The Alpha Test has begun and things are running... well, they're
running. Information continues to pour out through Japanese
publications, and this week we have an exclusive interview between
Famitsu and Final Fantasy XIV Producer Hiromichi Tanaka and his faithful
director, Nobuaki Komoto.
Discuss this in the ZAM Forums!-
The alpha test has begun and would it be accurate to say that the whole
world is watching? At this stage of testing there is only a limited
amount of players, but the development team has taken their first big
step. I'd like to talk about how you feel the test is progressing, and
what you hope to accomplish as you go forward.
Tanaka: The current situation for the alpha test is
that we have testing time split up into 4 hour blocks for each region --
Japan, North America and Europe. Admittedly, we have not stabilized
the server, and the game is not fully playable yet. We've been causing
some headaches for our test players who were lucky enough to get chosen
for the alpha, but with each update we are improving the game.

- What is causing the server instability?
Tanaka: We have the same amount of testers in each
region, but from our experience beta-testing FFXI, we figured only 50%
of players would be logging in at the same time. Additionally, the
testers in Japan were all selected as passionate FFXI fans, so they are
eager to play, and the percentage of them logging in is extremely high.
The servers don't crash as often during North American and European
tests.
For the April 15th update, we extended the amount of time between
logins required to remain in queue to 10 minutes and introduced a system
to display your place in that queue. It allowed people who were
waiting to get in to have some visual indication of their progress, and
it let us organize the traffic better.
Komoto: As for the test itself, we sincerely
apologize that everyone has not been able to enjoy the game to their
satisfaction. We are also extremely grateful for all the feedback and
opinions we have received so far.

- What are your impressions of the feedback you have
received?
Komoto: They are certainly much different then what
we hear from the development side. They notice a lot of little things
that we don't. In addition, there are some interesting differences
between the opinions of the different regions. Personally, it's been a
big change for me, as I had been away from the action for so long
working on FFXIV. Now that people are logging in and the alpha test is
in motion, I'm finding myself back interacting with the developers and
with management -- it feels like I'm home again.

- Have the developers been logging into the game?
Komoto: We want too, but we still haven't increased
the amount of people who can access the game, so we're trying to
restrain ourselves. (laughs) We want as many players as possible to get a
chance to play.
Tanaka: During that first test, I was the only one
at my PC trying to fight through the crowds to login my character.
(laughs)

- Really! (laughs) Would we know it was your character if we
saw it?
Tanaka: I was logging in as "Azagba Tanaka," so you
would probably have a clue. (laughs) We can see chat logs and such from
the developer side, but it's difficult to get a full picture of what
players are doing from that alone. Therefore, I want to login as a
representative and get an unfiltered look at exactly what the situation
is like in-game.

- The Producer has to do it himself, right? (laughs) Have
there been any particular opinions from the players that have left an
impression?
Komoto: The alpha version is still focusing on basic
controls and movement, so there have been comments that the response
time is slow, or such and such command needs fixing. We expected some
control issues and let people know on the tester site to tell us, for
example, if they were difficult to understand without a tutorial. As we
expected, many people confirmed that they are tough to grasp. This is
something we feel needs to be addressed before release.
Tanaka: We are diligently investigating any issues
that get a lot of feedback. One interesting thing to note is the
difference in the amount of feedback posted to the Japan, North America
and Europe tester forums. Japan has about 5000 posts. Europe and North
America have a whole digit more with 19,000 and 25,000, respectively.
The amount of testers in each region is the same, but we are seeing 5 NA
posts for every single JP post, which really highlights the cultural
differences of the regions. Also, North American posters tend to write
many more suggestions. It's like, "Listen to my ideas!" (laughs)

- Meaning, Japanese players are a little more "graceful"
would you say?
Komoto: More like they take their time and try to
get a full understanding of the current situation. We thought they
would have more scathing feedback for us, but it hasn't turned out that
way. It feels more like they are looking out for us than trying to
criticize.

- So, what you're saying is, you don't exactly have the time
to be all warm and fuzzy with the players?
Komoto: It's nice, but it doesn't feel like we have
really accomplished anything yet. (laughs) Though I do enjoy being back
on the management-side of things.
Tanaka: We still have mountains of work to do.
(laughs) We're still putting out pieces of the alpha version and need to
examine what needs changing. Even when the official release comes out,
we have to start preparing for the next project, so I'm not sure we'll
even feel that sense of accomplishment and closure then.

