Yeah, I'm avoiding the other boards and deliberately NOT reading the information posted. Screenshots, yes. Opinions, no. I remember the FFXI community. I was part of the Warhammer Online beta. I remember those communities. I have therefore installed a mental filter that exchanges the text of anyone involved with the beta who I don't already trust the opinion of (i.e. the members of the RPC) with this:
I wouldn't worry too much at this point. Even if they do push things not totally ready and give us patches up the arse in the first few weeks, it could be a lot worse. I point to the example of Warhammer Online. We were promised independent cities for each faction, we were promised massive, world-spanning events...we got two cities. The other four got cut with the promise of "we'll add them in later". They didn't. Ever. SE are going to leave in some stuff that pisses us the hell off. The linkshell thing will probably remain. I see them taking an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality here and from all the FFXI feedback I saw developers get through Q&A sessions I don't remember it ever coming up. So they probably didn't rate it as a high priority to change. For better or worse, SE seem to be ignoring what a lot of other MMOs have done in favor of learning from their own past experiences with FFXI. How effective that strategy is remains to be seen.
I also don't think it's fair to evaluate everything as a package. Granted, I've not been in the beta myself but the few snippets I've picked up as well as some of the earlier comments in this thread make it sound like SE tested one area, then shut it back down in order to test another. This makes sense to me. Evaluate the different pieces separately in closed beta, work on the issues then test them as a more complete package in open beta. Arma's point about the difference in Guildleve cooldown between Alpha and Beta is a good example of this.
Bottom line, don't get disheartened. Because at the end of the day, all the other stuff is just gravy. We're not like most of the people who will be playing this game. How many of us would have stuck out FFXI as long as we did without the RP communities we were parts of? There will be aggravations within FFXIV, but all I've seen thus far indicates it's by and large significantly improved over FFXI. And thanks to the efforts here (and largely thanks to Castiel), we've managed to vastly improve the one thing in FFXI that really kept most of us coming back. The RP community. That's there and rocking.
Who's awesome?
You're awesome.
I'm awesome.
We're all awesome.
I wouldn't worry too much at this point. Even if they do push things not totally ready and give us patches up the arse in the first few weeks, it could be a lot worse. I point to the example of Warhammer Online. We were promised independent cities for each faction, we were promised massive, world-spanning events...we got two cities. The other four got cut with the promise of "we'll add them in later". They didn't. Ever. SE are going to leave in some stuff that pisses us the hell off. The linkshell thing will probably remain. I see them taking an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" mentality here and from all the FFXI feedback I saw developers get through Q&A sessions I don't remember it ever coming up. So they probably didn't rate it as a high priority to change. For better or worse, SE seem to be ignoring what a lot of other MMOs have done in favor of learning from their own past experiences with FFXI. How effective that strategy is remains to be seen.
I also don't think it's fair to evaluate everything as a package. Granted, I've not been in the beta myself but the few snippets I've picked up as well as some of the earlier comments in this thread make it sound like SE tested one area, then shut it back down in order to test another. This makes sense to me. Evaluate the different pieces separately in closed beta, work on the issues then test them as a more complete package in open beta. Arma's point about the difference in Guildleve cooldown between Alpha and Beta is a good example of this.
Bottom line, don't get disheartened. Because at the end of the day, all the other stuff is just gravy. We're not like most of the people who will be playing this game. How many of us would have stuck out FFXI as long as we did without the RP communities we were parts of? There will be aggravations within FFXIV, but all I've seen thus far indicates it's by and large significantly improved over FFXI. And thanks to the efforts here (and largely thanks to Castiel), we've managed to vastly improve the one thing in FFXI that really kept most of us coming back. The RP community. That's there and rocking.
Who's awesome?
You're awesome.
I'm awesome.
We're all awesome.