FINAL FANTASY XIV Documentary Part #2 - "Rewriting History" 

"The players just killed the monsters instantly". The cry of the DnD GM.

Yoshida looks s despondent when saying ‘You couldn’t ride chocobos.’

Everyone in this doc is aggressively likeable, especially the Japanese man speaking English

"Before being a developer, they are human beings." Something Konami needs to learn.

Yoshida seems like a really good boss. The key thing I like is that he KNOWS that micromanagement is a horrible system to work with and under but that it was the only way to execute that task and he rewarded his staff for it. I have a boss who seems to think that way of working is normal and fine and it's depressing as hell. We need more Yoshidas in the world.

"It didn't matter if we spent millions of dollar, it's a cost spent for something we wouldn't have been able to repair later. I believe that's what trust is." - Naoki Yoshida

"I was very weak....weak god" lmao I love this guy

Yoshida is actually incredible, holy shit.

I just am struck by how good of a project manager Yoshida is. Like, his way of figuring out hours for a task ("Developer, give me the estimate for if you finish it so fast you feel you'll need an award, to finishing it so slowly that you'd be ashamed to take your pay", and then adjusting as needed) is really great, and the realization that people don't actually work for 8 hours straight, because there's always time needed for talking to people, meeting, and just generally being a human. And because of that, they went from a pretty bad game to a objectively fantastic on (even though it seems it's the same development team, more or less). Just goes to show that you can have the greatest programmers in the world, but you need good management just as much

I entered Final Fantasy XIV with A Realm Reborn, only because I was holding out for a console version in a time that I didn't have a PC. Sadly, I didn't get to see the fall of Dalamud, but when I stepped into ARR and became entranced by it's story, I went back and read about what had happened before. It cannot be understated how powerful that moment was in 1.x. It's not the first MMO that had ever destroyed itself before, WoW had Cataclysm, and even Ultima wiped an entire city off the map nearly 2 decades prior. But although the Calamity isn't a new concept to an MMO, none ever did it the way Final Fantasy XIV did. For 6 months players were led to the game's final days. The storyline was written such that the main scenario reads as a desperate attempt to try and stop the drop. Gradually however, the truth became clear. Dalamud could not be stopped. In Ultima, an off screen event simply erased a city. In WoW, Deathwing shows up out of nowhere and wrecks utter havoc. In these cases, players were powerless to prevent or fight against these events. In XIV though, the players were laid bare. In many ways, Dalamud reads as the players themselves failing. When the plot of the game revolves around the heroes of Eorzea rallying to defeat the Empire, and Eorzea is destroyed instead, then arguably the players lost. They failed to save it from the Garlean Empire. Even if it was part of a grand plan to recover the game from the ashes, that kind of storytelling in an MMO requires guts and commitment that I had never seen prior, and one that continues to this day. XIV does what I have never seen an MMO do. It allows players to become powerful, central figures within the world, but never hesitates make it clear that no matter how powerful you are, you are just one person. You can't save everyone, you can't overcome all obstacles on your own, and even once you've reached the height of your power, there is always some threat that you must find a way to rise to. In other words, XIV makes the player responsible for their legacy, not just a random person who accompanies the plot.

Square Enix's work to update 1.0 while working on 2.0 - and making the whole destruction/rebirth part of the lore is truly one the greatest game development stories I've ever heard. Amazing stuff. Thanks for telling this story, Danny.

At 5:25 you can see Natsuko Ishikawa going to her seat aka the main writer of Shadowbringers story and DRK job quests.

"It's a trust that we had to get back from those people who stuck with us throughout the years. It didn't matter if we spent millions of dollars, it's a cost spent for something we wouldn't have been able to repair later. I believe that's what trust is." 10:24 This whole section, like man. These guys are the real deal, absolutely stand up developers and human beings. Tugged at my heart strings.

Yoshida is so bold with his words. That's not something you see from many Japanese developers. I love it!

I've heard of the events on the last day of 1.X, but every time I see footage of people standing together waiting for the end, it makes me think of what a great community this has.

As a Legacy player since 1.0 I thank you for this, I'm deeply touched by the team's testimony of their dedication and connection to us.

I'm one of the original players. Thank you for taking time to think about us during the transition from the old to the new.

My eyes popped when this guy casually dropped that he led the art design at tactics - one of the GOAT FF ever 14:58

I don't often open a RU-vid video and say to myself "oh damn, only 36 minutes ?". Yeah, Noclip videos are that great.

