Why does everything take so long?

[Phrozen]

Funny to see how people sitting behind their desks doing nothing but ranting on a forum think it is easy to develop a game. It is seriously hilarious.

Then you got someone comparing a SQL database AH to an MMORPG AH, its seriously freaking hilarious how ignorant and sad some of you guys are. I really feel sorry for you guys.

if you feel so sorry for me, why don't you marry me

[Elexia]

Blizzard would have turned this game around in 3 months period. Unlike the FFXI team blizzard actually updates it's player base on changes that are forthcoming

Here's the MMOs I actively play:

FFXI, FFXIV, Rappelz, Air Rivals, Iris, Ragnarok Online, AI.

All give information or communication with their player base especially about upcoming changes and additions that could change the gameplay, like with XI, as you mentioned, they gave us information about how Dynamis is being redesigned for May's update.

Fair enough they redesigning a lot but thats just a fancy word for extensive tweaking, because that is all they're doing, they not deleting the entire system and recoding from scratch.

Actually, that's what redesigning is in game development, and most companies that are open about when they're redesigning something will use the phrase "from scratch to fit a new design we have envisioned." FPSs tend to be the main culprit of this due to engine updates or change in the genre, e.g dual melee attack types.

[Evenstar]

That's bull. All it's been so far is only the database shell, Keep in mind there's multiple servers, so you're going to have to make one for each server, then on top of that the UI, the player interaction with it, and programming each and every single item into the AH, not to mention dealing with how some items stack with 99 or 999 and so on, then there's organizing the items into each category.

Then you have to perform the internal QA and stress testing before you could put it out to public. Anyone, and I mean anyone that has even a smallest experience with software development, let alone IT field would know that you just can't make these things in 5 hours, let alone a day, hell let alone a week.

Which brings up one thing:

So you say it took you 5 hours to setup one server. Great. There's 18 server. 18 * 5, so that's 90 hours of work just the hardware alone. Say you'll copy and paste the database and all the whole nine yard of software development into each of the 18 'AH servers' for FFXIV. Great, then you have to make sure that it is working perfectly fine and operational, and I do mean perfectly fine. If there's one glitch, you have to go back and fix it, and test it again. it's a vicious cycle.

Then bare in mind that this is just ONE project of the whole FFXIV project to work on. There's still Airships, there's still chocobo, there's still content, and more quests, and more classes, the list just goes on, and on, and on.

And you have to consider this: You already got the Market ward, which is functioning just as well as an Auction House functions, so you have to ask yourself, and the team this: is it even worth doing the auction house, when you already got something that does the same job already in place, only that it needs to be more optimized? I mean sure, the whole thing sucked at one point, but now it actually works and it is actually functional that people can actually use it efficiently. There's still problem with it. IE: it crashes and resets, and we don't want that obviously so there's work in that, so put that against a WHOLE new, nearly redundant feature, which is going to further delay other, higher priority project.

Because it's not even possible, and even if it is, it's completely redundant and a waste of time to focus when anyone can agree that SE have more important and pressing matters to work on.

* * *

Now keep in mind that this is coming from someone who is studying on Information Technology and Computer Science, including programming.

Thank god we have people with brains! Thank you! I just couldn't bring myself to write such a huge post, but you basically said everything I wanted to say. Too bad it is no use since most of the people here are ignorant and clueless when it comes to programming and software developing. I am studying Information Science and Computer Science myself and I agree with everything you said. Anyone with the smallest bit of knowledge how software developing works wouldn't dare to say an Auction House can be implemented in a week. It wouldn't suprise me if it would take up to a month with a small team of 4-5 people working on it.

You have to model it, build it and test it. After you are done in almost 100% of the cases you will end up with broken parts or stuff you didn't think about. So you end up going back to the drawing table, fix the code, test it some more and keep repeating that process until it is perfectly fine.

I didn't even mention the UI yet .... it is not like the guys can open Office 2007 and Paint and put stuff together in an hour ...

[viion]

Take a game that wasn't rushed out vs a game that was rushed out and needs to be redesigned..hmm..

Both games have been in development around the same time.

[Suirieko]

Funny to see how people sitting behind their desks doing nothing but ranting on a forum think it is easy to develop a game. It is seriously hilarious.

Then you got someone comparing a SQL database AH to an MMORPG AH, its seriously freaking hilarious how ignorant and sad some of you guys are. I really feel sorry for you guys.

I know right? I absolutely agree. It's not easy, and it's most certainly not even something that can be done fast. Even then it's not a matter of whether we need it or not, which brings up to another post...

I don't think it's a matter of how long it will take to add an AH, but rather if he feels it's necessary right now. While Yoshida did mention an AH in his letters don't forget he said the first things he was going to work on were the UI and battle system.

Don't get me wrong, I want to see the wards demolished as much as the next person, however at the same time I can't argue that they're not working for the current population.

