“As an MMO player myself, I know the greed!”
It was met with a somewhat mixed reaction.
How much of that do you listen to?
And how much will that impact future expansions?
For us in the development team, the story did progress as we planned.
In this regard, it is a little bit similar to 2.0.
And I completely understand where they are coming from as well.
So it was a conscious effort on my part to experiment and see how the balance would play out.
I think moving forward, we would have to consider certain situations.
Some people might be saying, ‘Hey, why isn’t Y’shtola there?’
This is something that we will need to consider moving forward.
You’re very close to the community, such as with Fan Fest and livestreams.
Is there a danger of listening too much to players?
Why have they adjusted my job?'
And I have encountered this kind of situation time and time again over the years.
Then players themselves start to suspect developers are not even playing their own game.
I’ve encountered this kind of situation again and again during my time as a player.
But players need to understand, why are those rules there?
Why are things nerfed for a certain reason?
They would question why those things happen.
At the same time, it’s not good that a certain job might be too strong.
By going through this process of communication, we can also see the aspects they enjoy.
However, we had already identified some actions which would inevitably be a cause of stress for players.
However, I believe probably there was some misunderstanding on the community’s part.
With each expansion the game has grown massively: there are new characters, new areas, new jobs.
In Final Fantasy 14, we have a lot of different content.
Players can enjoy the game in a lot of different ways.
And again, we have a group of players really interested in fishing.
They wouldn’t say that.
Should I do this?
Or should I do that?'
I think doing this is necessary to continue as an MMO.
Can we expect to go through all of them, and all of the elements, over time?
Yoshida:It might be possible, but on the other hand, it might not be possible.
Possibly we would be going down the route of a multi-universe, so things involved in parallel worlds.
Oh and I forgot also one additional element: there is still the past and the future.
Dawntrail also marks the release of the game on Xbox.
How has that helped to grow the success of the game and grow the audience?
Do you feel there is a market for Japanese games on Xbox?
We’ve had a pretty good response on Xbox.
I think this is where we would take more communication and work on establishing the community moving forward.
And this is important, not for Final Fantasy 14, but, I would say, forSquare Enix.
Because of that, it’s really a tough point in terms of a business standpoint.
However, at Square Enix, we have been changing our policy.
So I hope players will look forward to future things to come on the platform.
This interview has been edited slightly for clarity.
