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

[MiNuN]

Its like me asking "Aren't YOU a waste of space?"

[Renshi]

After reading the posts here, I came with a conclusion:

Pineapple

[Jennestia]

Yeah and the april event is being pushed back because of time lost from development, indicating that significant development time goes into events.

No, it indicates they're talking about development in general. This is why the English language is such a ...."interesting" language, because you can interpret things in so many ways. Even "F2P" MMOs only has a community (GM) team that handle events and the development team does their thing.

This is why when you enter this field of work, especially on MMORPGs, they expect you to have at least moderate knowledge of internal workings.

[Jibe]

and there are no horsebirds.

epic

/10char

[goonMagi]

This event hurts FFXIVs image and should have never happened until next year. It sends the wrong message to all the gamers out there who are still checking on this game.

They have become their subscription fee. The content they're releasing has become free to play caliber.

I think this is such an important idea that seems to be overlooked by a lot of current players and fans. While we may be enjoying the game's UI and latency adjustments, and the simple holiday events, the majority of the games customer base that was disappointed with the game on release is being more and more turned off.

Sounding like a total pessimist is not my goal here though; If XIV started releasing real interesting content, and game-changing fixes I believe things would get much better.

[Sojiro]

Still don't get it. Yes it looks worse to release something of this nature rather than nothing, because while most people will buy the argument that they're working hard on companies, jobs, and battle engines...this kind of crap is exactly the kind of thing people quit the game over. Worthless content release after worthless content releas,. as major errors stand uncorrected.

Best to just continue to talk about companies and the battle engine. People are looking for more of the same oblivious egg hunt trash content as an excuse to stay away from the game. Now they have it. And that's worse than nothing. Better to keep your mouth shut than open it and prove you're not capable of fixing the game. This is proof to people that they aren't capable of fixing the game, whether you think it's not or what. That's what it looks like to more people than this game still contains.

Your egg hunts in light of a game where every single significant aspect needs improvement are making people uninstall the game. And you just don't get it. Wake up.

You know its funny, this is exactly a damned if you do damned if you don't situation for SE. Its pretty obvious whatever PvE content they are planning to be released isn't ready yet or they're sitting on a hell of a lot of it (depending if you believe some conspiracy theories). We were already starting to see another stream of "I wish SE would say they're doing something" and the moment they do they're harped on by another crowd. Fact of the matter is, no matter what they do someone IS going to bitch.

The biggest thing that gets me, is content is about the biggest complaint the community has right now. And they are providing something, is it small? Yes. Is it major epic awesome cut scene laden encounters? No, but obviously that kind of stuff isn't either done yet or they're still sitting on it. I know I know, I just "don't get it" and i'm obviously wrong, the way you've been coming off lately (mostly this post I don't know outside that) its probably best for you to take a step back and take a break from FFXIV.

[Jibe]

I think Peregrine does have a really good point, but people are maybe not seeing it because of the way it's being presented.

I, too, feel that it is hurting SE dev teams reputation to talk very big about huge, awesome, upcoming changes; while the only VISIBLE content that is released is superfluous holiday events and small fixes for bugs nobody even knew existed. It's fine to play up the big changes that are on the way, but if all the visible changes are superfluous, that is hurting you.

Most people seem to be responding with, well it doesn't take time away from the big stuff etc. But Peregrine comes back with, THAT DOESN'T MATTER. It's the image that nothing is being done that matters. If SE can't deliver on big stuff right away either stop talking about the big stuff or stop releasing small stuff while talking up the big stuff. It looks bad and makes players mad. THAT was Peregrines point, and it's a good one.

Like other people have stated in the thread, if all you can look back on in 3 months of development are these holiday events and alot of big talk, people that are on the fence are not likely to be swayed into coming back, and current players will get fed up and leave. SE's image is hurt. Not to mention that, although we in the forums know it's only been 3 months since Yoshi-san has taken over the helm, to Mr. Joe Nonplayer it has been 6 months since release. Mr. Joe Nonplayer does not care if they have a new producer, he cares what there is to do in the game and if it is fun. Period.

