After all the troubles coming from vanilla Final Fantasy XIV to the four beta phases all the way up to this very day, all I can say is we are finally here. With Naotoki Yoshida at the head of FFXIV's development, a small budget, and the burden of hate-filled fans resting on its shoulders, the MMO made the closest thing to a full 180 degree turn you can get out of any re-launch. Yoshida himself took the stage to give a speech of this journey at the official launch event in Tokyo.

The work put into this game is remarkable and its amazing what good game developers who truly love what they do can do for the community who enjoy the games they make. So far everything about the game has been rather brilliant. A few rocky moments entering the beta phases and early access but everything has been addressed so quickly and promptly that it really shouldn't matter. The story is great, the mechanics are great, and there is content that caters to the casual base as well as the hardcore section.

I'm going to save all the in-game talks for later write-ups but this one goes out to those who stuck it through. I would also like to thank Mr.Yoshida once again for being one darn good game director. Click the jump for the speech and the translated transcript:

Translations via reddit's //FFXIVtranslatorguy

Disclaimer: I listened through this once and translated it as I went, and am also drunk. However I am a professional translator for a tech company and the below is probably 90 % correct.

From here on out is the beginning of the speech

I'm tearing up, guys.

First of all I want to say that I am sorry for us having to go into maintenance for the NA/EU servers. I want to apologize for taking precious time away from players during early access. From here on out is a long journey. starts to tear up, crowd gives encouragement

Its almost been 3 years since I took over development for FFXIV. At the time I hadn't been involved with the game that much, and I thought that it wouldn't be that big of a deal to remake it. I have always loved final fantasy and have always loved mmo's. starts to tear up again At the time, I gathered the team together and told them that we were going to remake the game just two days before we announced it to all of you on December 2nd.

I still remember it now, but at the time, we were in a studio like this one, and Souken (current director of game music) was in the background checking my mic levels. I clearly remember him standing there give me a guts pose (one fist in the air, think rocky) but at the time I had the same kind of worries as the players; how is this really going to turn out?... Isn't this going to be impossible.... pauses

But one by one I got support from all of you. It was said in the questions earlier, but normally an mmo takes 4-5 years to create and carefully plan. Earlier, Wada said his role is a tank. I had the same idea of being a tank when making this game. Up until now I have gone through each facet of the game (implies that he also bore all of the responsibility).

But I am not saying that it is just me who made FFXIV ARR. This was all due to the players around the world, the core staff here, and the hundreds of staff not here today. I came here today planning on not crying, but today we have finally taken the first step with ffxiv arr. And it is only the first step. Honestly I don't think we have any time to rest. We are working on patches and expansions.

More than anything I want to thank the players, especially those who started from the original FFXIV, and those that have joined our community. Thank you all for all of your support so far. I only hope that we have released a game that will not bring shame to square enix. from here on out there is no finishing an mmorpg. FFXIV:ARR is not a game that we made alone, but a game that we made along with all of you. From here on out we home to keep creating this game from here on out, from this place with you for 5-10 years.

I again want to say thank you for all you have done so far and we hope for your support in the future. bows