"Oh btw, FFXIV Online in 2010"

[Murgos]

Q. Where are all the monsters?
A. At the time of release, server load issues limited the number of enemies that could appear in areas where large amounts of PCs gathered, such as aetheryte camps situated near city-states. To alleviate this, we have increased the number of servers. This, combined with the fact that players are moving away from these areas and have begun to spread out over the world, will now allow us to increase the number of enemies roaming the realm.

Heh.  "We designed a system that can have players or can have monsters.  Pick one."

[01101010]

Wait... they increased servers? 

No really... 

I am actually speechless... that is all...

[Trippy]

They probably already had those servers on "stand by" rather than buying new servers.

[01101010]

I just got this eerie feeling that its going to come to having 100 people per server because there are not enough mobs. That is just disturbing, and I am talking in hyperbole but still... GAH!

[patience]

30 More Days till that miracle patch.

[Abelian75]

I think they may be talking about actual physical servers within what a user thinks of as a named "server."  Like, I think he's basically saying where previous one physical server/process would manage a 200ft square section of the world, now it will manage a 50ft section of the world (made up numbers, obviously).  I could be wrong, but based on this I believe that's what they are saying:

"Notable lag has been observed in certain areas of the game, particularly when a large number of players are gathered together. To combat this, such areas will be divided into multiple "sections" for the purposes of server-side processing, thereby reducing concentrated loads and subsequent lag on individual World servers."

That does mean they are increasing their server hardware, though, yeah.  But I don't think they're talking about splitting the playerbase.  But it is unclear.

[01101010]

I think they may be talking about actual physical servers within what a user thinks of as a named "server."  Like, I think he's basically saying where previous one physical server/process would manage a 200ft square section of the world, now it will manage a 50ft section of the world (made up numbers, obviously).  I could be wrong, but based on this I believe that's what they are saying:

"Notable lag has been observed in certain areas of the game, particularly when a large number of players are gathered together. To combat this, such areas will be divided into multiple "sections" for the purposes of server-side processing, thereby reducing concentrated loads and subsequent lag on individual World servers."

That does mean they are increasing their server hardware, though, yeah.  But I don't think they're talking about splitting the playerbase.  But it is unclear.

Oh I fully agree with you on this given that this occurred in beta. Was a bitch being in the group and not seeing your group till you "ported" over to their "plane of existence." I doubt this will be necessary after the next 30 days, but then again, they might up the xp limit time frames, say to two weeks. 

[Fabricated]

Hey, I'm kinda drunk and tired so I can't remember...  is SWTOR due out this year? We can have an MMO "Dud Off".

Or maybe we can write an article with a chart showing what the money invested in these failed MMOs could have bought in comparison

like, for the price of a SWTOR, APB, and FFXIV we could've bought X Americans healthcare or 20,000 diamond encrusted toilet seats

[Shatter]

Hey, I'm kinda drunk and tired so I can't remember...  is SWTOR due out this year? We can have an MMO "Dud Off".

Or maybe we can write an article with a chart showing what the money invested in these failed MMOs could have bought in comparison

like, for the price of a SWTOR, APB, and FFXIV we could've bought X Americans healthcare or 20,000 diamond encrusted toilet seats

No SWTOR is 2011

[tmp]

Spring 2011 until next delay is announced, if i remember right.

[fuser]

Allow me to begin by stating that the development team plans to release a version update at a rate of once every three months, of which the large-scale version update currently planned for December will be the first. Nothing is more important to us than seeing to the prompt implementation of the various changes and features players desire to improve playing conditions. In that vein, there are several adjustments and additions which we will be introducing before December's version update.

A good deal of the constructive feedback we received was in regards to the market and retainer systems. As previously addressed in an installment of Ask the Devs, several improvements will be brought to both of these features. Among these are a simplification of retainer access which no longer requires use of the interactions menu, and specific reduced taxes in market wards which will serve to reorganize them by item types.

(snip)

A version update scheduled for late November will contain a number of other changes and additions as well. Below is a list of the primary points of focus.

User Interface Adjustments
In response to the generous amount of player feedback we received, a number of changes and new features will be implemented in this area. Many players have voiced dissatisfaction with several facets of the user interface, such as the chat feature and targeting mechanism, and we will be working to remedy these issues as soon as possible.

