Not happy with XIV as it is right now?

Well.. SE hears you and responds by firing Komoto's ass as the project director. I'm actually hilariously amused by this, because Nobuaki Komoto was the same bastard that originally directed CoP, with all its annoying level capped crap and ridiculously hard content that had to be repeatedly nerfed over time to make it anywhere near bearable, not to mention all the WORLD TOUR shit that CoP was full of to get anything done.. So yeah, fuck that guy and good riddance.

Also: Free Trial Extended INDEFINITELY - SE is keeping the free period up until further notice.

Only bad news about any of this was that the PS3 version got delayed again.. It's not going to make the original March release, which sucks since I was hoping for a certain someone or two to join in on the fun then.. But meh, it's hardly a shocker with such a big management change. (A lot more than the director changed, they actually shifted a bunch of new people in if you look here. A little sad to see Komoto wasn't taken off the project altogether, which I actually did not notice when I originally read the news, but I'm glad he's no longer directing the game at least.)

Also: Free Trial Extended INDEFINITELY - SE is keeping the free period up until further notice.Coralina

This is not a good sign for any MMO, but especially for a new one.

Tell that to WoW. Same damn thing happened at WoW's launch.
I'm glad SE has the balls to do this, same as Blizzard did when they screwed up their own launch all those years back. Besides I think practically everyone bitching and panicking tends to forget, this is a game with a mainstream title and part of a famous numbered series. Furthermore, it has a crapton money invested into it. SE isn't going to let this game go belly up, they'd never live it down in any shape or form (more importantly, their investors would never let them live it down). What they're doing at this point is smart, and it's good news not bad. Charging for the game at this point on the otherhand, would be the biggest clusterfuck of a mistake they could ever do, and they know that.

They have to work to make back their investment after releasing the game too early, and they took steps toward ensuring this work gets done and gets done right by changing management.

The other option is to switch to micro-transactions like most of the "free-to-play" MMORPGs, but I like the "charge by use" system SE drew up. Even if I never play FFXIV, I want to see that system be successful so it could be used more in the future.

Basically, I want to be able to pre-pay and recharge my FFXI minutes, with roll-over.

Besides I think practically everyone bitching and panicking tends to forget, this is a game with a mainstream title and part of a famous numbered series.

They have to work to make back their investment after releasing the game too early, and they took steps toward ensuring this work gets done and gets done right by changing management.Coralina

Didn't mean my post as bitching or whatever, it's just generally not a good sign for any MMO to have unlimited free trials. I did not follow WoW early on so I can't comment on what they did, but the only trial I've ever seen for WoW is the 14 day free trial, not unlimited. Now, if that's what SE means by this unlimited free trial period (that is, an unlimited number of free accounts, not permanently free trial accounts a la Warhammer Online) then it's not as bad as I had thought.

Here's hoping the new management does a better job handling FFXIV than the beta management did. As an active member of the beta, it was absurd how many suggestions and problems were entirely ignored by SE staff, despite being repeatedly brought up by beta testers. The end product was rushed and ill planned, lessons I fervently hope the new management learn from.

I think what they mean by the indefinitely free trial status of the game is that they recognize that the game is still unreleasable, it's beta-quality software. If they try to charge for it now, they will drive everybody away. So instead, it's free, they will gain a loyal following as they get the game to a sellable state and then they will be able to sell to already satisfied customers instead of a bunch of people that feel like they're getting ripped off.

I'm optimist overall. hurray for FFXI discount + free FFXIV ! Indeed its never good looking these kinds of measure, but i'm looking at what has been done in one month (the november update) and its encouraging. Interface issues fixed, performance increased, lag reduced, lots of new features requested by the community, new xp gain system, etc. More comming in a couple days. All they need to do now is to adjust the xp gain vs mob strenght /nb of party members ratio to better support the new xp system.

Right now, i'm taking my sweet time making a shitton of gil and pushing classes to 20. Patience for the new content will reward me in the end.

Didn't mean my post as bitching or whatever, it's just generally not a good sign for any MMO to have unlimited free trials..Xionis

I wasn't necessarily saying you were bitching, only stating that a lot of people that are bitching tend to forget these things. I apologize if I didn't make that clear enough. It's also not unlimited, it's just indefinite for the time being. In other words "we're going to stop announcing extensions to the trial period and just leave it going until further notice, because hey, we screwed up and we're not making you pay for the game until we're satisfied with the product."

I did not follow WoW early on so I can't comment on what they did, but the only trial I've ever seen for WoW is the 14 day free trial, not unlimited.Xionis

When WoW launched, it was incredibly buggy a game and terribly unstable. The game was horrifically flawed and the servers were crashing constantly.. Blizzard kept extending the free period up until they got to a certain point and said "Okay, we're extending the trial indefinitely until we fix everything."

This was my point with all the bitching and naysaying about XIV. People look at how it is now and automatically assume it's doomed. But of all MMO's out there, the top dog on the market had its own trainwreck to start out with. In fact, I don't know of any MMO I've ever played that didn't have a rocky start, XI included. Call me sensitive on the subject, it's not so much that I'm defensive of XIV either even (I really don't WANT to defend them when they released this game too early as they did, they screwed up and that's a fact), I just hate pessimism in general when history seems to show that crappy beginnings for an MMO isn't all that abnormal an occurrence.

Now, if that's what SE means by this unlimited free trial period (that is, an unlimited number of free accounts, not permanently free trial accounts a la Warhammer Online) then it's not as bad as I had thought.Xionis

All they're doing is extending the initial 30 day free period you get when you first buy the game to an undetermined period of time. In other words, they're not charging us monthly until the new management has a chance to fix the clusterfuck that was releasing this game so early. (They were reeeeeeally stupid for releasing XIV as early as they did, that can never be said enough)

Here's hoping the new management does a better job handling FFXIV than the beta management did. As an active member of the beta, it was absurd how many suggestions and problems were entirely ignored by SE staff, despite being repeatedly brought up by beta testers. The end product was rushed and ill planned, lessons I fervently hope the new management learn from.Xionis

I agree wholeheartedly and hope the same.

I'm optimist overall. hurray for FFXI discount + free FFXIV ! Indeed its never good looking these kinds of measure, but i'm looking at what has been done in one month (the november update) and its encouraging. Interface issues fixed, performance increased, lag reduced, lots of new features requested by the community, new xp gain system, etc. More comming in a couple days. All they need to do now is to adjust the xp gain vs mob strenght /nb of party members ratio to better support the new xp system.

Right now, i'm taking my sweet time making a shitton of gil and pushing classes to 20. Patience for the new content will reward me in the end.Airaa

It's not good that they had to do this, no. But it is good that they are doing it. They'd be shooting themselves in the foot and screwing those of us that actually enjoy the game if they started charging monthly for it right now.. So having the guts to do this is a positive thing in my opinion, it shows dedication toward fixing their product, and that's something I'm happy about..

Also yeah, I'm taking my sweet time progressing through the game too. I'm honestly having a lot of fun, and the last patch did indeed do wonders for the playability of the game. Looking forward to the patches (we're apparently getting two now instead of just one) we get this month..