There's something very bittersweet about 1.0 being destroyed. I feel sorry for the dev team, especially Koji writing all those cool stories, essentially gone forever. It was obviously for the best though.

Wait, did Yoshida-san just say he planned the whole thing around 6 hour work days? So there was no crunch? Making one of the best MMOs and Final Fantasies ever, in half the time it usually takes, while taking care of his team? It just seems impossible considering we live in a world where it's usually the complete opposite - endless crunch, delays and long development cycles ending in a complete mess of a game.

I have a lot of respect for Yoshida-san. He looked at every employee as an individual and schedule how much time each task would take. He's a good leader.

"If history must be unwritten. Let it be unwritten"

New ffxiv player here. I now know why they call yoshi p a god. This man just oozes charisma and talent

Louisoix's grin says everything. I was a late comer to 1.0, but I was there at the end. The chaos(freakin devs trolling players) of a seemingly endless amount of morbols spawning inside thanalan, was insane. The sombre tones throughout the realm in those last few hours. It is all something that just happened and an experience that can never be recreated nor fully understood by anyone that wasn't there. I am thankful that I was.

Hey folks, we hope you enjoy this dive into the development of ARR & the patches for 1.0 - For those who missed the trailer, part three (the final part) will be live on Wednesday. Thanks for taking the time to watch this series. We do hope you enjoy the show. (remember, use the settings button for subtitles for Japanese speakers)

Sweet. My 'End Of Eorzea'' video is featured in this! 29:59

sudden cameo by the dude who did tactic's art, that man is a legend imo

This whole thing actually gets me a bit emotional. The fact that in the end they were able to triumph is just so great. And like Koji said, they made it feel like it was always the plan. The story behind the game is as great as the story they're telling in the game itself. I'm really looking forward to part 3.

27:50 "you summon sashagrey" "you dismount sashagrey" Yes I have an eye for what truly matters.

i don't know why, but this documentary makes me emotional. please release the last part already :)

I hope the NoClip channel can produce a continuation to this documentary series. I would love to know more about the Stormblood and Shadowbringers developement, as well as how the Square Enix team reacted to the huge player increase in 2020 and 2021.

They mention that a "haunting song" played during the final week of 1.0, well, if you want to hear just how ominous the theme was, you can find it by searching "Dalamud Answers" Edit: I also want to add that the song is used in ARR as well! When you beat the 3.x content cycle (which does require Heavensward) the song plays during one of the final segments of the MSQ, over a scene that is meant to be parallel to Bahamut emerging from Dalamud

I actually cried at the gobuu wall :'( :D its so beautiful what a great community!

the workmethod he describes is translated as SCRAM however here it is usually known as SCRUM or Agile development. Just a little detail to consider

i would love that my project managers would be like that. Implementing Scrum perfectly. What a dream

Incredible work, MMO's is a genre I never touch mostly due to time investments but theres something about the genre that brings out stories that wouldn't be possible in any other game, thanks for the hard work Danny and Jeremy, cant wait for Wednesday!

Thanks for doing this awesome FFXIV documentary series. Can't wait for the third part.

Man...my respect for Yoshi P went up ten-fold when he discussed the project management elements. I never thought about all that, yipes!!

Great job on another episode! Really loved hearing from the dev team again during the ending days of 1.0! I always had a feeling someone at Square-Enix was at the keyboard spawning monsters at us feverishly; testing us to see how far we'd go. That was a fun time battling in Ul'Dah against chimeras, cyclops, morbols, Garleans, and even Nael van Darnus clones with a crowd of other players! Thanks again for Part 2!!

"Nanda kore?!" about that save message killed me. :D

I absolutely LOVE listening to Yoshida-san explain his purpose and process. He's a genius. Thank you for this.

ARR is really my favorite MMO I've ever played. When we fought Lahabrea for the 1st time and our squad all went down except our main Tank with 50HP and our WHM cast a full heal spell on the tank right before the WHM got one hit KO'd. The tank managed to kill Ultima Weapon as he went down and we all celebrated in the chat window while all our characters were on the ground dead as a door nail.

I cannot for the life of me imagine an American CEO speaking about their customer base with the reverence this dude does.

So glad he ended that discussion of his scrummy micromanagement with saying he wouldn't recommend it for normal development, that must have been a nightmare in a creative environment.

