Global Alpha Test Start Date

[Abriael]

LOL you two need a room... good read though with good facts

Does it have room service? 'cause I need a cup of coffee, like, urgently.

[Shougun]

Yoshi-p is always on the first line and among the players to respond to everyone, like a father that shows and explains things to his sons. For that reason, he's a great director.

Yeah its pretty cool of him, I hope he can maintain it through the release of ARR. Fireside chats with your dev, video game companies/producers are business but it is quite preferred to think of them as friends and family then perhaps "soul suckers" like Activision is sometimes referred to.

Edit: Updated my quote of Abrieal's updated post. nvm :P

Oh, some do, believe me. No one that I would bear working with, of course (if any of my writers did something of the sort in any way that I could detect, I'd have a serious talk with them and the rest of the editorial team, and it could easily lead to termination), but I could name a large number of people that openly think that Square Enix deserves a "lesson", and that spare no chance in trying to administer it.

of course Square Enix isn't alone there. Electronic Arts is another good example. Many journos, even highly respected ones, have this warped idea that they're the vigilantes of the industry, and they need to "punish" the evil corporation of their choice with their almighty pen, instead of dedicating themselves to actual reporting.

Of course there are a whole lot of fair, intelligent and relatively unbiased (relatively because absolute lack of bias doesn't exist in any form of journalism. Anyone that tells you he's unbiased lies, and he knows it) ones, but if you look attentively, you'll easily be able to spot the rotten apples.

I dont bother reading much into things that I dont feel accurate for one reason or another :P like a games score being determined by first day DLC. Though I dont like the idea of 1st day DLC the score shouldn't be affected by it as its not a value of the company but of the game.

Not to say I find 100% unbiased sources since I have bias myself but I suppose for clarity I could have added "A good video game review company(/person) wouldn't look to hunt down a company just because".

[Cecwhite]

the previous NDA for 1.0 wasn't even lifted till mid beta, so it will be still awhaile till we see ppl posting their stuff

[Abriael]

I dont bother reading much into things that I dont feel accurate for one reason or another :P like a games score being determined by first day DLC. Though I dont like the idea of 1st day DLC the score shouldn't be affected by it as its not a value of the company but of the game.

Totally agree, and you have no idea on how many think the opposite, feeling that day 1 DLCs are "immoral", and as such they need to lower the score of the game from a moral standpoint.

It's hilarious, I know.

Not to say I find 100% unbiased sources since I have bias myself but I suppose for clarity I could have added "A good video game review company wouldn't look to hunt down a company just because".

Absolutely. The problem is that the percentage of "good" video game reiewers is not as near to the 100% as it should be. This is an industry with a whole ton of amateurism, and the widespread cronyism determines the fact that a lot of those amateurs with no cognition of journalistic integrity and no journalistic education at all, end up writing for large websites that provide their "ideas" with a ton of undeserved visibility, allowing them in turn to negatively and unduly influence the success of a game while they often write just out of a personal grudge of sorts.

Give you an example that isn't about this game, and isn't even one of the most extreme:
http://www.g4tv.com/games/pc/46075/t...-world/review/

It's fairly easy to spot from the highly hyperbolic choice of wording and the way concepts are expressed that the writer went out of his way to be as nasty as possible, to the point of expressing quite a few factually incorrect things.

And that's a fairly well known writer on a very popular website.

But I believe I'm digressing, a LOT, my apologies.

PS:

Edit: Updated my quote of Abrieal's updated post. nvm :P

Yeah, I know, I'm sorry, I tend to polish and repolish my posts over and over. Déformation professionnelle and all that. It's my worst flaw... >_>

[BarretWallace]

In my head, I imagine all of Abriael posts sounding like Brent Spiner (Data) before the emotion chip in Star Trek: Generations.

[Felis]

The problem isn't just that people didn't get access to the Alpha. I couldn't care the less about that.
It's that people that had active accounts got passed in favor of people that didn't, while the form clearly stated in all available languages that only those with an active account were eligible.

Where is the problem? The last 4 or 5 days before dalamud crash ALL accounts were active. Time enough to register for alpha.
SE didn't say "You need to have played the original game for 90 days to get alpha access"

[Abriael]

In my head, I imagine all of Abriael posts sounding like Brent Spiner (Data) before the emotion chip in Star Trek: Generations.

Am I that cold?

I can be fairly emotional when I want (i'd provide examples, but that'd be a tad too much on the self promoting side for my taste), but I try to avoid it when I try to pinpoint a problem that I consider serious.

Where is the problem? The last 4 or 5 days before dalamud crash ALL accounts were active. Time enough to register for alpha.

