Yah, go ahead, call me a troll for posting this, but it's the most discouraging factor for me right now, and I can't possibly be the only one upset about it.
I didn't care that this game was originally designed for casuals.
I didn't care that this game was originally designed to be different from FFXI.
But now I log on once every three days and occasionally, I learn that they've made another drastic change to the game. "Oh today it looks like it's faster to get SP/EXP now." "Oh today it looks like gear no longer degrades under use." "Oh today the monsters and effects look massive to the point of ridiculous."
And yet during the day when I browse these convenient little forums SquareEnix has put here, I've noticed that all these changes stem from the pleas and demands of people posting here and the player polls that have been hosted on the lodestone. Even the moderators respond to threads where someone is demanding something from the game that isn't in it yet.
I remember the day I went to Gamestop to buy the collectors edition for $75. I had called up a friend I used to play FFXI with from home and told them I was going out to buy this game today, because despite how different it was, it was being developed by Hiromichi Tanaka, and that was reason enough for me. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't finished, but it had potential and I wanted to see more.
Now I log into a game and see a quasi-FFXI/WoW/whatever abomination that has been essentially collectively designed by every crying wuss gamer who are most likely playing some other MMO and will just end up quitting when SquareEnix starts charging for this game. Oh yah, you'll say "Well I'm not quitting when they start charging" but your excuse will change. "Oh there's not enough people now." "Oh I've already done all the content." "Oh there's another game I wanted to play more instead."
I still don't see a clear direction for this game. SquareEnix essentially robbed me of my $75 with the box and release telling me one thing, and now Yoshida telling me something different. All I can see right now is that this game isn't being designed by SquareEnix at all. It's being designed by the players. If that had been written on the box or the website before release, I would've stayed as far away from it as humanly possible.
So here's a thread for discussion about SquareEnix and who's guess when they might actually start designing the game themselves. It's a legit discussion, but if you really feel the need to call me a troll, by all means, since you'll likely call anyone a troll for disagreeing with you anyway.