then yes... yes this game will die. But glamour is really the added bonus and an aesthetic.

[YISUG]

I'd be more concerned if they constantly pumped out half-assedly made jobs and races.

give me 1 half assed job or race , and no blue mage is not half assed it did its purpose perfectly.

[Kalise]

That's awfully rude and uncalled for.

Given the way that they were claiming things and had quite clearly not read my post. Not at all.

It's incredibly rude to respond to someone on a forum without having read their post in its entirety.

Especially when you start assuming things that they've literally talked about in said post.

Also, are you a game developer? Can you prove that throwing more money at the problem will fix it?

I am not a game developer. However, I know some software engineers and I have listened to the limitations that have faced a number of game developers.

Including what is mentioned by Yoshida himself.

The main limitation in games development - Outside of things like technological advances for things like new Engines and new hardware that becomes standard (Such as higher specs on consoles and more affordable PC parts as well as higher specs on Laptops etc) - is Time.

Time. How much TIME does it need to fix this thing? How much TIME will it take to implement that thing?

Time is the most important factor.

More money, spent on enabling teams to work at maximum efficiency means things take less time to do.

Like, in reference to the most recent thing with the new races. It was going to take too much time to get head gear working on those races for it to be implemented. Thus, the developers, used their own free time to dedicate to implementing them so that they will be done for when ShB hits.

Had they a larger workforce dedicated to this task, it is very likely possible that the entire thing would have taken less time and thus have been completed without the need of the developers sacrificing their own free time and thus would have be assured, rather than a welcome surprise.

It's the same thing for almost every other thing that Yoshida has said was difficult to do. It all came down to how much time it would have taken them and thus likely would impact their ability to generate the standard core content. But with more money and thus more people, you can have both things being worked on simultaneously.

Of course, this is only in a wonderful magic world where money is infinite and profits don't need to be made.

But at its core, yes, money = solving problems.

It's down to a business and a development team to figure out the best problems to solve with the limited funds they have available, to ensure maximum profits and also quality content.

[WaterShield]

Given the way that they were claiming things and had quite clearly not read my post. Not at all.

It's incredibly rude to respond to someone on a forum without having read their post in its entirety.

Especially when you start assuming things that they've literally talked about in said post.



I am not a game developer. However, I know some software engineers and I have listened to the limitations that have faced a number of game developers.

Including what is mentioned by Yoshida himself.

The main limitation in games development - Outside of things like technological advances for things like new Engines and new hardware that becomes standard (Such as higher specs on consoles and more affordable PC parts as well as higher specs on Laptops etc) - is Time.

Time. How much TIME does it need to fix this thing? How much TIME will it take to implement that thing?

Time is the most important factor.

More money, spent on enabling teams to work at maximum efficiency means things take less time to do.

Like, in reference to the most recent thing with the new races. It was going to take too much time to get head gear working on those races for it to be implemented. Thus, the developers, used their own free time to dedicate to implementing them so that they will be done for when ShB hits.

Had they a larger workforce dedicated to this task, it is very likely possible that the entire thing would have taken less time and thus have been completed without the need of the developers sacrificing their own free time and thus would have be assured, rather than a welcome surprise.

It's the same thing for almost every other thing that Yoshida has said was difficult to do. It all came down to how much time it would have taken them and thus likely would impact their ability to generate the standard core content. But with more money and thus more people, you can have both things being worked on simultaneously.

Of course, this is only in a wonderful magic world where money is infinite and profits don't need to be made.

But at its core, yes, money = solving problems.

It's down to a business and a development team to figure out the best problems to solve with the limited funds they have available, to ensure maximum profits and also quality content.

"1. The Cost of Developing a New Playable Race
In a Fan Festival keynote speech, I stated that this will likely be the last time we add new playable races to FFXIV. To put it simply, a tremendous amount of time and resources are required to develop one. I’m sure you all understand that a new race will require new faces, hairstyles, bodies, and other assets. In addition to this, they need to be capable of equipping all existing items—this alone requires a massive commitment of resources. Each race has a unique frame and body type, and so every piece of visible equipment needs to be carefully adjusted to display properly on Hrothgar and Viera models. A cursory search will show that FFXIV has around ten thousand equippable items already implemented, all of which must be manually modified by our designers. This is an immediate and unavoidable development cost incurred when adding a new race.