That's exactly my point. Love it or hate it, you're going to use it. Anyone that plays FFXIV will be using the market wards to sell items or to buy items or to even store the items, and will learn to realize that it's a handy feature. And before you deny it, you're going to use it. if you haven't used it, you will use it. whether it's for storing extra items, to buying and/or selling stuff. Admit it, you can't play this game without relying on the Market Ward, so save us all the time and don't even try to deny.

Like I said, At first it sucked, I agree. I only used the wards to store my excess items, or items I want to hold onto for crafting, then they added the search feature and even optimized it, which made the wards even functional than ever.

Bottom line is: Market Ward, while it is still not in perfect shape, is at least functional and is certainly better now than before, and will always continue to be improved. It is an incredibly moronic idea to even begin to think that it's a good idea to scrap the market ward and setup the AH.

Even from a developer standpoint, you have to consider if it's even worth the time and money and energy to destroy the Market Ward and replace it with the AH.

[Elexia]

Both games have been in development around the same time.

Tera if I recall, uses Unreal Engine whereas FFXIV uses an inhouse engine they had to develop before making the actual game itself which they've mentioned was the largest portion of Rapture/XIV's development time.

[Evenstar]

Both games have been in development around the same time.

Yes, but we have to forget about that. The players and Square Enix both accepted they failed during the development period. Everyone accepts that already, so it is no use to keep going over it one more time.

Overhauling a game is maybe as hard as developing a game from scratch. We can not ask for updates as fast as FFXI, Tera or WoW is having. Those are finished game, FFXIV is not. No matter how long they have been in development.

[Black_Rose]

yea.if you compare tera and ffxiv let's be fair tho.
tera borrows an engine that has been around for a longer time.
tera also borrows alot of usual game elemts, like instances similar or alike to aion/wow, aswell as a 1:1 copy of the quest system.
what's new is the battle system, well SE has tried the same with FFXIV, but apperantly their idea of a newer battle system wasn't as succesful as TERA's.

as allways, SE tried something new, just like with every FF, but apperantly they didn't get the feedback they were hoping for.
so while SE has to rework on alot, or probably 80% of the current game, bluehole studies has no problems throwing out updates every 2 weeks.
imagine how bluehole studios would go on if noone would enjoy their content/battle system.
they surely wouldn't give u content updates every 2 weeks.

[Evenstar]

I know right? I absolutely agree. It's not easy, and it's most certainly not even something that can be done fast. Even then it's not a matter of whether we need it or not, which brings up to another post...

That's exactly my point. Love it or hate it, you're going to use it. Anyone that plays FFXIV will be using the market wards to sell items or to buy items or to even store the items, and will learn to realize that it's a handy feature. And before you deny it, you're going to use it. if you haven't used it, you will use it. whether it's for storing extra items, to buying and/or selling stuff. Admit it, you can't play this game without relying on the Market Ward, so save us all the time and don't even try to deny.

Like I said, At first it sucked, I agree. I only used the wards to store my excess items, or items I want to hold onto for crafting, then they added the search feature and even optimized it, which made the wards even functional than ever.

Bottom line is: Market Ward, while it is still not in perfect shape, is at least functional and is certainly better now than before, and will always continue to be improved. It is an incredibly moronic idea to even begin to think that it's a good idea to scrap the market ward and setup the AH.

Even from a developer standpoint, you have to consider if it's even worth the time and money and energy to destroy the Market Ward and replace it with the AH.

At this moment I would be seriously mad if they came up with some kind of Auction House before fixing the battle system and balancing the classes. There is no use of an Auction House if you can not have fun playing the game in general.

The Market Wards are fine as they are now (for now). I agree they need some work sooner or later (crashes, resets), but I seriously rather have them balance and adjust the class and work on the battle system, before anything else.

[Nuru]

It's been 6 months since the game was released, and ~3 months since the new developer lead has come in, and the game's development still moving at a snail's pace.

Monster redesigns involved increased size, when most complaints were that they had boring designs.

Combat effect redesigns involved, again, increased size of the effects, when most complaints were that the effects were boring and too similar to one another.

The devs are still investigating how to implement jump/AH, and their effects. Really? You can come up with a workable database schema for an AH in less than a day, and the queries and services to add or remove entries in less than an hour. Why is this taking so long?

There have been NO new levequests introduced, and the side quests that were introduced are extremely basic, light on lore, and few in number. Is anyone even writing lore for this game?

Devs still investigating map collision for getting hung up on ledges?

Market Ward search is still elementary and not flexible. Seeking items is still extremely difficult to work with.

Why does everything take so long? What's taking up all the dev's time?

I don't know, i thought people had common sense?

First of all, the first few weeks, we were given polls to see just where Tanaka left off and how Yoshida can implement some features that would keep us playing the game and bring people back. They cant just start working on whatever they wanted because that's going back to the way they usually do things, which brought about this disaster in the first place.

Secondly, by the time they started shooting out patches, they've gotten a few earthquakes and a tsunami, and now they have another tsunami warning..

Really, I think SE is tired of see threads like this. Sometimes there is just nothing you can do to cater to a bunch of babies. Let alone i even wonder why they want to? (besides the money)