Party-Based Battle Balancing
Party-based battle will be undergoing a number of adjustments and tweaks, but players may rest assured that we have every intention of staying true to our policy of making a game that is enjoyable for solo players as well.

At present, players have voiced concern over a lack of necessity for forming parties, as well as a shortage of situations that demand the execution of multiplayer battle strategies. To address such issues, we will be making modifications to the way in which the enmity mechanism works, in addition to reexamining the Battle Regimen system.

Server Lag
Notable lag has been observed in certain areas of the game, particularly when a large number of players are gathered together. To combat this, such areas will be divided into multiple "sections" for the purposes of server-side processing, thereby reducing concentrated loads and subsequent lag on individual World servers.

Distribution of Enemies
In an attempt to further reduce occurrences of lag, we initially avoided placing a large number of enemies in close proximity to one another. With, however, the implementation of the measures mentioned above to reduce server lag, and as player concentrations are beginning to disperse from the starting areas, we will be looking into a redistribution of enemies that is more conducive to enjoyable adventuring.

Month and a half for basic post launch fixes.

[Kageru]

Reading the forums neatly supported my belief that there is no game so bad it will not have fanboys. And they will be less numerous but more rabid the worse the game.

The forum disccussions did suggest each server is peaking ~2K (US TZ, a bit higher on some in Japanese TZ) online which of course includes a substantial number of AFK market characters. Considering it is still in the free month and they are seeing substantial population drops I'd say the game is reaping its just rewards.

[Mrbloodworth]

To be fair, FF is a long standing, wide spread franchise. If it wasn't, it would not have the fanbois, not of this kind of delusion level anyway.

[Falconeer]

I was a Final Fantasy fanboi, until they released this piece of shit.

[Shatter]

So my question is did they intentionally not put in a lot of these "basic" features on purpose, by accident, or just plain dont give a shit? 

[Paelos]

Related story:

I play with a dude on WoW who coleads raids with me. He originally started playing WoW after giving up his character in FF11. He sold his Samuri account with some ridiculous legendary weapons and all pimped out for two and a half grand, to pay off his car. So, he plays WoW, but he was always sure he would head back to FF when the next iteration came out because of the strong guild ties, and the fact he always thought it was a deeper game. I endlessly made fun of him for that.

Anyway, his guild moved over to FFXIV after playing Aion to fill the void. He moved with them. A month later he was back in WoW playing all the time. Bear in mind that he is a rampant FF fanboi and advocate that the game is much harder than WoW and much better in the playerbase. His exact words about FFXIV? "It's a total pile of shit. I can't believe they made such a mess of it. The world is huge but they copy pasted everything so you feel like you are running through everything over and over again. The entire guild is now playing Aion full time."

[Reg]

I was like your friend. I enjoyed my time in FFXI and was totally prepared to go to FFXIV if it was updated and more soloable. Instead, they didn't even manage to implement the stuff FFXI did right (like the auction system) much less fix any of the problems. So I guess I'm back to WoW for the next expansion.

[01101010]

The world is huge but they copy pasted everything so you feel like you are running through everything over and over again.

Funny, I got an immediate image of a hamster wheel when I read this which fully illustrates every MMO, however this is just blatent.

[Simond]

So my question is did they intentionally not put in a lot of these "basic" features on purpose, by accident, or just plain dont give a shit? 

Apparently, the FFXIV deliberately did not play any other MMOs during development, to keep their design 'pure'
Pure what, they didn't say.

[Samprimary]

Oh, boy. I can't wait to read this developer postmortem.

"Whatever it was that people liked about MMO's, we didn't want to hear about. So we physically locked ourselves into a studio and huffed glue until we came up with the Retainer system."

[patience]

What it was people liked about MMOs? S.E. kind of missed the point on what people like about their previous MMO. They didn't sniff glue, they volunteered for a lobotomy.

[Kageru]

I'd say it reads more like, "We spent so much time and money on the pretty graphics... maybe we should have hired a game designer at some point".

[Samprimary]

S-E always has designers. With A PLAN. And VISION. And PLANNED VISION PLAN. plan.

