Thanks to Corinth from Eorzeapedia, there is a new translated article from an issue of Famitsu that features an interview with FFXI’s and now FFXIV’s Global Producer – Sage Sundi. After reading the translated version of the interview with Sage Sundi, however, a sickening feeling of dread came over me.
I am mostly in annoyance over their reasoning over NOT having a global official community forum because of “language barriers”, but going as far as making a claim that they do not want to give up on cross-regional servers because doing so would be a step backwards.
Do not get me wrong here; I like global servers. I have met some decent EU players and I still fondly remember the kindness the JP showed me and my boyfriend when we first started playing FFXI. But I feel that if you are going to choose to do this as a company and create a diverse environment for different regional players, then you should have no reason against creating a single and/or official forum for people to be able to voice their opinions, concerns, or questions.
During a conversation with a fellow FFXIV blog member, the thought came that S-E just wants to control their customers. If this is the case, I think that S-E has failed to understand that their customers are not blithering idiots. People already see the double standards, how illogical S-E’s stance is on the matter and how unbalanced it is given that not even the JP has a proper outlet to express themselves to the dev team.
I think that if they were to create a community, they could easily create different forums on the community to pander to the different languages. Translators could provide communication between the community and dev team, or at least hire people who have more experience/understanding with the game to be a go between. What is more important is that there is a platform that truly allows the customer/player to be able to freely communicate their thoughts and ideas to the dev team, and for us to get simultaneous feedback that feels as though they are sincerely hearing our concerns and addressing them. The dependency on Premier Sites is only putting a barrier between player and company and does not help those who feel discourage to contribute in communities were reputation matters by how many posts you have made vs. the quality of the information and concerns you bring up.
It is clear, however, that both sides of the table are interested in opening up paths of discussion. The dev team has already expressed wanting to get as much feedback from the beta testers to know what works and what doesn’t before things are set into stone. This itself is monumental, but is frustrating in and of itself given that the only road block between both sides wanting to exchange dialogue is Sage Sundi and his team. However, given that the game is not even in its beta stages, there is hope (albeit a rather slim one) that maybe Sage Sundi will have a change of heart and create an official community since he had expressed wanting to search for new ways of communication previously unavailable in FFXI.
Communication between devs and the players isn’t even needed. It’s just unnecessary ‘bonus’ that somehow morphed into being a ‘must’ feature or the MMO won’t be successful.. wrong.
@Nico
The point I was trying to make wasn’t whether or not it will make an MMO successful or not; but to give their customers an official platform for people to express their concerns or questions with the game. Is it needed? In my opinion, I think that it is personal opinion. I think it helps, simply because the idea of going to a go-between site is daunting if not unappealing to some people.
There is also the fact that they said that they were considering it (or at least acknowledging that people are very interested in such a feature) but did not because of language barriers. Must have feature or just an unnecessary bonus, it seems ridiculous to give language barriers as a reason but then turn another cheek and say that they want their customers to play cross region servers without choice.
@Nico
She never said it would make the game successful. She never said it was needed. She expressed that SE were making what she thought were backwards and illogical decisions if they really want to create a good community for the game. And they already said they want to. They said they wanted a community where they could get feedback for the developers. It’s not easier to keep it centralized than to spread it out all over the net? So… unless you’ve got something to say about whether or not they are making decisions that will foster the great central community for FFXIV that they seem to want, who exactly are you talking to? Not even sure if you read the post…
Your opinion that it’s unnecessary is just that. Your opinion. Unless you’re some kind of major player in the industry or an expert on the subject who has researched marketing trends, etc, your words hold about as much weight as hers. So saying she’s flat out wrong when you probably know about as much as she does, and making a statement that isn’t even related to what she was talking about is just weird.
@Calaera
Yeah, I misunderstood the point of the post, sorry.
It’s weird stance to take from the devs for sure, but I don’t think it matters much. As long as SE takes feedback from the players, it shouldn’t be a problem as to where they get their feedback from.
@Nico
Very true. I just wish they would provide a better reason other than language as an excuse or at least provide us with a more centralized (even if it has to be off-site) location for all players of different regions to congregate to and discuss or submit feedback. It is clear that the Japanese want this since they have no Premier Site at the moment, and EN has five different sites they could go to. :
Sundi’s just lazy I guess =P