ElZorro

Totally agree with you man. The subscription model asks too much out of all parties involved. It requires too much trust from the player base...something which I will never grant a publisher of anything, It requires slavish dedication on the part of the development team and it requires continual years-long support from the IP holder/publisher.
If it were just a paid expansion thing, with cash shop type options to cover in-game support and server maintenance costs, that would be a far better deal.
Some games seem to make more money this way.

Having played DCUO as well -- I think they'll do fine once players realized how locked down the customization is. 3 body types...and the ones for females are just...erm...insulting.
So CO will continue to cater to the more RPG minded folks and DCUO will appeal to the action mmo and juvenile male power fantasy types.

Great read. Expresses exactly what needs to be said to the industry in general.
Not just MMOs.
For me, 2011 is the year that either convinces me to keep playing these things or just stop altogether.
I think FFXIV was the nail in this years coffin lid for me.
How ever *left-brained* financiers are they need to be told up front that the product can't be shipped unless it is core feature-complete.
I wish there was a law of some form of consumer advocacy special interest to help back us up on this.
I hate feeling ripped off...worse, I hate feeling ripped-off with no recourse.
And the FTC and BBB are a joke when it comes to this stuff.

Submarine. So apt. When submerged, nothing gets in and nothing gets out.

You sir are a gentleman and a scholar and I'm not ashamed to say that I love you.

http://media.yucasee.jp/posts/index/5009
http://stocks.finance.yahoo.co.jp/stocks/detail/?code=9684.T&d=1w
The links to the Japanese sites that reported this.

You cannot from one experience call SE's customer service first rate.
Sorry. Wait until you have a significant issue...like billing for instance.
While I was in the service I played some FFXI and regretted it. I cancelled
my account or rather *attempted to*. It took six phone calls, numerous emails and finally a letter from JAG to get them to stop billing me.
Recently I tried to recover my playonline account to get in on the free item in FFXIV...5 forms submitted, three chat conversations with that sterling customer service you mentioned and I still don't have access to the account.
I understand you, like the rest of Massively are patient and tender souls, but some of this stuff is just misleading.

So I have an honest question for all those that have a problem with people posting criticisms of a commercial product.
How do you feel about consumer advocacy in general?
Would you rather sites like Amazon have no product ratings or reviews just so no one's "feelings" get hurt?
These corporations don't care about you and if they could just extract the money directly from you without any inconvenient offer of product or service, they would.
And since the industry doesn't stand up for it's consumers, it's up to the consumers to stand up for themselves.
We need this back and forth ladies and gents, as absurd as it may become at times.
There are a lot of folks that feel FFXIV is feature incomplete and was not in a state viable for commercial release. Let 'em rage. It's not hurting anyone.

I find it amazing, hilarious and fantastic that Minecraft has a better interface than FFXIV does. Where did those millions go SE?

Not really an answer to my question. I'm an Arabic linguist, I get that things get lost in translation.
I assumed when I asked it (and now know for a fact) that SE *does* have an North American PR branch...I'm just wondering why they aren't engaged.
Why don't they utilize their western assets?? Why don't we hear from *any* NA SE representatives?
It would be more beneficial to everyone involved. They really need to put someone out in front of their products to do some deflection and message control...
Instead of say...letting their developers bad mouth their fan base over his Twitter feed.