- But that's part of working on an MMO -- it's never really
"finished."
Komoto: Putting together an event where all the fans
come together really gives us that sense of accomplishment though.
It's like, "We did it!" (laughs)
Tanaka: I get that feeling everytime I log in with
the players and watch them enjoy the game. The alpha version isn't at
that stage yet, so I'm working hard to get it there.



- Ever since FFXIV was first announced, you have promoted it
as a game that will change and evolve as you take in player feedback.
Is it safe to say this plan has not changed?
Komoto: No, it hasn't. It won't even change once
the game is released and official service begins. There are many things
we want to fix, and we can't just deliver a product with only what we
like. At this stage, we want to know what you want the most. Of course
we don't just want to hear about the bad points, we want to take in and
consider everyone's opinion on the future of the game.

- In other words, during the alpha and planned beta testing
phases, you want players to send you any opinions they might have, no
matter how trivial?
Tanaka: Exactly.
Komoto: As we mentioned, player opinions often
contain things we simply overlook on the developer side. Even before
the alpha started, we posted the play manual and people already had
opinions on that. (laughs) Developers would take a look at what players
noticed and learn things.
Tanaka: Conversely, we are also able to get
confirmation for some of our own assumptions.
Komoto: So there's two goals: Discovering what we
overlook, and confirming our assumptions. That's why every single
comment is important to us.

- Let's move on to talk about the testing schedule. Is it
safe to assume the size and scope of the test is going to increase
gradually?
Tanaka: We're still examining the situation, but at
this initial stage we want to be able to consistently conduct three
tests a week.
Komoto: We feel it's important to maintain server
stability and allow everyone to enjoy the game.
Tanaka: As for the region-based testing, we are
thinking of changing that at some point. There are always people who
just can't fit the testing times into their schedule.

- How long do you plan to run the current alpha test?
Komoto: We had a general idea in the beginning, but
the server stability issues have caused more problems than we could
foresee. We still want to examine players after they have been able to
level their characters a little more.
Tanaka: Actually, we have two patterns set up for
the speed of character growth, so we plan to delete all characters at
some point during the alpha. After we collect data on the currently
implemented pattern, we will wipe everyone and start again with a the
second one in play.

- So, at some points you will have to start over from
scratch.
Komoto: That's right. This isn't limited to the
alpha, but in the beta as well, once things are running smoothly, we
plan to do this multiple times up until the game's release.

- Will you move on to the beta phase once you have fully
examined the growth rate?
Tanaka: Currently, the alpha test takes place on a
single World. The next step is to increase the number of Worlds, which
will multiply the number of testers. That will be the start of what we
call Beta-1, or perhaps Alpha-2.

- The plans change according to the situation.
Tanaka: Depending on what feedback we collect and
how far development advances towards a final product, we can call the
current game a "beta version."

- Currently, regions are seperated during testing, but is
there a time planned when everyone will start playing together?
Tanaka: That will probably happen once the Worlds
are running 24 hours a day. We're currently working towards that.



- How are things going development-wise?
Tanaka: The graphics are pretty much finished.
Next, planners and programmers need to make some final adjustments, but
it's tough to say exactly what percentage is complete. (laughs) Even
with the graphics complete, there are things that need tweaking. For
example, the lighting throughout Limsa Lominsa is going to completely
change.

- Is the general framework of the world complete?
Tanaka: The basics are pretty much done. Like I
mentioned, it's mostly cosmetic changes that are left. (laughs)
System-related things like the user interface, or additional quest
material are still being worked on. If we consider how FFXIV has been
in development for 5 years, we're probably in the final 10% of its
development cycle, which accounts for 50% of the game.
Komoto: With the start of the alpha test, we start
to look at character growth, expanding the world, quests and more.
Looking at the alpha as it is now, there's less than 10% of the game
available.
Tanaka: As for the progression of development, a
conservative estimate would be 65%. (laughs)

- Right now, the alpha has focused only on the PC. How is
development for the PS3 coming along?
Tanaka: We're working hard on the PS3 as well. We
plan to have both versions begin service simultaneously.

- Then is it okay for those eager PS3 players to get excited?
Tanaka & Komoto: Yes! We hope you look forward
to playing.

Quote :

Famitsu released its magazine a day early to get ready for Golden Week,
possibly Japan’s biggest holiday week. Apologies for its lateness, but
Aya and I have been working at every moment we can to bring you
Famitsu’s interview with Hiromichi Tanaka and Nobuaki Komoto. In it,
they discuss many things alpha, as well as their plans from here on out.

