Open letter to the producer

[Cairdeas]

He already said in Letter 9 that the next letter will have an updated Charts of planned, and upcoming changes as well as more information on briefly hinted systems.

[Loki_Jortunn]

I do realise he said that the chart of planned and upcoming changes will be coming but with many things they should be constantly maintained. He said "Akihiko Matsui, our lead battle planner, will also be posting on the forums in the near future regarding some of the new battle concepts we have planned" near future could mean any time from now till middle of the June. To me near future in this kind of context near future should be in a week or two, they know the concepts and should have had it all worked out months ago so Yoshi P should be able to accuratly say when we should hear from Akihiko Matsui.

My issue is the fuzziness of comments they avoid any specifics.

[Keith_Dragoon]

I do realise he said that the chart of planned and upcoming changes will be coming but with many things they should be constantly maintained. He said "Akihiko Matsui, our lead battle planner, will also be posting on the forums in the near future regarding some of the new battle concepts we have planned" near future could mean any time from now till middle of the June. To me near future in this kind of context near future should be in a week or two, they know the concepts and should have had it all worked out months ago so Yoshi P should be able to accuratly say when we should hear from Akihiko Matsui.

My issue is the fuzziness of comments they avoid any specifics.

Have you given it a week or 2 since he said this? If not then it just MAY happen tomorrow or whenever. If so then I guess time will tell lol. :P

[Chezen]

Yay Kilta has a character! \o/

Awesome.

I do realise he said that the chart of planned and upcoming changes will be coming but with many things they should be constantly maintained.

Everything got derailed with the earthquake. Just because it's not frontline news anymore doesn't mean everything has settled down over there.

They're still in a power crunch aren't they?

[SilvertearRen]

Dear Yoshi. P
*SNIP!*

I'll be blunt. I have had a feeling, a sneaking feeling, that they are concurrently working on expansionary content (Ishgard, etc), and won't announce it until it's ready to go live. This would explain the lack of significant updates in comparison to most other MMOs.

They do need to build the new zones, they do need to rebuild the old zones, they do need to write new storyline arcs, they do need to script those storylines into the game, they do need to animate those stories, they do need to create new resources like armor and items...

It's a lot of work alongside the core rebuild.

So I am not surprised that the content updates has been a bit on the thin side.

Know why? It would be retarded to release Ishgard+other zones+associated content before the battle system revamp was completed. If they released it before the battle system update, they would have more work to do for the battle system revamp itself. It would be infinitely easier to release the expanded content AFTER the battle update so they don't have to "rebuild" the monster/NPC/item data twice to account for the changes.

Plain and simple as that.

[Alderton]

Each patch has made changes that have improved the game however there is a feeling among people that I have played with that the changes have been (or at least should have been) simple to achieve and shouldn't have taken the time that they did. Most of the improvements stated above could easily be achieved by changing the values in a database or simple "if" statements added to the client.

You have NO idea what goes into game development, or programming in general. It sounds as though you've overheard a programmer speak once and think you have the entire development process understood.

The sheer amount of systems, and complexity of each, of games today means that changing these systems (not just updating), takes a tremendous amount of time. Factor into that how standard development processes go (design, seek approval, implement, test, iterate, test, iterate), and you should actually be applauding the rate at which they are altering and adding new systems to the game.

I understand you are anxious to see the major updates. We all are. But when you make overall changes to a base (and major) system, it takes a TON of time. If it is released and isn't well received, it could kill this game.

Just wait. Deal with what we have now. Feces occurs.

[Gramul]

You have NO idea what goes into game development, or programming in general.

That's why people want more comunication with Square. So that they can understand what's going on with the game. But at the same time, it would ruin the surprises they have in store. Square has to balance the amount of information they release, but the can't make everyone happy.

[Hiemdall]

I say everyone needs to back off until the June/July patches come out. Not much is going to happen until then and flooding the forums with this stuff doesn't help. Play the game as it is now if you want, if not then don't. It's free so SE is focusing on making the game better; not for us but for future paying customers.

Also, as mentioned they cannot say too much for two reasons. 1) if they don't deliver people complain and they look bad. 2) When there is hype, anticipation people stick around to see what happens. I for one want to be surprised. A new patch release should be like Christmas morning

[Loki_Jortunn]

Actually i am a programmer, if the game was written correctly then all the changes to monster size, hp and density can be easily achieved with minor Database updates. I realise iterative programming design however the changes they have made should be made within only a few cycles.

If you read if it was originally programmed correctly then the game should be very modular allowing new object to be added in easily and existing object to be modified without having unforseen knock on effects. I was writing in terms that the general public understand if i started to talk about relational databases, boolean expressions, call back functions or null pointers. Sure Yoshi should understand what i'm talking about but then the fact its an open later would limit the people that would read this post.

Hiemdall: you point out they shouldn't say too much because it leads to speculation actually they havn't this has lead to massive amounts of speculation. For instance the battle system, the destruction and rebuilding of grid, all the information out there on the forums or in the game is player hype because we don't have a clear idea what is planned. Now to appear to contridict myself sometime there is a good reason not to know everything, the GM running around being the profit of doom was a really nice touch it was the communtiy that got together and found this really interesting. This was because it was story based and fitted in with what was going on (weather/music etc). None story related changes should be made public once the concept has been finalised, there is no real advantage with suprising us with it.

Again stating the open letter is not an attack on Yoshi but to bring attention to some things that myself and friends have noticed and come up with suggestions to fix.

[Gramul]

They probably thought they would never have to change those things so it probably didn't occur to them to make it easier to do so. I don't know how they programed the game, or what they put into priority, but I would like to know. That way I could understand why it's taking so long. But at the same time I know they can't legally release that sort of information.