Bad decision by SE

[Naoki34]

I am writing this today, as SE made a very poor judgment, which effects many of us across the globe, and to this, will cause issues for far too many of us.
December and January is a busy time for retail, and it requires full staff to avoid disruption. Many of us, kept our annual leave days, so we could play and enjoy the Endwalker story at its original release dats, this will now not happen, because of the bad decision to move it into the worst time of year for retail workers. Some like myslef won't be able to enjoy the story until at least February or March now, or to be able to keep up with savage raiding, will have to skip the story entirely, as of this poor new release.

To counter this, and stop you ruining a lot of players fun and the want to enjoy the game and story properly, you need to either honour your original release date, or the release needs to be postponed until at least February or March 2020, so the whole player base can enjoy the story without rushing or skipping, to keep up with endgame progression.

This is one of the worst decisions in SE history along with the making of "The Avengers" game.

I think it's rather brave, he prefers to release it when it's ready rather than release it half finished in detail.

That's what makes it a great game.

They dared to confront their marketing teams who must have been pressing them to get it out early.

Two more weeks of waiting won't kill you, it would be a shame if it came out with a lot of bugs and a story that didn't hold up well for a grand finale.

And besides, with the number of pre-orders and new accounts, they know the fans will be there. There are still people waiting to create new FFXIV accounts.

Look at CD Projekt who didn't have the courage to postpone their releases, the reputation of a company does not depend on much else than the respect of the players and their fans. They had a record number of pre-orders and they dared to release a game 1 year too early.

And, if that's your impatience talking, there are plenty of games coming out every week until the next month, its not so far 1 month.

[Penthea]

I mean, it's unfortunate that we weren't notified earlier and as result a lot of us cannot shift our leaves (I can't, for instance) but honestly?

Back in 2020 I was notified about my plane to South Korea being cancelled 1 week before the scheduled leave because of Covid lockdown being issued, and I dare to say that something like this can have far more impact on somebody's life than game's release date, since a lot of people take planes for life&death or business reasons.

Sometimes such force majeure situations happen. It's not something to be happy about obviously but there's nothing what we can do about it anyway, and it's not the end of the world. Voicing out the dissapoitment is okay, but the way the some people do it is a bit too much.

I would argue that a game company cannot control a pandemic but they can control their workflow and monitor how it's going to see if they will meet the deadline. Not saying SE committed an unforgiveable act. Everyone makes mistakes or end up facing difficult decisions that has no good solution. But the fact remains that SE have infinitely far more control over the release dates and workflow of their content than the airline did when your flight got cancelled due to covid.

And yes I know covid impacted SE too but the point remains. They could control the situation they're in much better than a business that directly relies on people being able to travel far and be in super close proximity to one another.

[Voidedge_Ragna]

I don't think anyone blames the company for the delay, rather the last minute announcement and people had taken days off for it so there is dissapointment.

Thats pretty much what it is, if they had said this a month ago players would've taken it a lot better. Theres a timeline for projects, and the last x weeks are only for bug testing and quality. To hear they may have to push content if they dont get those 2 weeks means they were behind and knew it because the content had to be finished already and if you that worried about content, make a mini update 2 after launch and that to it ... or is the msq not even done at this point?

They knew this likely a month ago, but why did they not tell us? Also unless they somehow managed to the the components for the servers required to upgrade them, those 2 weeks will do nothing for performance.

We will all go into the new area right away and it will create a bottleneck, it has always done that and it will always.

[Avidria]

I wouldn't be surprised that is a corporate decision to challenge WoW timewalker event. Gotta fight FOMO with FOMO.

I don't blame yoshi at all. He's just a messenger

Does wow even have enough clout to be worth fighting a patch release date for anymore? I mean I've personally lost any will to care about it at all but I'm genuinely curious here

[Xenos88]

Even though its disappointing that the expansion is delayed and I understand the reason behind it BUT what annoyed me the most is that they waited until the last minute to delay it. If they would've announced the delay last month then I don't think people would have been as disappointed or upset and would be able to adjust their schedules if they had taken time off around the original release date, but since it was last minute it'll be difficult for those people to be able to make adjustments. The Delay really does suck and putting aside my frustration for a moment to say that Yoshi-P and his team do great work and I applaud them for making sure things are in tip-top shape and they truly care about the product they really want us to experience.

[Sotaris]

I mean, it's unfortunate that we weren't notified earlier and as result a lot of us cannot shift our leaves (I can't, for instance) but honestly?

Back in 2020 I was notified about my plane to South Korea being cancelled 1 week before the scheduled leave because of Covid lockdown being issued, and I dare to say that something like this can have far more impact on somebody's life than game's release date, since a lot of people take planes for life&death or business reasons.

Sometimes such force majeure situations happen. It's not something to be happy about obviously but there's nothing what we can do about it anyway, and it's not the end of the world. Voicing out the dissapoitment is okay, but the way some people do it is a bit too much.

Are you seriously comparing covid lock-downs and sudden updates to rules, regulations and planes getting stranded with a QA delay?
This isn't a force majeure situation.

[Evergrey]

To counter this, and stop you ruining a lot of players fun and the want to enjoy the game and story properly, you need to either honour your original release date, or the release needs to be postponed until at least February or March 2020

I didn't see this earlier, but I doubt they'll be able to grant your wish.
Seeing how I doubt SE got the means to travel back in time.

[Kyrj]

Look can we be real here. Take a step out from the game and see the world for what it is - ruthless. I'm sure this wasn't a Yoshi P decision, but one from the higher ups that are probably fed up with blizzards practices. I am too, they always pull stupid crap like what they are trying to do for endwalker's initial release. In my eyes, it is great that they are playing with them at their own game, and this isn't a FOMO thing for them. It is to make sure they get the player count they have worked so hard to attain, so let them have that without being fruity about it. Gaming companies are still businesses, you have to respect that fact, and at least square as a business are not disgusting like Blizzard are. Let them have this one and just wait.

If you booked a holiday just shift it real quick.

The thing is, is they shouldn't be worried about Blizzard. They are absolutely crushing them and if 9.1.5 and timewalking is the best that Blizzard can throw at EW then SE has other things to worry about.

Also how old is the MMORPG genere? How long until people realize to not book time off on launch?

[Equitable_Remedy]

People are seriously being far too over dramatic about this..

It's the internet - it's what we do.

[bearcat01]

Well, given how now a good half of the player base is going to be stuck in work, due to holiday season, and the ban it brings if there are any issues, SE have messed up big, since there will now be a huge reduction in the players being home to enjoy the content, this would be until mid / late Jan.
I can accept a push back, to fix content, but 2 weeks, will not fix much at all, 2 months + acceptable.
Those poor employees will be working 25/8 up to the start of the holiday season, give them a break, delay the push back much further, and have something to be more proud of, then burnt out staff, and half the community, really mad at the company for the joke of a push back which will not fix much at all.

Hot take! Half the player base WON’T be stuck at work. You keep referring to retail workers as though that’s the biggest group to play this game. Will I be at work? Yeah from 8AM to 5PM. But that then gives me about 3 hours a night to play the game. Which is MORE than enough. Always has been, always will be. There is no need to rush and clear game over a 3-5 day period. Then content isn’t going anywhere.