Bad decision by SE

[IDontPetLalas]

You misunderstand. I am not saying that SE treats this as a casual occurrence. I am saying that the occurrence of delays has become casual, or commonplace. We as the customers have become complacent and just go along with it. There is no accountability. There is no consequence. Will there is, but guess who pays them? It's not the people who should be. It's people like you. People like me. And definitely people like Yoshida. This is not an opinion. This is a fact.

We are the consumers. We are the customers. They are the providers, and this is a business. I am not saying the news doesn't come with a heavy heart, but the news comes regardless. They failed to deliver what was promised on time. Again, not an opinion. This is a fact. In your last statement you say that your expectation are that delays are communicated asap. With the amount of time and money you put into this game, why is the word "delays" anywhere in the clause? When expectation is created around such concepts, what do you think is going to happen?

I feel bad for everyone if I am to be blunt. As I said before, this is not something casual, or a small matter; nor do I think it should be treated as such. This IS a big deal, and it affects everyone both on the customer and provider ends.

I don't think I misunderstood you at all, however I was, and am, trying to respect your point of view while remaining polite.

To be more direct, your statement about there being "no accountability" . What exactly do you expect,? You will still have a functioning product . You are free at any time to cancel your subscription and inform the company that you see this delay as unacceptable. SE is also aware of this - there is one very obvious consequence. The LL was a public and permanent statement of the delay. That delay was immediately broadcast and distribute on who knows how many forms of social media, with possible consequences to any SE shares.

Someone internally at SE had to argue for the delay, then has to explain any related subscription losses, development costs, impacts to later patches, etc. Do you really think that no one is held accountable?

I have no issue whatsoever with this announcement, waiting two more weeks is inconsequential. I DO have *some* sympathy for those who arranged for PTO.
Aside from that - this is a remarkably high quality game, it is available every day, which is what I pay for, and waiting two more weeks is not an issue. I prefer that, rather than receiving a game release when it isn't ready.
Finaally while two weeks is not so surprising when (from what I understand) the largest expansion in FFXIV"s history is being discussed, perfectly understandable that people will feel anything from disappointed, to mad, to resigned, etc.

[Gemina]

I don't think I misunderstood you at all, however I was, and am, trying to respect your point of view while remaining polite.

To be more direct, your statement about there being "no accountability" . What exactly do you expect,? You will still have a functioning product . You are free at any time to cancel your subscription and inform the company that you see this delay as unacceptable. SE is also aware of this - there is one very obvious consequence. The LL was a public and permanent statement of the delay. That delay was immediately broadcast and distribute on who knows how many forms of social media, with possible consequences to any SE shares.

Someone internally at SE had to argue for the delay, then has to explain any related subscription losses, development costs, impacts to later patches, etc. Do you really think that no one is held accountable?

I have no issue whatsoever with this announcement, waiting two more weeks is inconsequential. I DO have *some* sympathy for those who arranged for PTO.
Aside from that - this is a remarkably high quality game, it is available every day, which is what I pay for, and waiting two more weeks is not an issue. I prefer that, rather than receiving a game release when it isn't ready.
Finaally while two weeks is not so surprising when (from what I understand) the largest expansion in FFXIV"s history is being discussed, perfectly understandable that people will feel anything from disappointed, to mad, to resigned, etc.

I respect your views as well, and I find it quite rare when two people who disagree can just exchange views without ripping each others throats out. I am one of those people who had set aside PTO because I can't take any time off next month, but it honestly isn't even about that. I do agree with you that this is a remarkably high quality game, and as such the standards that they have set for themselves is also high, and not being able to fulfill commitments is not a standard anyone should be getting used to if you want to continue to play a high quality mmo.

What I expect is to not be talking about accountability and consequence at all. I don't want to see anyone having to take the brunt of it, especially those who work the hardest. And that's what's frustrating. When I say, "Where is the accountability?" I'm asking about who it should be assigned to, if it even can. The ambiguity of that is also very frustrating. Yoshi can take responsibility, and I definitely respect that, but you and I both know this man is a sin-eater, and bears the weight of many crosses on his shoulders.

Anywho, I suppose it's all water under the bridge at this point, and the world keeps spinning. Best to look towards the positive instead of looking back.

[Nishira]

I’m guessing it got announced so late because they’ve been trying very hard to meet the deadline and were hoping that they’d make it so as not to disappoint their players. With Japanese work ethics I’m now even more worried about their health lol, I don’t want to know what it has cost them already trying to prevent this from happening. Whatever is causing it exactly, I have no doubt it’s for good reason.

[Gemina]

Whatever is causing it exactly, I have no doubt it’s for good reason.

This is what I mean. The reason for the delay can be understandable. Perhaps even, relatable. But there is no 'good' reason for it. They gave us an official date. The timers on our PCs and consoles were all ticking down towards release. And they failed to follow through on that commitment. Failure is not good. Failure is not ok. Failure is bad. If we are in EX, Savage, or Ultimate and we fail to meet a DPS check before enrage, is there a consequence for that failure? We don't get more time. The boss doesn't pat our back and say at least you tried. We have to start over. No ifs, ands, or butts about it.

