Quote Originally Posted by Chrees View Post
I have a feeling that anyone who is a programmer, works with programmers, or is in a field relating to computers/IT/development/etc. is going to reply to this just to tip the scales, making it look like the majority of FFXIV's player base knows exactly what is going on inside of Square-Enix, which is most definitely not the case.

And it looks like it's already happening.
Exactly. Understanding any old development cycle has no bearing on understanding every development cycle, or specifically development cycles within XI.

I may have be programming professionally for 7+ years (and hobby programmer since age 8) but know there are numerous methodologies, different team structures, different means of determining priority for work, different work ethics, and most importantly differing levels of complexity of projects.

There is simply no feasible way to assess the total volume and complexity in the XIV code, but it's probably fairly safe to say that given that there are (were?) at least 3 teams of programmers (1 for server, 2 for client), each new addition or fix would require a great deal of communication to implement. Not to mention that changes/fixes requiring any other assets (models, text, sound effects) will bring even more teams into the equation, and obviously when one programmer is waiting to hear back from another team on a query or for a change they require to finish something they are working on, they will work on something that they can do in the mean time.

So it is only natural that simple features/fixes will bubble up through to release first.

I don't pretend to understand the complexity of XIV, but I do know they did a very brave thing in implementing their own core engine and tool set. From a technical perspective I am far more impressed with what has been achieved so far in XIV than I am by some of the games build over the top of someone elses engine, however customised it may be (Rift=Gamebryo engine). And seeing the progress on XIV from first closed Alpha through to present gives me no reason to doubt the technical competence at SE.

Just for fun, Client/Server programmers at XIV release:

http://img141.imageshack.us/i/creditsq.png/

(If you've never watched the credit list, I suggest it. It's pretty impressive. )