The addition of new playable races will impact more than the development cost of the items added in 5.1 and subsequent updates. Not only will we be transitioning from twelve variations (six races, two genders each) to fourteen, but we will also need to commit more resources to the development of new emotes. While FFXIV will continue to strive to maintain a regular 3.5 month major update cycle, we must also ensure that sufficient time is secured for the meticulous development of new content—or else the quality will invariably drop. This is a complex problem that can’t be solved simply by throwing more money or people at it, as it impacts both debugging and QA."

Yoshi seems to disagree.

[Kalise]

Yoshi seems to disagree.

Yeah, and I posited:

I'm still rather curious about that statement.

Like, he say that no amount of throwing money and people at the problems will solve things, because of debugging and QA.

But... What if there were more people working on debugging and QA?

Since, that didn't appear to be part of "Throwing money and people at the problems"

[RikkCavalier]

I don't think the game needs another reboot, what it needs is more resources and a bigger team to work on it.

you would think they would invest in a bigger team considering the yearly revenue it generates. I mean this game has got to be one of the biggest assets to SE currently given the money people spend on subs, mogstation items, name changes, fantasias.. etc.

[Gemina]

I know what passion towards one's work entails.

All evidence to the contrary.

It is not. You've yet to create a tenable link between "Throwing money and resources" at something and that thing not working.

I never tried to toss a link where throwing more money and resources at something doesn't mean it will be successful. There isn't a need to when you are also stating things like this:

Heck, even Kaedan whom I originally responded to had a better link, which one was where they mentioned:

In which the argument is that money spent =/= success. Which is true.

Since success is determined by profitability and sustainability. If you throw tons of money at something and don't get back that money, your venture, however good, will fail as you will eventually run out of money.

Again I point back to you having a firm understanding of the two sides to the same coin, but have no clue how they coincide with each other in order to provide a product that is not only profitable but also sustainable. The example I provided displays that money and resources isn't everything, because a small group of people was able to produce content that far outweighs what has been delivered when those deep pockets and resources are provided. The reason behind this is passion and understanding. The intangibles, and what cannot be coached. You could argue that if those same people who produced that video had more money and resources, what they could have done would even be more amazing. And I would agree, IF they can find the same people who are as passionate as they are. This isn't easy. Certain qualities that people possess, arguably the best even, doesn't have a price tag. You can't just go out there and buy it.

Hiring programmers and artists and other members of a team doesn't necessarily mean replacing Yoshi as the lead designer and thus handing over the reins of creativity over to someone else.

No it doesn't. But if you think you can just go out there and buy programmers and artists who share his vision and understand what he's trying to accomplish then you are sorely mistaken. Once you understand how difficult this is to accomplish, especially in the field of business, then you will know exactly what he's talking about.

I very much can.

Especially when I did in fact mention, that it was crucial to manage monetary expenditure.

You know, if you bothered to read my initial post the whole way through.

You'd know I mentioned that the Developers of the game need to weigh costs versus profits because they have to sustain the business.

This includes stymieing their own creativity by the nature of they might have plenty of ideas but it's not feasible for them to implement them.

Actually no, you can't. Right here is why I say your arguments are self-deflating. You talk about and seem to understand exactly what happens when you choose quantity over quality. You're fully aware of why the SW franchise went to schite, and then in your last breath suggest that SE do the exact same thing by "stymieing their own creativity" because it isn't feasible. They have indeed had to do this as is, otherwise FFXIV would be even better than it is already. Time is one of their biggest constraints, and in order to meet deadlines they do have to cut corners and not implement everything they would like to. Money and resources don't help here, which my earlier example of the two machines should have helped you understand. Could I have provided a better example? Possibly, but if you can't understand such a simplistic approach such as that one then perhaps someone else can make it even simpler for you.

At the end of the day, if someone had infinite amounts of money to throw at a project, as long as it was invested properly, that's how you create the best product, as you give your creative team the freedom to work on what they feel would be good additions without worrying about manpower, resource management (Other than time) and can focus on putting their ideas out there and polishing them to perfection.

Good grief. smh

It's a really good thing that no-one reads my posts. Otherwise you'd have made yourself look quite the fool.

Wait. You admit that no one reads your posts, and I'm the fool? Alrighty then, I believe this little argument has reached it's conclusion.