Announcements from Letter from the Producer Live Part LXXXV (85) - 7 February 2025

[Arrius]

The camera emote will be a free thing for everyone to get with 7.18 (25th Feb), by the way.

[Iscah]

From the images were shown so far, if the blank plain and the pink vegetation are progression shots of the same area, it seems like this might be almost an inversion of Island Sanctuary – instead of harvesting resources, we're cultivating them.

That said, the third picture is a crater field exposing new types of rock, which seems likely to be a site for mining, so it's possible that the plain, vegetation and craters are all there from the beginning as zones for crafting, botany and mining, respectively. If so, then that just leaves the question of where we're going fishing – perhaps in that big chasm up the back of the first picture?

A further lore-nerdish thought on this -- I think it was mentioned during Endwalker that the moon is the way it is because it is very umbral-aspected due to Hydaelyn's influence, resulting in a similar state to the Empty. Meanwhile, the craters shown here are (to my memory) the first time we've seen brown earth on the moon's surface. I wonder if Zodiark's destruction has released astral energy onto/into the moon and is causing a shift in its aetherial state.

[Carin-Eri]

Looking more at the MSQ side of things, interesting discussion on Reddit about who this might be:


with a popular theory being that it's the second Sphene, with a physical body, with someone pointing out that you can just about see her hair highlight on the tip.

[Khryseis_Astra]

The camera emote will be a free thing for everyone to get with 7.18 (25th Feb), by the way.

Oh nice! Not really in the market for a new camera, but I’ve wanted a camera emote forever!

Too bad the actual real life camera wasn’t one of the sweepstakes prizes! lol

[Zakuyia]

I've seen other people complaining about the trials being merged into MSQ again, but personally I'm happy for it to be handled this way if it means it gives them more room for one big-scope story rather than two smaller ones. I think it will depend on what stories they want to tell, rather than rigid storyline-to-content type links - perhaps sometime we'll get wild things again like the dungeon for the patch going to a side story again like the Four Lords handled it.

They should bring back bonus dungeons being tide to side quest as well as msq and trials not just msq like they did for hilde brand.

[ZephyrMenodora]

The problem with this is if everyone did this the game would die overnight.

The privilege people have of “only subbing when they want” only works because there is a core players that is constantly subbed (but is hollowing out)

I agree, but that would be the devs' problem, and not the problem of someone who only plays 2 months every expansion. I'm sure there are so many new stories (like Kingdom Come that just came out) to take up time and expansions written on the level of DT would not be missed at all. These players seem to mostly play this as a story-based RPG, and if the story is bad it would be an easy skip. (In fact, I just saw in Avoidy's story - the friend didn't even come back for DT and that exists now.)

The decreasing quality is definitely a concern for players who want XIV to be a more consistent part of their gaming time for sure.

[YumieYumiki]

The problem with this is if everyone did this the game would die overnight.

No, it would force them to do some efforts. FFXIV is not a "stay subbed indefinitely" game as it stands (but then again I believe that no game is or possibly can be, the people who do keep subbed all year long probably have a bad case of sunk cost fallacy). If they want more than 2 month worth of subscription every expansion then they need to work for it.

By the way being able not to stay subbed long term is not a privilege, it is a right. Having customers that are willing to remain subbed for long period of times, on the other hand, IS a privilege.