As a consumer, it is of no relevance to you what caused the delay. All that should matter to you is am I, or am I not getting my product on time, because when I pre ordered, I am pretty sure there was a date attached to that. It was actually quite large on the display. Pretty darn sure that it was one of the selling points that convinced me to buy.

As a human, of course I am concerned for their health, and truly hope they are not being overtaxed, even though I know they are. The lack of accountability and consequence I spoke of earlier is infectious, and compromises a lot of things they truly don't have any control of over there. It's a snowball effect the just spins out of control until we have what we have now. The bleeding can be stopped though, but accountability and consequence need to return to cauterize it.

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.

[Kes13a]

As a consumer, it is of no relevance to you what caused the delay. All that should matter to you is am I, or am I not getting my product on time, because when I pre ordered, I am pretty sure there was a date attached to that. It was actually quite large on the display. Pretty darn sure that it was one of the selling points that convinced me to buy.

As a human, of course I am concerned for their health, and truly hope they are not being overtaxed, even though I know they are. The lack of accountability and consequence I spoke of earlier is infectious, and compromises a lot of things they truly don't have any control of over there. It's a snowball effect the just spins out of control until we have what we have now. The bleeding can be stopped though, but accountability and consequence need to return to cauterize it.

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.

well, as a consumer, lets say you were promised a car by a certain date, they are unable to get brakes for the care for whatever reason, lets say all the brake parts failed quality checks.

so, the manufacturer sends you the car anyway so as not to miss their promised date. using your example, the company fulfilled their promise of delivery, even if driving the car is unreliable if not possibly life threatening to anyone around when you drive it. so you should be overjoyed, even if it is just lawn art.

I am willing to bet that people that got a fully functioning car would enjoy their product more.

software bugs dont warn in advance of issues. if something failed in the last week of testing, the process is they need to assess it, they need to assign how many units of developer time are assigned to it, and then see if QA can test it before release. sure, you can be angry all you want, but what does it accomplish exactly? the gaming industry is FULL of examples of companies putting things out that are "good enough", one prominent one puts out releases that are at that stage and then expects the player base to essentially playtest while subscribing.

is it a disappointment, yes, but as a consumer myself, I would FAR RATHER play something that works the first time I start it, than go through potentially game breaking bugs just so you can have delivery on time. I pay for the game too....

As for developers and QA, I am positive they were looking forward to the 19th as well, since after that date, they could maybe take some time off.... not any more...

[Tastydoorstop]

I rather them push it back then put out another 1.0

[Nanchi]

snip

Blaming SE and other gaming corporations is one thing but Yoship and his team, after they've delivered to their best of their ability for years on end? This is the first time in a long time where they actually had to delay a major expansion release, by measly 2 weeks. I'm sure after the good reputation that he and his team established its not too much to ask for a little bit of patience. I agree with the notion that we shouldn't be complacent with companies who have had long delays but then release a still subpar product but that is definitely not applicable to FFXIV.

Sorry but all the egotistical whining in this thread is just sad. If yoship does what OP wants by releasing on the 19th and we get massive Server instabilities that lead to the very same people coming to the forum to complain about that, id just shake my head in secondhand embarrassment. Thankfully that's not gonna happen.

[Raikai]

I find flabbergasting that people are flipping over this.

Yes, it messes a bit scheduled vacations, but let's be real... If the xpac was delivered with some problem(s) that impeded gameplay, servers crashing, etc - these people would be just as mad or worse.

Postponing > Having a broken experience

[Raiya]

I find flabbergasting that people are flipping over this.

Yes, it messes a bit scheduled vacations, but let's be real... If the xpac was delivered with some problem(s) that impeded gameplay, servers crashing, etc - these people would be just as mad or worse.

Postponing > Having a broken experience

I'd say it's the disappointment that's hitting a few of them and that for some the original launch date was perfect. In other games it would probably be just somewhat justified ranting but other games don't have someone like Yoshi who will literally come out personally to apologise and explain to everyone that there's going to be a short delay. It's been well flagged that this expansion was going to be THE mother of all expansions for FFXIV and that a much larger amount of work than normal has been poured into it to get this as right as possible. I was watching the first hour of the announcement of the delay and honestly you can see how disappointed HE was about this that he was left no choice due to simply running out of enough time to QA check everything. So honestly I can't be mad, people shouldn't be mad we've seen other games make a dogs dinner of their own games because they rushed things (Hai Cyberpunk!) so if they need just 2 more weeks to do QA then they deserve it and should do it. With the sheer amount of new people joining the game from WoW plus what many are expecting to be very heavy server loads and queues for this it's better for them to make sure it's all right across the board and that nothing game breaking slip through that could cause issues or ruin things.

Personally I'm SLIGHTLY burned by work due to being unable to take the weekend off for this as I'd originally planned but it's not a total loss and I'm just working around it personally but I'm hardly going to be mad at Yoshi for it especially when you see the guy just bowing to everyone and apologising that he had to make the difficult decision to delay to make sure everything is right. They're obviously working their holes off to get this right and they deserve whatever time or space they need to do this as they're not planning on disappointing us here.

[Anarnee]

Honestly. I wish they just would have told us ASAP, but I understand otherwise.

I think that if they decided to just release it as a subpar product THAT would have been the WORST decision.

This is fine. You can be upset, we're allow to be upset, but I think to spin it as a bad decision is silly.