The problem is that those accounts were not supposed to be considered fully active, as they didn't have access to forums and lodestone for instance. It's a fairly large loophole that caused a ton of problems (even beyond the application to the alpha, that may or may not be due to that), so people are fairly justified in being upset.

[SkyeWindbinder]

Quite the contrary. Having been in basically every major MMORPG beta since Ultima Online (and many minor ones), I understand people's motives very well. They're hardly as easy to identify and as black and white as you believe.

Some people are just butthurt. Some people are disappointed because they genuinely want to contribute to the development of the game, some people simply air their frustration not because they have some kind of grudge or because they feel entitled, but because as part of a community, they think in a rather naive way that other people will express their support instead of shooting them down. There are a lot of different motives and a lot of shades of grey.

I've been there in nearly every major release of mmos as well. I'm not exactly a spring chicken myself, lol. And I'm very good at understanding people's motives myself. Many are not black and white, in fact it's rare to find some that are. But I'm good with people, and can read between the lines. I've always been good at picking apart people's motives and reasons. It's a gift of mine. Some are disappointed because they wanted to participate in testing the game, many are also disappointed because they don't get an early peek at the game. And I can tell with some observation which is which.

Nope. That isn't stating a motive. That's stating a belief. And that belief has been created by Square Enix themselves, as the fact that active subscribers were the only ones eligible to the alpha was clearly stated in the application form. When a developer tells paying customers A and then does B, it's not unjustified for the paying customer to be disappointed and voice that disappointment.

Beliefs create motives. People who believe that they are entitles to alpha simply because they have been there playing FF14 long before a lot of others have that belief. It motivates them to whine and cry like babies when they're not selected. And again, people disappointed that they didn't get in for the right reasons, I have no problem with. People who think their time playing the game before ARR should get them early access to alpha before those who haven't played as long, that's annoying. And stupid. And it's repeated so very many times.

See what I mean, you're doing it again. You're second guessing my motives without knowing anything about me.

Not at all. I merelt stated that you jumped the gun in your reply, not knowing which kind of people I was referring to. Which you did. OR, you are one of the people I was referring to. n which case, your anger would be predictable.

I got ticked off because I know that a certain amount of disappointment is quite justified in this situation, given the communication blunder, and I find people so ready to jump to the throat of people that are already (rightfully) disappointed rather distasteful.

First of all, getting ticked off was actually quite unnecessary. Predictable, if you're one of the people whining for the wrong reasons, but unnecessary. And proof you took things a bit too seriously. Secondly, I didn't jump down anyone's throat. I merely stated that people whining that they should get into alpha for reasons they themselves worked out in their heads and opinions are just annoying. You took it the wrong way by thinking I stated that anyone who had any kind of concerns whatsoever over how alpha was handled were whiners. You jumped the gun. You jumped waaaaay over the gun, lol. And the conclusions you came up with spurred you to make an angry response. If anyone jumped down anyone's throat, it's you.

It happens with every testing. People are always very ready to attack those that are already disappointed, making everyone's disappointment worse. It's bad and it really paints the community in a sad light.

What ALSO happens with every testing is that some people of said community will whine like entitles brats that they didn't get into testing. And some will make thread after thread crying over why they felt they should have been let in, regardless of how testing was handled. That, too, makes a community look pathetic.

I'm sure there are people that are just "butthurt", but I don't know their percentage, nor you do. So I don't necessarily assume that everyone that complains belongs to that group like many here are doing, nor I go ahead and second guess their motives.

Nor do I. However, those who complain, whine, and grumble over and over in multiple new threads that they created that their status as veterans in the game should net them automatic access no matter what are practically transparent in their motives... er, sorry, "beliefs"... and those are the people I was referring to. No "second guessing" is even needed in such cases.

Nope. It's serious to anyone that knows that a company giving their customers wrong information often can lead to serious issues.

And I still don't think this is one of those cases, lol. Just mho.

When you have a loaded rifle pointed at your face, encouraging the killer to shoot isn't exactly a sensible course of action.

Interesting metaphor, but not really all that accurate, since I highly doubt that some misinformation about alpha is gonna be the death of the game. Again, just my humble $0.02.

[SkyeWindbinder]

LOL you two need a room... good read though with good facts

LOL I like room service! And cable! Does it have cable?

[BarretWallace]

Am I that cold?

I wouldn't say "cold," so much as I'd say "interesting." It's healthy, good ol' fashioned speech and debate.

Criticism, constructive or otherwise, is necessary, in this instance, to keep the devs from getting complacent. And I guess with any online forum you can't say "Ok! Five threads about this topic is enough!" Because it'll take as many threads and posts as required to see the complaints/suggestions addressed.

I'm not above a classy flame, troll or a heckle every now and then, either.