A lot of people felt divorced from the world of Eorzea, but the sidequests haven't really served as a vehicle for people's attachment. They aren't interesting, the lore is presented with no dramatic context, there are no voice overs, they force you to do repetitive things, players skip through the dialogue.
Compared to fully voiced upcoming MMOs, content like this is very poor quality. It would be okay if FFXIV made up for it by selling itself on other areas of expertise, but it doesn't.
FFXIV is supposed to be a story-based MMO and yet there are only a handful of cutscenes, almost no voiced cutscenes, and the sidequests of which there are plenty, are all rather forgettable.
People shouldn't have to choose between quality and quantity, but I think SE chose quantity, and that wasn't the right choice.
sidequests are a waste of time
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09-25-2011, 04:07 PMUser201109011315sidequests are a waste of time
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09-25-2011, 06:30 PMCatapult
Players only skip through the text if they CHOOSE to not care, if they WANT it to be over and done with rather than trying to be brought into the story.
The fact that you believe they are uninteresting and presented in no dramatic context emphasizes that you are such a person, thus having missed out on the bucket-loads of lore they present.
Quest goals have become more diverse since the first batch. Granted that they still involve "go here, do something, come back" but just about every game on the market follows this formula. You're playing a freakin' MMO for goodness sake - the very concept of an MMO involves repetitive activities, else the game would not maintain subscribers.
Voiced cutscenes? If you want them that bad, then you can pay for the voice actors to be brought in every month for the new patch content. This is expensive. It would be viable if you had all the content to do at once, but not when you're patching it in on the fly like with this game.
An absence of voice-acting also has a place in games anyway - it encourages people to use their imagination. Ever tried that? -
09-25-2011, 06:45 PMUser201109011315I try to read all the quests, because I don't want to miss out on anything, but it sometimes feels like a chore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Catapult
The lore needs better presentation, or they shouldn't even bother.
And voiceovers can be expensive, but other games do it just fine and still manage to realse a game with a proper UI and no lag, so what exactly is SE using their money on if not voiceovers? They obviously still have a poor UI and lag. So you see, they don't even make up for lack of voiceovers in other areas, so they don't have any excuse.
SE has discarded the "sandbox" aspects of the MMO, and fully embraced the "themepark" aspects. In otherwords, there has been an increased emphasis on developed quests and content. There has been less emphasis on player-made content, and therefore less emphasis on imagination. Imagination might have a place in MMOs, but obviously not this one anymore.
SE falls far short of the next-gen standard of MMOs in terms of questing.
You are making excuses for them where they deserve none. I'm only thinking of their welfare by broaching this topic. -
09-25-2011, 10:12 PMRuri
Its like this in every video game. Some people choose to read, some click through. I do a little of both depending on my mood.
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09-25-2011, 10:41 PMPulseczar
I think the majority of us would like all npc's to be voice acted, but it's just not feasible or within budget—especially with this game being in different languages. Also take into consideration that this game has no investors and is being 100% funded by SE.
When Everquest II was first launched, every single npc was voice-acted, and it was quite amazing at the time. Over the past 7 years, with each expansion, the voice acting has been cut out because it's way too expensive and that game is US only. -
09-26-2011, 07:41 AMUser201109011315How does SE make up for lack of voice acting though?Quote:
Originally Posted by Pulseczar
The standard for current MMOs is voiceacted quests, unless it's a sandbox MMO. If it's a story based quest-objective type MMO (like GW2, TERA, BnS, Secret World, etc) then these MMOs set the standard at voice-acting.
FFXIV comes across as inferior if it lacks this aspect.
Nobody's asking for total voice-acting, but a little more wouldn't go amiss. -
09-29-2011, 06:19 AMArcell
All I hear is "Oh no, reading is too much work!" Fully voiced content is all well and good but it's a lot less sustainable in terms of actually getting the content out and finished quickly. Content currently takes long enough to develop, you want to add more to that so people can just be lazy?
Personally, I've done most of the side-quests and I've enjoyed most of them. If people actually read them, they provide interesting little bits of lore. -
09-29-2011, 06:21 AMPrettyPrincess
Reading is hard for this community. These very forums prove that.