Thanks for making this documentary! I''m so privileged to have been playing since 1.0 till its end! The atmosphere ingame in that last two weeks of 1.0 before the servers shut down was nothing short of amazing. People still logged in, even though whatever we did from that point forward would not be saved and carried over to 2.0. From the ingame music to all those lv60 to 99 mobs appearing in Uldah (yep, I counted 10 Lvl80+ Chimeras in Uldah's central square itself)... at many times it really felt like all hope was lost...we would beat a mob down to 2% of its health only to have it regenerate to 100% without any reason.... but the community just kept on fighting. Till the every end. And here we still are, in Stormblood! Loyalty! Unity! Liberty!

can't feel but have a sad feeling for 1.0 coming to an end but see a blooming realm reborn rise from the ashes of the old world such an incredible story

Interesting! The minimum and maximum it would take and averaging it out is actually a project management technique called 3 point estimation. Glad to know it works even in an extreme time crunch setting. Edit: Also looks like Naoki went for more of an agile approach versus waterfall. Cool to see the shift in PM moving towards something more modern with agility.

Playing from day one, then encountering the end of 1.0 like we did was incredibly heart wrenching, the goob wall strongly resonated with me, we loved our failing game, we had a great community.

Louisioux's smile always makes me cry. How inspiring and heartbreaking.

I have a very strong feeling that this part of the doc will be used in a classroom environment. I certainly would if I were an instructor of a videogame or business class.

That whole discussion about project management was him describing Agile.

I never knew Estinien was in 1.0 holy shit

As someone who works in game development, I like how thoroughly Yoshi-P was taking the whole scrum and sprint planning process of the project. Too often I've seen design plans that never really went into enough detail, or with programmers greatly under- (or over-!) estimating the time of a task's completion.

Yoshida Naoki is a flippin hero, give that guy a medal. I worked for a time at a very busy starbucks; every month management browbeat us for not meeting the sales goals they set for us and yet, every month, they set new, equally unrealistic sales goals. Asking his team to give their best estimates for how very quickly or how very slowly they can do this or that, discovering, surprise surprise, that universally they performed closer to their bad estimates, not browbeating them but instead managing development around the longer estimates, factoring in quality of life down to the minutia of an 8 hour day cannot be expected filled, all 4,800 seconds of it with pure productivity --- I really like this guy!! Understanding that the human factor cannot be disposed of while working for two years on a project that should normally take five --- superb soul, bravo.

Funny enough the End of Eorzea is actually what hooked me into this series. My girlfriend had been playing A Realm Reborn for about a month, sometimes screen-sharing with me parts of the game whenever our skypes decided to let it work. And at first I was hesitant because of the stigma of subscription games. But then she talked to me about the 1.X Legacy and showed me that End of Eorzea video. I got hooked. I think it was the month after that I worked out how to afford the subscription and I've been playing ever since. I have played a good number of MMOs before this one, but this one has gotten this massive hook into me because it hits so many things I love. I love this game and I don't see me stopping any time soon.

The end of 1.0 for me will always be the most memorable and iconic gaming experience I have ever had. Nothing will ever beat the real feelings of awe and wonder and amazement of experiencing the realtime progression of Dalamud's descent and the chaos that it brought. Especially knowing that it really would be the destruction of the game's world in the realest sense possible. Greatest of all was the sense of camaraderie and mutual struggle from having this once in a lifetime, shared experience with the other players. I LOVE the new incarnation of the game....but I still miss 1.0. I hope someday they'll do something like in XI where you could journey into the past...and it'll let us go back and re-experience the fall of Dalamud again, even if in a reimagined way.

incredible documentary, as usual. this one made me feel a bit emotional, for one reason or another. i never played FFXIV, but i'm glad the devs rewarded their core fans for sticking with them through such a rough patch, and that they eventually pulled such an ambitious task off.

What a fascinating watch. I hadn't considered how the natural disasters at that time would affect development of games in Japan, but it makes total sense in retrospect. Just makes the incredible feat they pulled off by successfully rebuilding FF14 all the more impressive.

A realm reborn intro movie makes sense now!

This is the most badass shit ever. Makes me more hyped to keep playing, I recently stated the free trial and I'm loving it, just got my Chocobo and got my ascension class quest. What a great way of management, can't even imagine the work load.

