Bad decision by SE

[Roda]

January was still pretty busy when I was in retail, but I was in receiving. All of the post-holiday freight coming in, plus all of the Valentines candy that usually starts shipping before New Years. Combined with lingering holiday junk in the way (wrapping paper and bows, in particular, could take weeks to clear out, if the manager didn't just let us ship it back as salvage), the back room was a total cluster. Mid-February to March was when it slowed down for a bit.

January is returns season too. >_<

When your target audience is young (school-college age) november/winter is a good release target. (Winter break, snow days, holiday presents)
When your target audience is working adults, november/winter is awful. (Family visits, retail sufferers, parents with kids home, etc)

[hynaku]

Not sure why ones keep bringing up Raubahn Extreme. Because I never had one problem with it.

[Poporito_Popoto]

Not sure why ones keep bringing up Raubahn Extreme. Because I never had one problem with it.

"Not sure why ones keep bringing up Cyberpunk 2077. Because I never had one problem with it."

[Lyth]

It's interesting how you can see FFXIV's slightly older demographic in most of the responses. And then there's that one person who's like: What's with all the complaints? You have to schedule out your vacation days months in advance from your job? Can't you just skip school on release day?

[Sotaris]

No it is not. Mid November, through to between Christmas and New Years is busy. From the very end of December onwards, retail dies. So even if it was released at the original set date, people in retail would still struggle.

I used to be in retail about a decade ago and from what I remember jan is one of the most dead months since no money after xmas etc.
November was pretty slow back then, B-Friday wasn't really a commersial hit in Sweden back then, it only been a thing with Cyber monday sales the last couple years. December however was always a living hell with early morning to long evenings.

It's interesting how you can see FFXIV's slightly older demographic in most of the responses. And then there's that one person who's like: What's with all the complaints? You have to schedule out your vacation days months in advance from your job? Can't you just skip school on release day?

If you work in retail or any really busy workplace, having to request PTO in advance is very common.

Me personally have a flexible schedule and take days off whenever I want more or less but for early access I will undergo surgery so on a personal level, the delay is very unfortnate but make fun of people being upset and making fun of them having to request days off in advance cause they want to play the new expansion right away is just childish.

You guys are actually planning vacation days around this? That's just sad

Why is that sad exacly? That's like saying you can never take time off if you want to do something outside of work.

This is a really a**hole thing to say, which is rich coming from someone acting as if they had the moral high ground

Aside of poster being an a**hole from their post history, there seem to be a lot of yes-sayers that act like that since yesterday.

[linayar]

I'm not saying to boycott FFXIV, or anything extreme like that. But I am trying to remind the players here the value they have being a subscriber to this game. There are a lot of people out there who are definitely just fine if you forget that fact.

The reason why there is no accountability is because FFXIV is a game, so as long as it's still fulfilling the purpose of a game for people, they can overlook some "annoyances." Just look at the people complaining about the game and then complain about "gatekeepers" when told to play another game if they find other games more suited to them and maybe even quit FFXIV if they think it's so bad.

That said, boycotting doesn't really work either for a game like FFXIV whose own producer and director encourages people to take breaks (implying they could even unsubscribe) as many times or as long as they want.

FFXIV (from a player perspective, not necessarily a community/game perspective) could also benefit if some people would boycott as the remaining people would have a better short-term experience with less congestion.

So, unless FFXIV really doesn't offer anything anymore for people, considering Yoshida himself accepts the blame for the late decision and the delay itself, what else is there to do but to move on and maybe change how people make decisions in the future on PTO/vacation with respect to game releases, especially during holiday season?

[ProcrastinAsian]

You guys are actually planning vacation days around this? That's just sad

Well when you have friends that play and your work schedule conflicts with their schedules requesting time off helps with playing together

[Snorky]

I am not unsympathetic to people who scheduled time off to play. I feel bad things didn't work out. I do take exception with people attributing bad reasoning for the delay when we were TOLD the reason for the delay. Either way it is what it is. Don't waste energy on being upset about it and move on and turn it into a positive. Don't waste your precious energy on being upset. I am sorry some of you can not reschedule do something else with that time off and enjoy yourself.

[Shin96]

I am not unsympathetic to people who scheduled time off to play. I feel bad things didn't work out. I do take exception with people attributing bad reasoning for the delay when we were TOLD the reason for the delay. Either way it is what it is. Don't waste energy on being upset about it and move on and turn it into a positive. Don't waste your precious energy on being upset. I am sorry some of you can not reschedule do something else with that time off and enjoy yourself.

I agree. There's alot of things one can do like unlock content, get some gil or prepare your gear. I always disliked hype culture because eventually you will get used to the product like people did when ShB released. Take it slow is what I say.

[TalonBlades]

I agree. There's alot of things one can do like unlock content, get some gil or prepare your gear. I always disliked hype culture because eventually you will get used to the product like people did when ShB released. Take it slow is what I say.

I already had other plans for my PTO. Week 1 was to play XIV, level Sage and enjoy the story, week 2 I was festive shopping, getting that out of the way, and then just a couple chill days.
Apart from ults, and rerunning old content, there is not a lot to do for me, unless I went full sadge and ground all the relics.
Currently have 406 412 418 healer gear sets, all melded, currently about to have all tomes capped, and sat on 41M gil ready for a house.
Soooo yea, I was ready way in advance for this.
I am going to see if I can swap my PTO, I only need to move 1 week, so week 1 would then be festive shopping, and then from Dec 4th, EW and story, but this is a huge IF, which I am already doubting will be approved.

But also a deep part of me things, this is only the 1st delay, you won't get much changes in an extra 2 weeks, I would not be surprised if in 2 weeks, it gets another 2 week delay. Honestly they should of just said 3 month delay, launch into next year, so they have plenty of time to make adjustments.