Source is Famitsu’s May 13th/20th 2010 issue. Scans will be up when I
get back home to my scanner (which will be a while, so I may include
them in a later news).

Translation by Aya and Yours Manly.

Enjoy!

Connections beyond expectations
Famitsu (F): Final Fantasy XIV has finally made it past the development
floor and onto the consumer test phase with the alpha test. How do you
think that’s going so far, and what do you expect to happen after this?
Tanaka (HT): Right now, the alpha tests are taking place during three
separate four-hour slots in three regions: Japan, Europe, and North
America. Right now, the servers aren’t as stable as
we’d like, and a lot of people haven’t been able to play to the fullest.
We’re sorry about the burden this has put on the testers, but we’ll be
upgrading bit by bit, and we’re sure the situation
is going to get better.

F: What’s the problem with the servers?
HT: Each region has the same number of testers, and from our experience
with the FFXI beta test, we were expecting around half of those players
to log in at the same time. However, the amount of
players that logged in exceeded expectations, and we believe
this is because the testers were selected from devoted Final Fantasy XI
players. The North American and European tests didn’t put as much strain
on the servers and bring them down as much as the Japanese tests,
though. With the version update on April 15th, we added a mechanism that
will show you what number you are in the login queue when the server is
crowded, and increased the time you can stay in that queue without
retrying your login to 10 minutes. This made it easier for players to
know when they’d be able to log in, and we feel it also relieved some of
the traffic congestion.
Komoto (NK): We sincerely regret that most players haven’t been able to
have a satisfying testing experience. We’re
extremely thankful that we’ve been able to receive a lot of feedback
despite the current testing situation.

F: How do you feel about the feedback you’ve read so far?
NK: There were a lot of things we didn’t notice since we’re always
looking at the game from a developer’s standpoint. There
were a lot of things that players focused on that surprised us.
On top of that, it was interesting to see some opinions unique to their
regions. Since I’ve been away from FFXI for so long to focus on
developing FFXIV, I’ve been feeling a bit distant from the players. Now
that players are logging in (albeit at an alpha test level) and I’m
going back and forth between the management and development floors for
the first time in a long time, I really feel like I’ve come home.

”Azagba Tanaka” has logged in.
F: Do the developers log into the tests, too?
NK: We’d like to, but since the servers are still limited, we’re restraining ourselves (he laughs). We’d like
to get in as many testers as we can, so we’re keeping developer logins
to a minimum.
HT: I was the only one sitting at my PC from the
very moment the test began, fervently competing with other players at a
game of “Login Online.” (He laughs.) (He doesn’t actually say
“Login Online,” but I thought this would be a nice place to introduce
the terminology the Japanese were using for alpha test’s login-retry
sessions –Manly)

F: Did you? (Interviewer laughs) Players weren’t able to tell it was you
just by looking at your character though, were they?
HT: With a name like “Azagba Tanaka,” I’d hope they would! (He laughs) I
can read the log of player chat and actions from the developers’ side,
but that doesn’t give you a really good feel for how the players are
experiencing the game. I logged in as a
representative for the developers to see what was going on in the game.

F: So the producer himself was checking the game, then! (Interviewer
laughs) Was there any feedback that stood out?
NK: Since the alpha is focused on tweaking movement and controls, there
were a lot of responses saying control response was bad, and many responses that confirmed some misgivings we had
ourselves. We mentioned on the site before the test, “There’s
no tutorial, so let us know if the controls are confusing,” so people
told us: “The controls are confusing.” We’re going to try to work that
out for the final release.
HT: There was a huge difference in the number of feedback we received
from each region. There were about 5000 comments from the Japanese
testers, but there were about 19000 from Europe and 25000 from America.
Even though each region has the same number of players, for every one
comment the Japanese write, the American players write five. It’s
probably a difference in culture. A lot of American
users wrote comments asking for their ideas to be put in the game, too.
They’re all like, “Hey! Listen to my idea! (He laughs)

F: In that sense, I guess Japanese players are just more modest?
NK: Well, a lot of the game isn’t working properly yet, so it’s hard to
tell. We expected a lot of angry responses,
but we didn’t get that many. Actually, we feel like the players are
warmly encouraging us through this process.

