Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

Maybe I'm missing the larger point but what do people generally expect Yoshi-P to do? He isn't just some guy and this isn't just some indie game. He's in charge of a huge division of a huge video game company and FFXIV represents a significant portion of Square's value. He isn't going to go on a livestream and suggest "Total Tranny Death, Race War now" or anything that could possibly be misconstrued as "harassment is OK". He's quite literally just doing his job of "direct all complaints to me, I'm in charge and am responsible, etc, etc".

He's not going to bad mouth the game by any stretch and never has, even when parts of it weren't great. He also likely wasn't doing the hiring for voice actors (and certainly not the EN ones) but doesn't want to badmouth or undermine the people who did sign off on it that ultimately report to him. He's smart enough to avoid the needless controversy

Dawntrail has some pretty glaring issues outside of Wuk Lamat and 7.1/7.2/7.3 are all likely already written (at least the Tuyiollai parts) but I fully expect the Wuk Lamat arc to be fully supported and then sunset and not really referenced all that much (see also Lyse, Minfilia) outside of the occasional unvoiced callback.

I also get the impression that FFXIV and FFXVI struggled with having two titles being worked on at once - something I doubt the core business wants to try again any time soon. I hope Dawntrail was an experiment over at SQENIX and a placeholder between the Endwalker Arc and the Start of the New Arc because Dawntrail was very uninspired in a way that if 8.0 is bad it will do real damage to the brand.
 
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Übertroon said:
I can't stop laughing at that image.
The stick arms, the clothes, the greasy receding hair, the facemask in anno 2024 to hide the man jaw.

9 spheen out of 10 lissun tu me
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And the best part is, he still can’t even hide it. His eyes show that he’s a man.
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His hair is both a mixture of extremely dry and extremely greasy. It makes me lol each time. He needs 20 layers of makeup and a lot of filters/photoshop to slightly fool anyone, and it looks like he’s not putting any effort into the former.
Kane Lives said:
Are they trying to bait people with callbacks to the actual, good parts of the story now?

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Source

You leave my nigga Elidibus alone now.
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This game has become so soulless. I’m glad I won’t resub.
 
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Baguette Child said:
As far as I'm concerned, after Endwalker my WoL retired quietly to his little shack in The Goblet and did fuck all for the rest of his life. He earned it. Adventuring across latin america with a talking cat? No, no, that doesn't ring a bell. You must be thinking of a different adventurer.
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Funnily enough, finishing up the Endwalker MSQ really did feel like a solid enough ending to FFXIV for me. Wasn't perfect, but it still felt like a solid enough conclusion to the overarching plot; maybe get some of the lingering threads from the MSQ lined out and solved, and it would've been just fine.

Instead, we got the Void arc, which... wasn't the best handled, but still decent. But then we get Dawntrail and Wuk, and it's just been a trashfire. Genuine shame, frankly.
 
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LL was early this morning for me, video summary.

Chaotic Raid and pvp balance changes sound interesting, the rest is same old, same old.

Tanner Glass said:
what do people generally expect Yoshi-P to do?
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Whatever corpospeak is for "we fucked up bad, we'll do our best to self correct" would go a long way.
Instead we get "You just can't comprehend my genius. Eat more shit you bigots".
 
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Tanner Glass said:
Maybe I'm missing the larger point but what do people generally expect Yoshi-P to do? He isn't just some guy and this isn't just some indie game. He's in charge of a huge division of a huge video game company and FFXIV represents a significant portion of Square's value. He isn't going to go on a livestream and suggest "Total Tranny Death, Race War now" or anything that could possibly be misconstrued as "harassment is OK". He's quite literally just doing his job of "direct all complaints to me, I'm in charge and am responsible, etc, etc".
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The idea that the only positions that can be taken are full cock gobbling or TTD is asinine.

You could just not speak about the alleged harassment the idiot hired by the unit you're in charge of is experiencing (because it doesn't exist) and quietly clean house, you could even speak in general terms without bringing it to attention just who is allegedly being harassed; you can talk about how you understand that the story was poorly received and future patches will hopefully address concerns and loose ends without mentioning that you will be quadrupling down on fucking wuk lamat and implying the issue was that players are too fucking stupid to get her.

Tanner Glass said:
He's not going to bad mouth the game by any stretch and never has, even when parts of it weren't great. He also likely wasn't doing the hiring for voice actors (and certainly not the EN ones) but doesn't want to badmouth or undermine the people who did sign off on it that ultimately report to him. He's smart enough to avoid the needless controversy
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Sometimes silence and internally cleaning house is the best choice you can make, it was this time, he didn't take it.

I don't see him avoiding the needless controversy by defending these choices, avoiding the controversy would involve SILENCE, he's fueling it.
 
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ChromaQuack said:
You could just not speak about the alleged harassment the idiot hired by the unit you're in charge of is experiencing (because it doesn't exist) and quietly clean house, you could even speak in general terms without bringing it to attention just who is allegedly being harassed; you can talk about how you understand that the story was poorly received and future patches will hopefully address concerns and loose ends without mentioning that you will be quadrupling down on fucking wuk lamat and implying the issue was that players are too fucking stupid to get her.
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Clean house how?

