Fantasy Fighters

04/14/10 11:19 AM

Reflections on the First and Second Alpha Tests
Let me begin by expressing my thanks to all of you for participating in the first two tests in the alpha phase. I will be the first to admit that things have not gone as smoothly as we had originally hoped, and I offer my sincerest apologies to everyone who has had difficulties logging in to the game. We understand your frustration, but ask you to remain patient while we assess the problems and work to alleviate them.

For those testers who have been able to access the game, we greatly appreciate all the excellent feedback you have continued to provide. Your opinions are uniquely valuable to us as they provide an insight into the player’s perspective on the countless elements which make up FINAL FANTASY XIV. In response, our development team has been working around the clock, reviewing bug reports and browsing the tester forums, and will continue to make every effort to incorporate your opinions into the game’s development process.

Of course, due to the server and client issues, we are aware that many of you feel you have not had enough time to fully test the features indicated in the Test Content threads, such as basic controls and the battle system. For this reason, we have decided to extend the testing period for these areas of gameplay. In conjunction with this extension, we will be postponing plans to reset characters and conduct level balancing until players have had further opportunities to fully experience the battle and control systems.

The following is a summary of issues encountered during the first and second alpha tests:

- First Alpha Test
Due to unforeseen technical difficulties, the gathering of large numbers of characters in a single area caused a client-side error for many testers. This, in turn, resulted in server load exceeding estimated levels, ultimately limiting the overall number of testers being able to log in.

- Second Alpha Test
For the most part, we were able to resolve the client-side error players experienced on the first day of testing. However, solving that problem resulted in the emergence of new issues, which directly affected the testing efforts of many.
In addition, our efforts to alleviate server load issues proved insufficient, preventing us from increasing the maximum number of players able to log in simultaneously. This, unfortunately, meant that a large proportion of testers were unable to participate in the test.

In addition to the login issues, we also realize there still remain several other critical problems preventing many of our testers from testing the client software, even if they are able to log in. We are working on solving these issues one by one, and hope that with each new test, the software will become increasingly stable, and ultimately allow all of our testers to participate in the debugging process. The changes may not come overnight, but rest assured, they will come.

Again, I apologize for any inconvenience and frustration caused, and humbly ask for your continued support and feedback.

FINAL FANTASY XIV Director
Nobuaki Komoto