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09-29-2011, 06:29 AMGidonoidon_Sur
Sort of agree with OP. I think it is smarter, and more compelling, to intertwine real, and challenging content, with story. I think of CoP as a good example. Are side-quests appropriate in this game? Sure, they give a little background into the individuals that fill Eorzea. But, I think they should be icing on the cake used to accentuate an already developed concept (in this analogy, the cake). Therefore for FFXIV development, I think they should be put really low on the priority list moving forward. Certainly a nice-to-have imo, although before there were any people were going nuts for them, so I guess it depends on your view.
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09-30-2011, 12:49 AMGramulWell no duh.Quote:
Originally Posted by User201109011315
Videogames in general are a waste of time. -
10-02-2011, 10:49 PMRiposte
The sidequests I've done have had great writing and I think Eorzea's atmosphere is fantastic, better than other Final Fantasys even. The only thing I dislike about sidequests is that they don't use "echo", which would make for a lot of cool stories.
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10-05-2011, 03:36 PMIrana
I couldnt care less about having fully voiced quests and etc....would be amusing yes but I really dont care and would rather they, if they had the money to fund voice actors to come do voices, spend their money elsewhere. Like improving the demand and strain the game puts on cpus.
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10-07-2011, 06:21 AManimeprime
Yeaaaaaaah, are you REALLY sure you want SE to voice every quest?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5FTJ...tailpage#t=17s -
10-08-2011, 07:48 AMstonedlol that vid brought back some old memories. yea this game need to step up alot of its features. any1 saying SE cant fund this game needs to go troll on somewhere else this company is rich. and the trillions of FF games sold has paid for anything we want.Quote:
Originally Posted by animeprime
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10-08-2011, 07:53 AMDenmo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSzCw...eature=related
/thread
no wait..
/forum
NO WAIT
/game
.....
/life -
10-08-2011, 06:11 PMNarmito
i think that this person has absolutely right . Devs pls stop what ever you are trying to change in this game ...the battle system, the jobs, the maps , every revamp thing... and pls do Voice overs its so easy and fast you can do it call actors and do the lips synchronize.
That is what every player needs right now ...also pls stop directing so nice your FMV and real time cut scenes and do it static like GW2 with this robotic animation and like so many others mmo that are so static cut scenes but pls we need only voice overs this is important right now , stop animating perfect your cut scenes pls
thank you player that you now what the game needs right now :)
oh and pls this player has right this is not 3gen game... what animation is that we have on our character - mobs - nature .. and what kind of texure - light is that in this game...pls voice overs are 3gen... that its the only thing that makes games 3 generation ...
ok ... >.> sorry that i m ironic really sorry mate but mate before you came at ffxiv did you now how many things are missed here ...? do you think player that the New dev has as a priority to do voice overs ...the old team gives them and give us a bad game and believe me it wasn't because of the missing voice overs
have a nice day -
10-08-2011, 06:26 PMMedura
Please don't answer to posts made of user[lotsanumbers]
It is a waste of time, and he is the biggest troll our forum have at the moment .. -
10-11-2011, 03:41 AMPunainen
You can't skip through the dialogue and expect to feel any connection with the lore... Plus I love the free XP for my DoH. I went through GSM 43-44 on quest XP alone.
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10-14-2011, 05:00 AMJigg
I did the quests needed for Private Third Class for the Immortal Flames last weekend and had a blast doing it. I enjoyed the stories told and it would have made choosing a lot harder if I hadn't already made up my mind on who I wanted to join.
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10-14-2011, 05:02 AMPrettyPrincess
I like that the recent sidequests had ACTUAL cutscenes. Keep it up SE :3
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10-14-2011, 05:52 AMNayt
I used to enjoy the sidequests in ffxi, because they were a bit more to the point in the dialogue. Here you get a damn novel and in the end, the npc is just telling you to fetch him three cactuses and a rock.
Now, I don't mind reading. I read lots of books. But it feels awkward to have walls of text posted before me in a game such as this. -
10-14-2011, 05:00 PMBongeh1986
I find the text in the quests very well written and often quite humorous and enjoyable to peruse. The cutscenes are a joy to watch in most quests. I think more effort needs to be made to have audio voice overs for the cutscenes though.
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10-24-2011, 06:05 AMRiposte
I think it makes up for it by being really well written and funny. Quests don't provide challenging content unless you are at the proper level or the endgame, that's a bigger problem imo.
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10-28-2011, 08:34 AMMasamune1004I have an easier time understanding Baderon...Quote:
Originally Posted by Narmito