How much effort is it to create 1 simple fetch Quest?

[Jeeqbit]

How the main scenario is made (but it's not going to be much different for sidequests

What Yoshi-P's job involves (talks a lot about patch cycles and its contents, a lot of which is quests).

On Apr 5, 2019, 3 months before the release of Shadowbringers, from https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/...=1#post4941071

Q: I’m very excited for the story in Shadowbringers. How much of the story has been written so far?
A: While I can't go into the details of the upcoming story, in terms of progress, we’re about 80-90% complete with the main scenario. Things that remain are things such as the sidequests and checking over the completed sections.

Implying sidequests weren't complete, if even done at all, that close to the expansion release.

This doesn't provide a lot of detail on how quests are made, but has some comments on making the MSQ by the writers

Comments on localization which include how much work an expansion MSQ is.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

snip

Purely on a technical standpoint? Depends on how the workflow is handled. My personal guess based on my own history of game development is from initial conception to finished product, a quest in 14 will likely take about 2-3 weeks of dev time. That being said, this isn't 2-3 weeks for everything, certain aspects will take much longer than others.

Script - This is likely where the most development time as far as the actual quest goes. Scripts for quests not only have to be written, but then thoroughly reviewed by the writing lead &/or game director, mistakes corrected, potential lore contradictions/issues addressed, checking if the dialogue fits the character's personality & experiences, etc. Scripts aren't a simple 'write it out and you're done'. They get passed around many people and most scripts have to go through many re-writes. Then once an absolute finalized script is finished, it gets passed onto translations teams, each of which then has to spend time not only translating the script, but also changing the wording/dialogue to better fit the region (Like how certain references in JP dialogue wouldn't translate well to EN, so they get altered) through localization. After every language team approves their final script, that's when it gets truly finalized.

Actual gameplay loop of a given quest - Even assuming the quest is absolute bare-bones 'go to point A, talk to someone, repeat 4-6 times', You would have to create, design and program the following:
-A list of event flags associated with the quest, making sure that the flags unlock in order to prevent the quest from breaking and going out of order
-Cutscene crafting, where not only would you have to plan which cutscenes occur where in the quest, but then also plan all the camera movements, jumps, pans, etc for each interaction, syncing up emotes/animations to key moments in each cutscene, and with FF14 in specific, program in the target all the characters in the scene should be looking at on any given text box.
-If the NPCs associated with the event are brand new, there will be a not-zero amount of time spent crafting the NPC in the character creator, giving them a lore-appropriate name, crafting their personality, backstory, etc. If they're wearing a unique set of armor, then you also have to wait for the 3D modeling team to finish their work first. (see next)
-Plan the placement of NPCs associated with the quest at key locations they need to be in the questline, while also having to factor the positions of any other NPC in that zone(whether their sidequest was active or not) to make sure that no 2 NPCs ever overlap from being placed in the same spot.

To put it in perspective, I worked on a sidequest in Assasin's Creed 2 that was a glorified short fetch quest, and that quest took us about 3 weeks of development till it was fully completed & thoroughly tested. Keep in mind though, the team I worked with was like, 20 people large purely between the programmers, quest designers and QA. I can't make any comments regarding the team sizes that Square uses for their quest designers.

Rewards - This is where there's a lot of ? as I am unaware of the given workload their 3D modeling team is under at any given point. Yoshi-P has mentioned that from first inception to its implementation, a gearset takes roughly 6months to develop, but I think this is an exaggeration. However, 3D modeling a full set with all the variations for various races like the unique body types of Roegadyn & lalafell, along with male & female variants and all the texture work involved in under a week is a massive stretch. I would likely put any set developed at around 1-2 months, given the 3D modeling team likely has to make an insane amount of environmental 3D assets for the given dungeon & trial every patch, along with any additional assets for extra content like exploratory stuff/deep dungeons/raids/etc that might be coming that patch. That is all without factoring that any work they make would have to go through approvals from higher ups, and not everything will be done on the first go around and will require multiple revisions.

This would likely be the choke point for trying to do any sort of monthly mini quest thing. The 3D modeling team has to make hundreds of assets from gear to environmental stuff for each major patch in just 4 months, their workload is likely crammed enough as it is. it's likely the reason that when multiple events are in close proximity, some of them tend to suffer in terms of rewards, since they may not have time to give every event a 'big' reward. Or why you see them implementing some stuff into the game files nearly half a year in advance (the Heavensturn items were in the game since 6.2, as an example) since that's when they have the spare time to work on something.

TL DR: That one quest is likely about 2-3 weeks of professional work, being done by one of the quest teams once they finished their work for 6.3.

But this is all my $0.02 based on my own experiences in the industry. I have no detailed idea of how Square's internal dev environment works.

[Jeeqbit]

This has information about story and quest design https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/003029.html

Then they have to come up with characters, so see this https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/003359.html

Then they need translating
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/003334.html
https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/003339.html

For rewards, I remember the models take something like 6-8 months because it starts with an vague idea, then the concept art team have to try to draw it and find the best one that they came up with, then it has to be made, animated, have an icon designed, tooltips written, then translated and tested. Just for a simple reward that some people might discard afterwards. There is more information about how long it takes to make items here https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/blog/003401.html

My other links were to events that took place after live letters, but these are from the blogs.

[kevin_satron]

somebody didnt watch that one LL livestream where they explain how they make a sidequest. it literally takes days or even weeks just to create 1 sidequest because everyone is busy with msq and other type of quest like tribal quest, job/role quest, etc at the same time

[Deveryn]

CBU3 is always working on something and they're doing more despite also making XVI. The proof is out there, but people want to ignore it and act like victims.

[Atelier-Bagur]

CBU3 is always working on something and they're doing more despite also making XVI. The proof is out there, but people want to ignore it and act like victims.

I wouldnt really say that, its just the simple fact that anyone who hasnt worked in the game development business wouldnt know how its actually all done. So people assume as if everything is all simple and clean.

[Heroman3003]

I wouldnt really say that, its just the simple fact that anyone who hasnt worked in the game development business wouldnt know how its actually all done. So people assume as if everything is all simple and clean.

Or people would assume based off of how easy indie devs can add features every week i ntheir small-scale projects and do not recognize that some things are sacrificed to corporate production pipeline in order to make big projects like MMOs possible, and one of them is ability to casually just add a thing real quick over an evening of one man's coding.

[Ardeth]

What dont you like from Bozja?

I don't like any arbitrary systems where I have to level up. It's ironic because it's everything I wanted from Eureka, and yet it's not enough. Eureka was terrible. The fate system of spawning nms was terrible. The xp was terrible. The grind was terrible. So the change to Bozja at first was great, but I don't know. I didn't like it. I don't like running from fate to fate. I don't like the dungeons inside of them. I don't like the fates that turn into boss fights. I don't like it.

But again, it's optional. I like that part.

[Atelier-Bagur]

Or people would assume based off of how easy indie devs can add features every week i ntheir small-scale projects and do not recognize that some things are sacrificed to corporate production pipeline in order to make big projects like MMOs possible, and one of them is ability to casually just add a thing real quick over an evening of one man's coding.

You just answered your own question. You cant compare a single player experience small scale project to an MMO. Its like comparing apples and oranges. Way to go to make yourself look so ignorant.

[Rufalus]

I feel like the future of MMOs is gonna have quests auto-generated by AI. It's actually possible to generate content faster than players can complete it now, even the art assets, music and battle design by AI. It shouldn't replace human-designed creative works but there's a place for that automated stuff as supplemental content within certain parameters.