Wuk Lamat's VA was clearly miscast, but who made the mistake? The studio "she" belongs to, the HR people, the casting director, the narrative team and was it a mistake that slipped through because everyone was doing double duty with FFXVI? Was it a decision that came from the finance team to try and "cheap out" on Voice Acting now that some of the main cast (G'raha Tia, Alphinaud, Y'shtola) are getting much more famous and expensive?

It's a lesson - they made too many questionable decisions and it affected the final product but there's not really any one thing you could point to as the cause or one person you can fire and wash your hands of it. It's also not the -core- problem of Dawntrail, it's not like you take Wuk out and the game skyrockets up to greatness - it was flat in almost all areas.

ChromaQuack said:
Sometimes silence and internally cleaning house is the best choice you can make, it was this time, he didn't take it.

I don't see him avoiding the needless controversy by defending these choices, avoiding the controversy would involve SILENCE, he's fueling it.
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He still has to do press and part of FFXIV's retention is going to be his ability to navigate the community's reactions to various updates. If Dawntrail is mediocre (and it is) - he needs to get out there and make a case to the fanbase that the team still knows what it's doing.

In the actual interview (https://checkpointgaming.net/featur...ida-on-the-design-and-reception-of-dawntrail/) he addresses the bad pacing, including different things they could do moving forward (which I agree with); the issue with the premise (which I agree with); and the lack of character depth for the main character (which I agree with). He did everything he was supposed to do and he's been riding this wave for ~10 years.

I also don't blame him (or whoever pre-plans his interview schedule) for getting in front of the Twitter Drama when at "Checkpoint Gaming" and thinking that the fat pronoun lady might steer the conversation there in a worse way if you don't get to it first

If you don't want to read the entire "About us" section, here are the highlights.

There are other issues however that are not discussed as often as they should be. Sexuality, diversity and the importance of LGBTQIA+ representation has been an ongoing discussion and platform for us, and it’s something incredibly important to focus on. The best way to describe what we do on Checkpoint Gaming is this: we want to inform and engage with gamers like you on important issues; issues that you care about.
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(SHE / HER)
 
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Tanner Glass said:
Clean house how?
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Impaling Hiroi and flying his corpse as a flag at SE HQ for starters. Telling the troon to tone down the antagonizing attitude to zero under threat of getting axed and industry blacklisted for seconds. This is something even Kate understood since she went protected soon after this shitheap of an expansion released.
Tanner Glass said:
but who made the mistake?
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Looking at where in the structure a cog fucked up is what people in charge have to do when things go bad, delegation of responsibilities does not negate your own. If whoever is in charge of this cannot do it then they should step down or call for an HR audit.
Tanner Glass said:
I also don't blame him (or whoever pre-plans his interview schedule)
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Don't do the interview at an obviously biased rag when you are having a controversy involving a topic they are touchy about or do a pre-approved questions interview, blacklist their ass if they don't comply. Being as big of a company as SE is they can throw their weight around like this.

I get where you're coming from (SE obviously wants to appeal to everyone as that means more money), I just can't agree with the way they have chosen to do damage control, it seems to invite further speculation and his public statements about how "WL is such a deep character that you just didn't understand" are poison to the brand; while WL might not be the only issue in DT she is the face and mascot of what is wrong with the expansion, someone as experienced in PR as he is should understand this.
King Of Braves said:
These stupid faggots really just don't get that the vast majority of us will simply unsub and do something else.
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FTFY.
 
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ChromaQuack said:
Impaling Hiroi and flying his corpse as a flag at SE HQ for starters. Telling the troon to tone down the antagonizing attitude to zero under threat of getting axed and industry blacklisted for seconds.
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This isn't really the way corporations do things.

If you lean on the loud tranny - she is going to scream, cry, and try and create all kinds of drama that's going to distract from your brand. She is clearly not a professional and isn't worth engaging with in that way. The character is flat and is already part of the story - try and fix it where you can and then just let them ride off into the sunset when it doesn't work.

Giving the tranny super special negative attention is exactly what it wants (see also - any tranny on this website) and Square is smart to just give boilerplate answers and not delve into that absolute shitpile.

This isn't new for FFXIV - they've pivoted out of story threads before (see also - Yda/Lyse, further Dalmasca adventures with actual Fran, and so on) and this isn't any different. The real test is going to be 7.3, to see where the Tural arc "ends" and how vital Wuk Lamat is to the second arc. I'd make a very strong bet that Wuk Lamat will be sidelined and the Alexandria arc will be much more vital to 8.0 - but that remains to be seen.

Hiroi clearly made mistakes - but where the fuck were Yoshida, Nishikawa, and/or Koji when this shit was getting drafted and signed off on? My guess was being swamped with FFXVI shit but they can't come out and say that (and it would not have been Yoshida's decision in any case).

