A really long letter from the new producter/director of FFXIV.

[Loony BoB]

FINAL FANTASY XIV, The Lodestone

I link because it has a lot of tables and is quite really long. A lot of information about the future of FFXIV, though, so read, read, read!

These are some key points for me. The major statements are in bold.

we will be bringing quests and miniquests to Eorzea sometime after the beginning of February. Along with this, all of the changes being worked on during the end of last year and the beginning of this year to improve the games playability and user-friendliness will also be released around the same time.

Though the next version update will introduce a relatively small number of changes, preparations are already underway to bring further improvements in the near future via a number of smaller-scale patches, including the release of quests and system-side adjustments. At present, we intend for something new to be released about twice a month. Overhauls to the battle system and user interface will also be ongoing, which will make it easier for the players to enjoy the new quests and content being released. The small-scale, system-oriented updates that will be carried out can best be thought of as the necessary groundwork for the battle system revisions.

We will also be looking in earnest at the possibility of implementing an auction house

I realize there are many things, but for me the first order of business is to create the FINAL FANTASY feeling. To have players take part in engaging quests that place them in a struggle against an impending crisis that threatens their world.

I'm very grateful for the fact that posts by the development and operations teams was the number one response to this question. In fact, this Letters from the Producer series is a direct result of this. In addition, we will begin a beta phase for the official FFXIV forums in all four languages (Japanese, English, French, and German) around the beginning of March. If all goes well, the forums should be up and ready for public use sometime in early April.

You expressed concern over whether one of the four keywords I introduced at the beginning of the year, namely reboot, meant that we would be wiping character data. I apologize for any confusion that this choice of terminology may have caused, but rest assured that character data will not be wiped.

And, in a list of things they are planning / lookin into (ie, this is not concrete 'definitely' stuff, but it is something they are considering)...
- Character jump feature
- Examination of an auction house system
- Further changes to enhance class uniqueness
- Possible introduction of traditional names such as paladin, monk, white mage, etc.

Of course, all the company-related stuff is mentioned, too, but I focused on new stuff rather than things we've known about for some time.

Wait.

...Jump?

[Old Manus]

FFXIV: GRINDAN, JUMPAN, PLATFORMAN, TOMB RAIDERAN

[Ouch!]

Having played Final Fantasy XI for many years and following the development of Final Fantasy XIV very closely...

My mind is smurfing blown.

[*Devore*]

His nickname was "The Duck"?...I'm sure its funnier in japanese.

Sounds like Yoshi-P is doing a good job. I should be playing by early Feb so hopefully I'll get on with some of those patches already added.

[Jessweeee♪]

Nice to see so much communication going on o:

[Del Murder]

This guy sure is showing he cares, I'll give him that. We have still yet to see any actual improvement in the game yet, though I do understand they need some time.

[Loony BoB]

This guy sure is showing he cares, I'll give him that. We have still yet to see any actual improvement in the game yet, though I do understand they need some time.

I think it's easy to say that when you're not playing the game. The game has consistently been made better and better. The main thing lacking for me is content and a reason to level (eg. certain armour unlocked at certain levels, chocobo licence thing, airship pass, whatever). But the UI, the server lag, the monster distribution, the exp/sp stuff... for me, it's improved dramatically. Especially the UI.

If you mean his stuff, though, then obviously yeah that's not kicked in because it's too soon.

[Del Murder]

Yeah I meant his stuff, drastic changes and all that. Not the polishing a turd stuff that the previous team was doing. It seems like he wants to make fundamental changes to the game that will make it better overall, rather than take what was made and just tweak it until it's passable (though it's good that they have at least done that).

[Miriel]

I realize there are many things, but for me the first order of business is to create the FINAL FANTASY feeling.

I love that this is a priority for them because this is such a huuuuge thing. One of the things I loved about FFXI was just the Final Fantasy-ish atmosphere that permeated the whole game. I think one review of FFXIV talked about how the game just doesn't have charm, and it looks like they're going to try and fix that.

It's pretty awesome that they're really striving for fundamental changes, including the changes to the job names. There's really nothing wrong with classic names like Paladin and White Mage. Maybe they'll even change lalafell back to Taru! That would be awesome. It's great that it's a complete overhaul instead of the whole polishing a turd thing. This is really great news. I hope they follow through!

[Loony BoB]

Yeah, I'm really enjoying the idea that they might return to old class names such as Paladin, Monk, Dragoon etc. The existing classes are too similar to each other, although for longer-term players you could easily create some really unique characters using it, admittedly.

Yeah I meant his stuff, drastic changes and all that. Not the polishing a turd stuff that the previous team was doing. It seems like he wants to make fundamental changes to the game that will make it better overall, rather than take what was made and just tweak it until it's passable (though it's good that they have at least done that).

I think the original team did have a lot done right - they responded to the biggest complaints (UI and lag) at the time. The problem is that while the game was not at all a turd - that would imply a lack of potential, for me - they never had enough time to do what they needed to do to reach that potential because they released the game too early. I still believe the fundamental gameplay aspects are fine. All the things that are being talked about, class changes aside, I wouldn't say are akin to a re-write of the game. You're still in the same world, still doing the same actions. There will just be purpose to it and a better focus on classes being unique. The old team could have done this, but they were focusing more on the initial complaints than content. Of course, if they didn't focus on the initial complaints, and focused on content, people would have stopped playing even earlier. Very much a lose-lose situation for the original team which was caused by the early release date. The one thing I will say that is different, though, is that the new team - or at least Yoshi-P in particular - have more of an idea on what they need to do in order to achieve improvements in both the game and public relations. The fundamental changes seem to be in the mindset of the team, not the game. They are much more open to changes that would have been on the backburner for months with the initial team.

I still can't believe that Ishgard still isn't accessable. It's the Jeuno. The central city. And the map isn't even there. And even the new team aren't talking about it.

[kotora]

why exactly would a forum need a "beta phase" and why does it take 3 months for them to set this up? Is this how they efficiently use their resources?

[Carl the Llama]

why exactly would a forum need a "beta phase" and why does it take 3 months for them to set this up? Is this how they efficiently use their resources?

It could be something like they want to have the character you log in with to be your display name, like the WoW forums, that is the only thing I could think of that would require some time to get right.

Though I have no idea what it would take to build a website from scratch.

[Ouch!]

Aside from what Kaiser Dragon mentioned, I would also imagine that because the development team is Japanese and they plan on having fora in Japanese, English, French, and German that they will need to hire the appropriate people to be able to communicate effectively with speakers of each of those languages and then also communicate with the development team.

[Loony BoB]

And see if it will actually work at all with multiple languages.

EDIT: By which I mean if they will be able to communicate efficiently across the board and also if the members - and moderators - will be reasonable enough to keep public relations on the upside.

[Roogle]

I am glad to see that Square Enix and the development staff of Final Fantasy XIV are reaching out to fans. Communication with the players is a core aspect of any successful massively multiplayer online role-playing game.