FFXIV Devs: More Time Would Help, but It’s Never Enough

PC Gamer chatted with Final Fantasy XIV developers Hiromichi Tanaka and Sage Sundi recently to probe a bit into what went wrong with the launch of their newest MMO. The developers acknowledge they could’ve added more content if they had more time, but you can never really “finish” an MMO.

“Because it’s an MMO, time is always not enough. We always need more time, especially because we expect players to enjoy the game for five years to ten years. Release timing is only one of the points that we go past – it’s not a final goal we achieve,” Tanaka said. “So we will continue working on it with the players, and listening to them. This will continue, and the development team is really working hard to improve the game.”

Sundi then jokingly forwarded a workable timelime.

“If we had three more years [laughs], we would’ve had three more years worth of implemented content,” Sundi said. “But we had six months [from the first stage of alpha testing], so that’s where we are with the game.”

Aside from the lack of content, another common complaint is the game’s dated interface. Unsurprisingly, Tanaka hasn’t played World of Warcraft, and intentionally did not want to draw design from other games.

“One of the main focuses we had for FFXIV was introducing the excitement of MMOs to Final Fantasy fans, so that’s why we didn’t want to have a copy of other existing MMOs,” Tanaka said. “We don’t think the amount of experience of the development team has of MMOs was actually affecting in any way.”

Check the full interview for more explanations for the game’s state and planned expansions of content.

[via PC Gamer]