Quote:

After three long years Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn released worldwide, starting the uphill battle to redeem itself after the disastrous launch of the original game in 2010.

To celebrate the occasion a launch event was held in Tokyo, where the core members of the team were introduced and given a chance to say a few words to the fans. During the event, after a hilarious message by former president Yoichi “Uncle Housing” Wada (the reason behind the nickname is that he always used to show off classified housing artwork during the Letter from the Producer Live broadcasts) a short trailer showcasing the housing feature and a wide variety of furniture was shown. Housing is scheduled to be implemented in patch 2.1.

In addition to that, Naoki Yoshida held a final speech during which he apologized for the server issues happened during the three days of early access, remembered the three years of hard work gone into creating the game and thanked the fans for their patience and faith in the development team, asking them to continue supporting the team. In a definitely emotional moment, the ever-smiling producer was moved to tears as he tried hard to keep his composure (You can check the translation of the whole event made by Reinheart Valentine here. The relevant part is towards the end).

Those like me that followed the game since the previous launch through all the problems and hardships, won’t have any difficulty in understanding how he felt. I have to admit that I teared up a little bit myself. When I interviewed Yoshida-san at Gamescom it was very easy to perceive how much he cares about the game and its community.

You can check out both the housing trailer and Yoshida-san’s final moving speech below. They’re both worth watching.

(08-27-2013, 12:28 PM)allgivenover Wrote: http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/08/27/final-fantasy-xiv-a-realm-reborn-launch-event-highlights-housing-trailer-and-naoki-yoshidas-teary-final-speech/

Quote:

After three long years Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn released worldwide, starting the uphill battle to redeem itself after the disastrous launch of the original game in 2010.

To celebrate the occasion a launch event was held in Tokyo, where the core members of the team were introduced and given a chance to say a few words to the fans. During the event, after a hilarious message by former president Yoichi “Uncle Housing” Wada (the reason behind the nickname is that he always used to show off classified housing artwork during the Letter from the Producer Live broadcasts) a short trailer showcasing the housing feature and a wide variety of furniture was shown. Housing is scheduled to be implemented in patch 2.1.

In addition to that, Naoki Yoshida held a final speech during which he apologized for the server issues happened during the three days of early access, remembered the three years of hard work gone into creating the game and thanked the fans for their patience and faith in the development team, asking them to continue supporting the team. In a definitely emotional moment, the ever-smiling producer was moved to tears as he tried hard to keep his composure (You can check the translation of the whole event made by Reinheart Valentine here. The relevant part is towards the end).

Those like me that followed the game since the previous launch through all the problems and hardships, won’t have any difficulty in understanding how he felt. I have to admit that I teared up a little bit myself. When I interviewed Yoshida-san at Gamescom it was very easy to perceive how much he cares about the game and its community.

You can check out both the housing trailer and Yoshida-san’s final moving speech below. They’re both worth watching.

[youtube]-SWSMdCMyvE[/youtube]

Show Content

Rough translation courtesy of reddit
Rough translation:

I'm tearing up guys.
First of all I want to say that I am sorry for us having to go into maintenance for the NA/EU servers. I want to apologize for taking precious time away from players during early access. From here on out is a long journey. [starts to tear up, crowd gives encouragement]

Its almost been 3 years since I took over development for FFXIV. At the time I hadn't been involved with the game that much, and I thought that it wouldn't be that big of a deal to remake it. I have always loved final fantasy and have always loved mmo's. [starts to tear up again] At the time, I gathered the team together and told them that we were going to remake the game just two days before we announced it to all of you on December 2nd.

I still remember it now, but at the time, we were in a studio like this one, and Soken (current director of game music) was in the background checking my mic levels. I clearly remember him standing there give me a guts pose (one fist in the air, think rocky) but at the time I had the same kind of worries as the players; how is this really going to turn out?... Isn't this going to be impossible.... [pauses]

But one by one I got support from all of you. It was said in the questions earlier, but normally an mmo takes 4-5 years to create and carefully plan. Earlier, Wada said his role is a tank. I had the same idea of being a tank when making this game. Up until now I have gone through each facet of the game (implies that he also bore all of the responsibility).

But I am not saying that it is just me who made FFXIV ARR. This was all due to the players around the world, the core staff here, and the hundreds of staff not here today. I came here today planning on not crying, but today we have finally taken the first step with ffxiv arr. And it is only the first step. Honestly I don't think we have any time to rest. We are working on patches and expansions.

More than anything I want to thank the players, especially those who started from the original FFXIV, and those that have joined our community. Thank you all for all of your support so far. I only hope that we have released a game that will not bring shame to square enix. from here on out there is no finishing an mmorpg. FFXIV:ARR is not a game that we made alone, but a game that we made along with all of you. From here on out we home to keep creating this game from here on out, from this place with you for 5-10 years.

I again want to say thank you for all you have done so far and we hope for your support in the future.

(08-28-2013, 06:18 AM)LeCard Wrote: Yoshi P. is awesome, and if they ever figure out how to channel his love for the game into their tech support they will never again face the sort of anger that has been so prevalent during P4 and EA. I think that if they had shown his level of commitment to making this game awesome in their response to the NA/EU problems early on we wouldn't have so many people upset. I have never been upset with yoshi, and every time I see something from him it makes me want to play this game even more. I think it helps knowing that he is a gamer himself, and wants to enjoy this game as much as the rest of us. sqeenix biggest hurdle is going to be their response teams, and once they learn/train everyone to have a timely response to player/server problems this game will soar.

TL;DR

Yoshi P is awesome and we need more game designers like him.