[Fordel]

Does anyone remember .plan files/sites?

[Trippy]

Does anyone remember .plan files/sites?

Yes I remember fingering ID a lot back in the day

[UnSub]

Not exactly the postmortem on FFXIV, but there is one for FFXIII (sorta). Longer take here, but the summary is:

When development started on Final Fantasy XIII its gameplay, scenario, and technical specs were only vaguely defined. But this didn't stop the team from motoring ahead anyway, creating assets at an ever increasing pace with no clear sense as to whether they would even be usable in the game. It wasn't until the team was obligated to create a playable demo for the Japanese market that the title's ultimate design came into focus. In this postmortem we get a unique look at the creation of a game whose epic scope almost got the better of the studio.

Not mentioned: late player testing by Western players who picked up a lot of problems that Square Enix didn't have time to fix before they launched the game.

[Hawkbit]

That's exactly why ff13 was the first I had no desire to finish - I had the feeling like it was just mish-mashed together with no plan.  Come to find out, it was.  I think there was roughly 3-5 years between 12 and 13 - how did SE not get on development right away, and instead feel the need to farm it out?  I'm just boggled. 

[Samprimary]

And, if 14 is any indication, the studio has declined even more precipitously since then. So, the question is finding which developmental problems parallel those that made 13 a critical failure, and which developmental problems are new ones fostered by the development of an MMO.

[Margalis]

That's exactly why ff13 was the first I had no desire to finish - I had the feeling like it was just mish-mashed together with no plan.  Come to find out, it was.  I think there was roughly 3-5 years between 12 and 13 - how did SE not get on development right away, and instead feel the need to farm it out? 

I'm sorry, who exactly was 13 farmed out to again? Those same rascally Chinese that also made 14?

I wonder what all the artists and programmers in Japan do. Nothing I guess. Wacky!

[Bzalthek]

Yeah... I'm not sure where it came from that they've been farming out shit to China.  Japan, S/E in particular even (no jump for you round eye!), is certainly more than fucked up enough to fail this spectacularly on it's own without the need for intervention from China.

[Reg]

So defensive. Square Enix actually looks worse if they didn't farm out the FFXIV development to the rascally Chinese. Because then they need to explain why their vast legions of artists needed to create so much landscape with cut and paste and why their hordes of programmers couldn't even clone across successful features of FFXI like the auction house.

Fake Edit : I think the rumour about it having been farmed out actually originated in Japan because of some really obvious spelling and grammar errors.  Calling Chocobos "Horse Birds" for example.  Getting a piece of very basic lore like that wrong seems quite strange.

[Simond]

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/11/02/ff14-update-pure-square-enix-quality/
(NWS Sankaku Complex link NWS)

tl;dr - SE added a public "Achievement Tracker" sort of thing which is viewable from out of game. The more normal players (the tiny handful remaining) decide to see just how poopsocky the more rabid fanboys really are, discover that some of the more virulent of them logged in once, a month ago for ten minutes, then quit playing.  

[Chimpy]

Was Grunk one of them?

[palmer_eldritch]

http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/11/02/ff14-update-pure-square-enix-quality/
(NWS Sankaku Complex link NWS)

tl;dr - SE added a public "Achievement Tracker" sort of thing which is viewable from out of game. The more normal players (the tiny handful remaining) decide to see just how poopsocky the more rabid fanboys really are, discover that some of the more virulent of them logged in once, a month ago for ten minutes, then quit playing.  

It sounds from that article as if SquareEnix signed up some Japanese celebrities to write about their experience playing the game and how much they enjoyed it. It's these people that the tracker, perhaps predictably, revealed had not played for more than ten minutes or done the things they claimed to have done. Although the same would probably be true for the forum warriors too.

[tmp]

tl;dr - SE added a public "Achievement Tracker" sort of thing which is viewable from out of game. The more normal players (the tiny handful remaining) decide to see just how poopsocky the more rabid fanboys really are, discover that some of the more virulent of them logged in once, a month ago for ten minutes, then quit playing.  

Well, this kinda relies on these trackers actually working, as opposed to being bugged PoS like rest of the game, but i don't suppose the rabid fanboys will go that particular route in their defense