Should the launch have been delayed? What else could be done?

[JTWrenn]

There has been a shortage on semi-conductors now since the start of the pandemic nearly 2 years ago. And with yet another, hardier strain tearing through the globe, it isn't ending anytime soon. Do you think they are going to wait 5+ years for semi-conductors to be available just so some people aren't inconvenienced for a few days/weeks? That's just silly.

If you get online at a decent time(not prime time), you can get right in. I've played friday, saturday, and doing so again right now. This is just how every MMO launch ever has worked. There were also warnings given that this was going to happen. I don't know what more you folks think could be done.

Oh I know every launch has gone this way, and I think it stinks. I think they go cheap and push the envelope on what their servers can do and run face first into this....on purpose...to make more money. I just think it is a bad play and you could come up with other ways to do it, from cloud expansions using temporary servers to just having enough hardware to support th big ups, but it all comes down to profits and I personally think that sucks. To be clear, they absolutely could have upped their server count and still make a profit....they just get greedy and push it to meet some growth number for the investment side to look good. Then we get to have our plans screwed up and a bad experience because they did so.

The question I am asking is...should they have delayed and gotten it smooth and taken a hit on profits short term for the long term gain of customer satisfaction. I think given the current condition of logins and the amount of vitriol the answer is yes. This type of thing hurts their reputation.

I also don't think this is normal level screw up. This seems worse than any WoW launch since the early days. I actually think this is more of a software issue than hardware. I don't think their system was built with good expandable code and it has hindered their ability to ramp up servers.

[Moonlite]

Or, maybe, possible, consider that major company plans and roadmaps are charted more than a year in advance. For all we know, they'd already planned to add more servers to EU to account for predicted growth after OCE went online. As we've seen, actual growth simply outpaced predictions by a large margin due to various factors.

You and I are looking in the same direction it seems. But we came to a different conclusion. We both agree that they are planning years in advance, they were planning growth and they would have to order servers. I can agree servers have been delayed. Now here is where you and I seem to diverge. They order OCE servers they have them for now at least 6 months. Yet no signs of the planned in advance growth EU servers? And the "desperate" plea for patience they can't get any servers. Yet we both just agreed they road mapped this years ago. If the statement was we don't have enough servers or we refuse to risk employees travelling. Those are valid and imply they did plan growth and new hardware post OCE. Which should be live now, but travel.

[Felixforever]

Delayed? Naw, SE should have allocated some more money into the servers. They had plenty of advanced metrics showing pre order sales, and population growth. Lack of preparation, and now they blame the chip shortage? Im sure with the kind of money XIV generates monthly they can afford to pay extra to get whatever is necessary, but that would effect the bottom line, and they never seemed interested in reinvesting more then a few % back into XIV

[Varilyon]

Yes delay it until we have more servers. So maybe summer 2022.

I am sure everyone has that patience!

[Mialee]

Should have limited the game sell and subscriber count you don't take new client if you know that you will not be able to serve them. You don't sell 200k ticket for a show where you can only fit 100k.

[Krotoan]

Should have limited the game sell and subscriber count you don't take new client if you know that you will not be able to serve them. You don't sell 200k ticket for a show where you can only fit 100k.

The thing is how would they limit you? I can try to play on the EU servers if I wanted to. OR I could make a character on a much less populated server than I'm on (note that even though Sargatanas is regarded as a high pop server, queue times have been manageable). The thing is people CAN play, but a lot of people cannot play their character on the server they want. Which is still junk and a valid complaint, but it's not as if they are at capacity for the entire game.

[LianaThorne]

The question I am asking is...should they have delayed and gotten it smooth and taken a hit on profits short term for the long term gain of customer satisfaction. I think given the current condition of logins and the amount of vitriol the answer is yes. This type of thing hurts their reputation.

No. They shouldn't have. People were already foaming at the mouth for them delaying it once and screwing up their PTO, imagine them saying: "Yeah...we know we delayed it once....but now we're doing it again. Also, we have no idea when you'll be able to play Endwalker now. Hope you enjoy no new content for months or years until this gets sorted out!" Like....THAT would kill the game faster than waiting in line for a couple weeks would.

If this situation is literally such an inconvenience to your life, then put the game down and go do something else for a few weeks. There are thousands of people willing to be patient and support Square and that's evident by the queue times that we have. Either get in line like the rest of us or give up your spot to someone who's willing to wait it out.

[Hasrat]

Man... just realized we'll be running up into Starlight and Heavensturn before long now, too. Also I think they were rolling in All Saints' Wake into this, too? Another consequence of delaying into December, hopefully those events go off well enough and don't just prolong the congestion.

[DynnDiablos]

I didn't have queues Saturday, Sunday or this morning on Zalera. I've played close to 30 hours. I haven't had a single problem.

[Amarande]

You could just also delay it yourself. I mean it is not like you have to play it on early release or launch day.

I think the problem here is the game's own culture puts such heavy pressure against it.

You could wait and play later. But then by the time you do, everyone is talking about who Darth Vader really is, you don't get any of the plot surprises unless you completely turn off chat/social media/etc. until you finish MSQ.

You could wait and play later. But then by the time you do, "community has it on farm" and you're expected to take a time-respect approach rather than a wide-eyed first timer one. Dungeons are to then be run like you're chasing WR clear times or people complain, maybe not to your face but you go on social media later and you hear people grumbling about that (job) holding up the run for everyone and not respecting their time (honestly, can we get OFF this respect our time kick? It's to the point where it practically seems people feel like their time is more important to respect than they themselves are. And I say this AS someone who often only has a couple hours after work to actually game before getting too sleepy to continue even if I don't have to work till afternoon the next day!). Trials are to be gone into fully spoiled to ensure one-shot clears whenever humanly possible. It's not the new player experience anymore.

You could wait and play later. But for similar reasons, you're basically screwed out of being able to do Pandaemonium Savage or the Ex trials under any kind of chill circumstances with any chance of success, as by then PF has boiled down to "duty complete farm" that you can't get into or endless mires of "progression" parties that don't make any as the proportion of people that just can't get it has got too high. Statics tend to become hard to find by that point as well unless you're around the community curve either. You could form your own, but - and I think this is an under-noted point - this is basically putting people under the gun to both learn the raid AND learn to raid lead at the same time, which can be pretty dang overwhelming, especially if you were nervous about the content to begin with.

If the community were less selfish and kinder to others, especially those who don't rush to keep up with "the curve" perhaps we would not have boxed ourselves into this mess - I understand there would be quite many who would still be driven by enthusiasm to experience the shiny new thing as soon as they can, but at least, not quite as badly as actually occurs.