I almost wish I had played that version of the game just to witness the end, to better appreciate the rebirth. Well done, Noclip, well done. *Slow clap*

I started in 2.0 beta, but seeing that 1.X Great Goobbue Wall gets me every time. Especially since it got worked into the lore eventually.

I really want 1.x content released again at some point. I wanna play through those quests and witness the stuff first hand. That said, this is a fantastic documentary. NoClip does the best work in this indie industry.

As someone that got the CE and was pretty disappointed in the game, I remember when things shook up and Yoshi P was brought on. Those Letters From The Producer letters really did give the players a lot of hope for the game. I remember talking about them with our Linkshell (Slash Panic for life!) and all of us felt relieved that responsibility was being taken and a plan was laid out. I didn't play through all of what was left, and didn't truly come back to the game until recently, but was blown away Yoshi P is still putting those out. A true legend in the gaming industry.

I can't understand why I'm crying while watching this. Yoshi-P and his dev team are an inspiration! q.q

*FFXIV: ARR Team:* K guys, we have to make an MMO that usually takes 5 years in 2 years. *Also FFXIV: ARR Team:* /stops what they're doing to help out after the Tsunami Good Guy Square Enix at its best.

I appreciate that they try to speak english even if it isn't fluent. I understand the gap between english and asian languages is quite large given the different "mouth" and "tongue" sounds that the languages have. I appreciate the effort and the fact anyone can speak both is a feat in itself. My girlfriend fluently speaks both and I just can't wrap my head around japanese at all. I try to speak some words but for me the fluency of japanese will never be there despite my effort. Applause to those able to learn. I'm a proud owner of a day 1 account. I came back after quitting at level 5 due to my PC not being able to run an mmorpg. I came back last year around october. I'm now a proud owner of a level 70 dragoon all MSQ completed. And susano EX(with weapon obtained) and Lakshmi (working on right side gear) ex completed :) I love the game, And this is coming from someone who strayed away from tab targetting. The storyline and story telling is great. The cutscenes are perfect and amazing each and every one. I love the game. I love their hard work.

Man... Japan is such an aesthetically beautiful country, both urban and rural. Every time I watch stuff like Abroad in Japan or see shots like in this series Im reminded of this.

As a software development engineer, hearing how yoship talks about how he manages his team in his scrum meetings is very interesting.

Hah, I just launched FFXIV and went to my subscriptions while it loads to find this. Nice!

Honestly I wasn't expecting something like this to be so informative and entertaining, The questions and documentary style is fantastic. Actually sitting down ans asking questions of the people involved instead of thousands of jump cuts to separate people with little focus. Great job guys.

I didn't know Square Enix uses Scrum for project management. I'm learning about that right now, and seeing big-budget companies utalize it, gives me motivation to pay attention at school.

The emotional connections I made to this video about a game that I've never played is astounding. Job well done.

In the midst of a lot of over working that we hear coming from Japan, Yoshida Naoki's first priority was for the team to take a break as soon as he got put in charge and then with the earthquake hitting Japan and affecting their family members he says something so obvious but seemingly forgotten by most higher ups, that they are before anything else human. I dont know but this just makes me feel like "yeah he's a good person."

Just an addendum: After the servers went down, they were brought back up for a couple of weeks in December. No character progress was saved during this time, but you could 'Check the Bed' (typo'd as 'Heck the Bed') in your inn room and find a random relic weapon each day you logged in. Also during this period, multiple copies of monsters were spawned en masse on the hitherto safe streets of the City-states - having a dozen Nael Van Darnus' bear down on me in Ul'dah isn't something I'll soon forget!

Just seeing this now and boy is Yoshida-san spot on about his project management estimation. I love his mention of Scrum and Agile Development style. For places that actually implement projects reasonably to the understanding of all parties, estimation is really important depending on "Sprints." And even moreso is that you need to account for other factors and interruptions in the workplace. One thing that many places still fail to understand, like the "Mythical Man Month!"

Only Noclip can make a documentary that makes me cry. That was beautiful :)

What's interesting about this is that the players' behavior mimics real life in that people band together and take care of one another in the face of a massive natural disaster. Not only that, they stuck around to stay together so that they could be together in the face of certain death. That's beautiful man.

I love Yoshi P shitting on the UI.

This is brilliant. The amount of effort that must have gone in to making this, unearthing clips of 1.x gameplay, organizing interviews and translators, composing a "storyline" for the documentary... I am deeply impressed.