I doubt that Hiroi went over to voice casting and said "I made this super boisterous main character, think of Luffy from One Piece. Can you get me the worst tranny voice actor you can with 0 range? Thanks!" and that was that.

This was a company wide mistake - but probably one that was made by the former CEO and not the current one, so there isn't even a scalp to take. They learned that while Business Unit 3 is great - they cannot possibly take on two projects at a time and that BU1 should probably expand instead for single player FF titles (even if they borrow some BU3 people during downtime).

ChromaQuack said:
Don't do the interview at an obviously biased rag when you are having a controversy involving a topic they are touchy about or do a pre-approved questions interview, blacklist their ass if they don't comply. Being as big of a company as SE is they can throw their weight around like this.

I get where you're coming from, I just can't agree with the way they have chosen to do damage control, it seems to invite further speculation and his public statements about how "WL is such a deep character that you just didn't understand" are poison to the brand; while WL might not be the only issue in DT she is the face and mascot of what is wrong with the expansion, someone as experienced in PR as he is should understand this.
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Who knows when it was scheduled though? You can't cancel interviews because of minor twitter drama - because then you'd never do interviews. I'm also not sure how much of a rag Checkpoint is but I'm not sure how often they even bother to do Oceania-area interviews.

It would be nice if they threw their weight around a bit more - but it's not crazy to think they're a bit gunshy after starting down the barrel of almost collapsing as a company barely a decade ago. As much praise as Yoshida gets - he's still the dopey guy who cries on stage at major events from time to time. I can't imagine him being able to throw his weight around and is probably why he was passed over for President when the old one stepped down.

I get where you're coming from though - it's a bit embarrassing to have FFXIV get dragged though dumb twitter drama and it would be nice if Yoshida had the even 1/10th of the Freedom and/or Arrogance that the WoW team has with regards to the state of the game.
 
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The problem, and we've seen it creep up a couple of times now in various interviews, is that the gaming media can smell the blood in the water and won't stop asking Yoshi P about the horrible 'death threats' the troon is getting on social media. It's the Wikipedia method of manufacturing a controversy -- ask 'the source' enough times and it becomes 'official' that trooncat is living in fear for their life.

Yoshi P is a manager and is a company representative and is likely not terminally online and scouring Twitter 24/7. It is likely he's just taking what's being said to him at face value and reacting accordingly. Going 'no comment' when asked point blank about 'death threats' is just going to be chumming the proverbial waters.

It's also clear the don't do a good job of vetting who they deal with. There's a couple of shitheads who somehow got thrown onto the media tour in the past who absolutely should not have been, and it seems like if you have a URL and/or are able to get press credentials at these various conventions (which, given how much cronyism is prevalent in these circles, should be piss simple) you're in.
 
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Well Intentioned said:
It's also clear the don't do a good job of vetting who they deal with. There's a couple of shitheads who somehow got thrown onto the media tour in the past who absolutely should not have been, and it seems like if you have a URL and/or are able to get press credentials at these various conventions (which, given how much cronyism is prevalent in these circles, should be piss simple) you're in.
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I like how terrible the media tour is. I like that it's not just "Our favorite/largest content creators" and tends to run the gamut - but this is the second edge of that sword, some absolute dogshit interviews.
 
Up to the level 97-98 quests and I didn’t think this msq would become even more of a chore to play through. Meanwhile in EW when I reached the level x.7-.8 portion of the msq (which was Elpis) I was genuinely invested in the plot and characters. That section had a bunch asspulls but they were fun and interesting asspulls and I liked the characters enough to let the dumber parts of it slide. Meanwhile the DT equivalent of that stretch is just….boring and I can’t bring myself to care about any of the characters and the asspulls put me to sleep. On another note the level x.7-x.8 portions of Stormblood, its equivalent with the Doma section, was ironically when its msq peaked.

It’s not all bad though and i’m still having fun outside the msq. I liked the cowboy trip with Erenville even if it felt like pure filler and the boss encounters in the dungeons are fun. I’m looking forward to the Final Fantasy XI raids even if it’s just for the fan service. Koana is a good character and i hope we get more of him in the patches.
 
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Tanner Glass said:
I like how terrible the media tour is. I like that it's not just "Our favorite/largest content creators" and tends to run the gamut - but this is the second edge of that sword, some absolute dogshit interviews.
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Yeah, I mean, it's cool that they give that level of accessibility. But I'd rather more interviews like Preach's rather than the above linked interview where it starts with the interviewer straight up fellating Yoshi P before getting into the actual interview.
 
Wow I'm really glad they dedicated a part of the liveletter meant to be about the 7.1 content patch to shit nobody who actually plays the game cares about like hair products and camping supplies, and shilling cash shop-exlusive glams for a collab with a dead FF gacha game. Definitely the kind of information that needed to be in the 7.1 liveletter!

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Decided to put the Carpenter grind on hold and switched to Goldsmith. Somehow also managed to level Blacksmith to 50 right along with that(would have been nice if Blacksmith and Armorer worked like Scholar/Summoner and leveling one levels the other)
 
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