Aren't holiday quests a waste of development time and effort right now?

[Peregrine]

I personally wish they'd stop making them until the game is fixed. 60% of our new content in the game has now been these pointless holiday events. It just feels like they're focussing too much on piddle-content that is easy so they can get content points with the players. Unfortunately they don't *count* for anything at this point in time as far as I'm concerned. Holiday events are things that developers make when there's nothing to do in downtime, for silly style points, and they don't feel like they affect release of any other component of the game. Now is not the time to be releasing holiday event after holiday event while the spell animations look like they do and the areas of real content are what they are.

Developmental points earned for:
Starlight celebration: 0
Valentione's day: 0
Heavensturn: 0
1-shot Fetch quests: 0

Time those took to create could have developed one solid, permanent area of content of value IMO. Feels like they're wasting their time and effort on so many things that don't matter in order because they're quick and easy when that's not what the game needs.

I think they should stop developing holiday events and quests with no goal-oriented ends until they develop content that does.

[TheVedis]

They are groundwork for future versions of it too
once its in, its in and they can just activate it next year and so on

while not everyone enjoys them, there are quite a few who do

and while it does take some development time, im sure it doesnt take too much

[Elexia]

Not really.

Know what is?

Making content when the game's foundation need a lot of work, if that isn't considered a waste of development time, then holiday events aren't.

[Peregrine]

Crafting, gathering and some new rank quests and quest story arcs are content that are all healthy enough to be added to without whitewashing the bad fences. We're not ready for food and raid content until the battle system is overhauled. We're not ready for major story arcs until the job system is overhaulled. But we're ready for something better than the effort and time spent on 3 lame holiday events and 18 useless quests that are hit and quit.

[Kaedan]

Umm... seeing as the holiday events take very little effort to develop? Nope, not a waste at all. It's not taking anything away from the development of other content.

You ever heard the expression, "Too many Chefs spoil the soup?"

They can't and don't have EVERYONE working on the same content. So those that can't work on one piece of content are free to work on another.

Besides, the seasonal content was already planned at release, so again your point is moot.

[Peregrine]

So they didn't have chocobos, airships, quests, more than 4 animations per job, spells that aren't tech demo quality, a funcional market system, and NMs...but they had these holiday events just ready to go?

I don't give a damn what they had planned at release. Clearly that plan failed.

As holiday events make up the *majority* of our new content, I'm left to assume that they in fact do take up most of the time and effort.

7 months in guys, with next to no new content that matters. Time to stop piddling around with holiday items, gear, and animations.

[gifthorse]

It's kind of funny to hear them say they are focussing on foundations when all i've seen so far is superficial content.

edit: but It's really too soon to judge. I mean, it's only been 6 months.

[Elexia]

7 months in guys, with next to no new content that matters. Time to stop piddling around with holiday items, gear, and animations.

I hope this doesn't give you a heart attack:

Typical game, offline or online takes 1-2 years of research and planning alone, up to 2 months just on one monster design and model alone and a good quarter of year or more on the soundtrack depending on the scope and if it's completely tied to the game to the letter.

Then comes the debugging process and advent of engine updates or even new platform release which your stockholders or c.e.o can say "Make the game for the new platform with the new engine instead", guess what you'll have to redo that can push a release date back or force a foundation rewrite?

You're impatient, however if they didn't have to redo the FOUNDATION you could expect we'd have our first expansion pack by now, if you were to compare XI's development timeline, we'd be getting our first glimpses and preparatory updates for it.

[Peregrine]

Right. All of these holiday events create 1 new set of gear (graphics design). Are the developers done with blm whm monk paladin, dark knight, dragoon, and warrior gear? No. They aren't. Get to work on that then and don't give me some stupid spring skirt. All of these holidays create new animations for consumables (motion capture, graphics design). Are the developers done with spell animation overhauls and new action animations for the meleers? No. They're not. Get to work on that and don't give me fireworks. All these events take coding and troubleshooting. Does epiphany work? No, it does not.

I have a list of gear they could be making if they need ideas.
In mining alone, how about they start with the R47 pickaxe and level-appropriate boots that match the rest of the outfit. Balance quarrying. Put copper ore at G5. That's a start.

Oh, you say you want peach confetti instead and a samurai mask. Oh. Ok.

Wake me up when you have a real samurai mask coded.

[Cendres]

Time spent on these 'events' are very minimal from what we have gotten, the thing with the bells was already planned out and VERY bare bones. Same with the Easter event, they had people working on that WHILE others work on what concerns you most like mechanics (possibly even before the team switch), and prior to the catastrophe in Japan which is why they can and want to release it. The other event that was canceled probably wasn't completed and can be sacrificed until next year.

You are assuming that because they can have these events they are wasting their resources, this may not and is probably not the case. You are also assuming that fluff events aren't as important as other content and that my friend is HIGHLY debatable based on the fact that in entertainment everything is subjective. What's important to you may not be important to me, in fact I'll tell you right now, it isn't.