The story telling was such a remarkable way to introduce A Realm Reborn. I've never played either, but that whole ending sequence made me emotional. Such respect was given to the players.

It was really cool how they implemented the redesign into the game. I played back then and even logged in those last few hours, before Dalamud came crashing down. It was a really cool experience.

OMG my legacy character is in this vid @ 18:12. Tinka Balla!!!! I knew these names all seemed familiar. I played with Jerbird, Dante and Delilah. My guild was Black Sun and 2 others I can't even remember now. This video is everything to me right now. My avi here is actually the pic I took of my legacy char and I've been using it since 2010. Sadly, when I got back in game 2 weeks ago, the original Tink was no where to be found and I had to make a new one. However the character appearance file was found. *Kanye shrug*

At 8:04 it should be 'SCRUM' method not 'SCRAM' in the transcribed subtitles.

I liked how crazy some of the quests and language were in late 1.x (the quest about the love letter that happened to be for an opo-opo was really something, for one..) - it bothers me that that may now be lost forever. I wish they'd release a single-player adaptation that could serve as a prequel of sorts to the game as it is now, it's sad when a bit of gaming history is lost forever, and can only be enjoyed through the scattered efforts of a few fans, instead of through the company that made the thing in the first place and holds all the assets...

This is so fkin cool

Another beautiful analysis! I have even more respect for the fine folks at SquareE for all the effort they put into FFXIV as shown here. Still cannot believe just how dicey things got even when they were balancing updating a currently running live game while building a new one undercover.... Then having to miraculously come up with a story-based reason as to why the world needed to be destroyed. That section on Dalamud getting more and more ominous was a brilliant touch.

"They wouldn't have to wait long for answers" I see what you did there.

Honestly, seeing this older footage of the game really makes me want to dive into its lore. It's so cool how they subtly built 2.0 off of 1.0 in such a way that old fans could have a unique enjoyment of the new stuff, but new players wouldn't be left in the dust either.

This documentary was fascinating. The content is definitely appealing to people who are fans but I really feel like this story is amazing in a way that transcends gaming. A truly shocking feat that I wish I could explain to friends who are unfamiliar.

I often feel nostalgic for 1.0. I was there before the red moon fell. Before it was a pink twinkle in the night sky. I remember noticing it one day (Night in Ul Dah) and knowing that Eorzea had well defined constellations asking a knowledgeable friend about it. He didnt know anything about the bright pink star. Of course we all know of it now. There are times I wish to go back. Sometimes traveling in the overworld I see tje way the land used to be instead of what it is now. Very few will understand this, but the old world calls to me, sometimes very loudly. Inhave spent countless hours on youtube digging through footage taken before the calamity, eagerly searching for those WoLs I used to know, begging for a glimpse of myself, thirsting for a window into our little world from way back when. I know I can never go back, but for a rejoining, it sure feels like a part of myself has been lost.

Now i understand the Realm Reborn trailer, the presumably "white mage", saving the few standing in battle and fighting to the last... A reference to their player base that stuck with them and gave them hope and strenght to rebuild the game... Im not sure if thats what it really is, and maybe i will never know, but thats what i believe, now, after all these years... -sweating from my eyes here- God bless Yoshi-P. Thank you.

This might be your finest work to date. I've never played FF XIV but the story of it's making/unmaking/remaking is really cool! I had no idea they hade a Majora's Mask-esque apocalypse in there! THAT IS SO COOL! Thanks for letting these developers tell their stories!

I've seen this documentary so many times and love it. Such a great showcase of triumph from failure. But each time I watch it, I forget they play the sound of the emergency alarm and it chills me each time. Get taken back to the days after the big quakes here and that alarm, and others, were going off constantly throughout the night.

That thing about players contacting their friends through FF14 after the earthquake really hit deep.

The backstory behind final fantasy xiv is unique and already a legend in the world of videogames. It will be remembered for years to come, and possibly forever.

FanFest 2021 is Tomorrow, and always wonderful to re-watch this Documentary. How far we come :)

here watching this after the square enix e3 conference and yoshiP really seems like an amazing respectable guy

I did not expect a master class in project management from this. Sure there aren't Gantt charts up the wazoo with continuous scoping methodologies or whatever but the ideas are solid and extremely practical - within great context! Totally gonna take as reference.