Check out the hottest topics from the past week of the FFXIV general forum.

The new year is underway, and the ZAM forums are already buzzing with discussion about Final Fantasy XIV – just not the kind of discussions we thought we’d be having. Recently promoted producer Naoki Yohida posted a New Year’s Day greeting on the Lodestone Web site, hinting at serious changes to the game while also gathering survey data from players. The implications of his words have sparked several discussions. Meanwhile, other posters are still questioning other aspects of the game, including skill points distribution and the lack of low-level equipment in the market wards.

Here are the links from the first week of 2011:

Title: A New Year and FINAL FANTASY XIV Player’s Poll the First

Turns out, the development team was as eager for information from us as we were for information from them! The much-anticipated New Year’s Day announcement was nothing more than a survey and a new dev-team slogan worthy of a mention on “Office Space.” The new developer team slogan is “Fun, live, reboot, rebuild.” The only word missing is “synergy.”

Title: A message to all the crafters of FFXIV

This thread should be titled “A message to everyone who plays FFXIV.” That aside, this poster brings up a very good point about the lack of low-level equipment being made. What is the source of the problem? Is it the number of materials needed for recipes? Is it the lack of incentive to craft low-level gear? Or is it the nonexistent level caps on armor pieces? Whatever the underlying issue may be, this is something that needs to be addressed by the new development team.

Title: MMO Mentality

In this thread, the original poster delves into the philosophy of today’s young gamers, and how many of them may have permanently shunned FFXIV based on a poor first impression. The OP makes several good points. The market today is saturated with competition, and the “I want it now” generation doesn’t need to be patient to play an enjoyable game. I guess I’m a “brand loyalty” kind of guy, which may be bad in some ways. In the case of FFXIV, I’ve played enough good Final Fantasy games to have faith in Square Enix’s ability to right this ship.