F: Doesn’t sound like you have a lot of time to sit back and enjoy that
feeling, though.
NK: Things have been really busy and it doesn’t really feel like I’ve
gotten much done (He laughs). Now that the game is running, though, I’ve
been able to enjoy the nostalgia of managing the game.
HT: There’s still a lot to do (he laughs). We’re
only releasing a little bit of the game at the alpha stage, so
we’re trying to see what we need to change right now. Even so, after
release we’re going to be working on the next content for the game, so
we’ll probably never get a sense that we’ve completed it.

F: Well, one of the unique things about MMORPGs is that there’s never
really a “completed” version.
NK: At fan events, we feel a sort of sense of accomplishment, but as of
right now… (He laughs.)
HT: I usually feel that sense of accomplishment when I can enter the
game and play alongside the players and see how they enjoy it. We’re still not quite there in the alpha version, so we’re
going to work real hard to get to that point.

We would like to hear users’ opinions
F: You guys have been saying that it would be great to reflect the
opinions of users who took parts in the test into the game since FFXIV
was announced. Do you still feel this way?
NK: Yes, and that won’t change even after the official service has
started. There are so many things we would like to change; however, we
will not be able to start the official service if we keep trying to fix
every single thing, so we would like to know what is wanted the most at
this point. Of course, we’ll not only be fixing the problems, but also
strengthening the parts the players like. We’d like
to know the users’ opinions and think about what to do.

F: Then, it is better that alpha and beta testers give you honest
opinions, however trivial they are.
HT: Of course.
NK: As I said earlier, there are many surprising
things we, the developers, may miss if not for the users’ opinions.
For instance, we already got some opinions on the manual for the
tester’s site before the alpha started. Developers also agreed with some
of the opinions about the manual.
HT: Even reading opinions that match our own serve to reassure us.
NK: Yes, there are two purposes for collecting users’ opinions: to alert us to problems or ideas and reassure us about
existing problems or ideas we’ve had. Therefore, every single opinion is important.

Where do we go from here?
F: You plan on increasing the number and scale of the tests as testing
goes on, correct?
HT: For now, the first step is to conduct three tests a week without
problems.
NK: To let users play without problems, the first
goal is stability for now.
HT: We think that maybe the time of tests should be changed at some
point, since there are some people who can’t play at that time.

F: How long will the current alpha test run?
NK: There are some problems in stability of the server, so it is getting
longer than it was planned at the beginning. We will think about it
when users finish raising their characters to some extent.
HT: In fact, there are two patterns planned for the speed of characters’
growth, and we are planning to do a data wipe
sometime during the alpha test. After collecting enough data
from the current pattern, we’d like to switch it into the other one.

F: So at some point, things will be started over again.
NK: Right. It is not just for the alpha, we’ll do it
over and over till the official service after the beta gets stable.

F: Does that mean you will switch to the beta test after adjusting the
speed of character growth?
HT: The current alpha test is done on a single world server, but for the
next step, we’d like to have several world servers and increase the
number of testers. We may call it beta one or alpha two.

F: So the schedule will change depending on the situation.
HT: During that time, we will work on opinions we got and start the version which looks closer to the official service
at some point. I guess that will be what we call the beta
version.

F: At this point in the test, users log in depending on region. When can
users all over the world play together?
HT: Most likely, it will be when world servers
become playable around the clock. We are currently working on
it.

65 percent is completed so far
F: Please tell us how development is coming.
HT: The graphics are almost done. We are working on the final
arrangements for planners and programmers, but it is hard to express in
percentage. (He laughs). Even though the graphics are almost done, we’ve
just started adjusting them. For instance, lighting
in the city of Limsa Lominsa will be totally changed.

F: Then the basic frame of the world is done now?
HT: The basic parts are almost done. As I said before, a few little
touch ups are needed (He laughs). We are still working on system,
designs, user interface, and mass production tasks such as creating
quests. Though you can say that the time between now
and release is 10 percent if you think that we have been developing
FFXIV for the last five years, the amount we develop during this short
period can occupy 50 percent of the game.
NK: Though the alpha has started, if you think about the growth of
characters and the expanse of the world and quests, only a small
fraction is playable in the tests. The Eorzea you can see in the alpha
test comprises less than 10 percent of the content
in the actual game.
HT: As for the progress of development, I’d be modest and say about 65
percent.(Tanaka laughs)

F: The alpha test is for PC only. What about the PS3 version?
HT: We are working on it earnestly along with the PC version. We are
trying to make them start service at the same time.

F: So that means PS3 users should be looking forward to it?
HT, NK: Yes, definitely.

Version from FFXIVCore, find it slightly more readable