Sometimes I'm amused how surprised people are about when the next release for a game will come out. For example, in 2018 CCP had such a set release cycle that I knew that the release date for the Into The Abyss expansion was 29 May 2018 as soon as the content patch was announced. I had a press pass for Fanfest that year and had access to the press room. I got a little credit for knowing what I was talking about as I told a table full of real games journalists the date before they went to a briefing by CCP announcing the date. Of course, those not covering the game on a regular basis wouldn't know a detail like that. To them, I appeared to have an inside source.
Fast forward five years. Some Final Fantasy XIV creators expressed surprise that the release date for the next content drop, patch 6.45, is tomorrow. A couple of them sounded like they expected the release in 2-3 weeks. The producer and director of FFXIV, Naoki Yoshida, had announced that patches would release every four months, with the .5 patches released half-way through a patch's lifespan. So off to the calendar I went to check if Creative Business Unit III was on-schedule.
A quick Google search confirmed patch 6.4 launched on Tuesday, 23 May 2023. Counting back from tomorrow, that was 8 weeks, or right on time. At this point I began to see a source for confusion. If one thinks about every two calendar months, one could have expected a release date for patch 6.4 of 25 July, which is next week. In all honesty, if I had thought about predicting the date, I probably would have chose next week as well.
But can I predict when patch 6.5 will release? I probably give a date plus or minus one week. Eight weeks from tomorrow is 12 September. But, Yoshi-P said he was going to give the staff a week off during the summer. I believe that will be Obon week in mid-August. A travel site provided the following information about Obon.
Obon (お盆) is an annual Buddhist event for commemorating one's ancestors, whose spirits are believed to temporarily return to this world in order to visit their relatives during Obon.
Traditionally, lanterns are hung in front of houses to guide the ancestors' spirits, obon dances (bon odori) are performed, graves are visited and food offerings are made at house altars. At the end of Obon, floating lanterns are put into rivers, lakes and seas in order to guide the spirits back into their world. The customs followed vary strongly from region to region.
Obon is observed around the 15th day of the 7th month of the year, which is July according to the solar calendar; however, it roughly corresponds to August according to the formerly used lunar calendar. As a result, Obon is observed mainly from August 13 to 16, although in some areas it is also observed in mid July.
With that information, I'll push my estimate to 19 September, but a release date one week later, on 26 September, would not surprise me. And I'll wait to see how much of Obon I can see in this year's All Saints Wake seasonal fare. Looking back, I can see a bit of Obon in last year's event.
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