This game will not survive without people to play it. I personally have watched people in my ls and server that I have been used to seeing since launch quit the game in the past week. At least 5 people that I knew well have stopped logging on and a few have given away all their stuff and announced that they were leaving. "It's just not fun anymore" etc. These were all hardcore players like me, who logged on every day and played all day on their days off work. And look at Peregrine, he's a hardcore player. When die-hard SE fans start abandoning the ship, that should be seen as a crisis.

Bottom line is, if SE thinks it's mollifying the player base with these small patches while they work on the big stuff, I think it's safe to say that for most of us it's not working. It is a matter of opinion on whether or not they should not release anything while they work on the big stuff, but I happen to agree with this. If small stuff is the only content visible I think that is going to hurt SE and Yoshi-san's reputation.

Talk about upcoming changes all you want Yoshi, but don't talk about huge changes then release small events and minuscule bug fixes; that makes it seem like you can't deliver on what you promise. I think that is what turned Peregrine against this game. He just got fed up with waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more on the good stuff, while you turn out egg hunts and bell ringing (bell ringing? COME ON) events.

I personally am still playing the game, but I've been having to kind of force myself to want to log on, if that makes any sense. I am getting very antsy waiting for the big changes that keep not coming. I know there has been a disaster in Japan and you do have to take that into account, but unfortunately people are still going to hold SE accountable. If 1.17 and 1.17a are fail, I don't know what I'll do.

P.S. - Actually, there is one bug I am glad you fixed. Now I don't have to worry about crafting in the Tinkerer's Ward while facing west and eating a Meat Miq'abob while drawing my weapon with Umbral weather in Mor Dhona..... EPIC.

[Abriael]

Know what's funny? That a lot of the same people that now complain at the development of holiday events would probably find the LACK of holiday events a perfect argument to argue that the game is dead.

Holiday events (at least in tis game, from what we've seen so far) take a very little amount of development time, and probably are handled during the dead times of development (that do exist, for instance when a team is waiting for progress from another team on a project), they provide a further incentive for many to log into the game and play, and do serve as a (albeit limited) form of content.
Also, they serve as "veterancy rewards" for players that have stuck with the game since the early months. In a few years, is the game will have improved enough to keep us here, we'll be flaunting that usagi kabuto like a trophy and the newbies will ask us where we got it.

So no, they do serve a purpose and they are not a waste of developmentvtime provided that they're kept small.

@Jibe: the "image that's nothing is being done" would still be there for the 99% of the people feeling it whether the seasonal events were there or not. It's called a preconception.

[Peregrine]

They have several things they can do to not turn people off with meaningless content updates. Namely, playing them down instead of hyping them.

Take the quests, for instance. What was that? Are they what *anyone* wanted when we said we want quests? No. They're horribly pointless fetch quests, the most basic of the basic fodder quests that weren't even acceptable almost a decade ago. People will argue that you have to start somewhere. People will say that these are the most basic quests. Really. Are they? Are they. Prove it. Because SE hyped them and they fell well short of industry standards, our expectations, and just made SE look bad. People laughed.

How do you release the crap quests that you already made that are terrible? Well A, you never make that kind of **** again so it's not an issue. B. You can severely downplay it. Outright say they're not that good but they were intended as launch-day impression pieces. I can understand if the 18 quests are meant for newbie PS3 people when they log on for their first week. But they should have NEVER been hyped as a cure for what ails the game, and they shouldn't have even been hyped as content to current players of the game.

Same thing with the holiday event. Downplay that ****, don't put it on the front line of your letter as the majority of a PATCH. That's not a patch for anything that's broken in the game, so they don't get credit for patching anything with it. If this holiday event didn't affect any other development, say it. Players need to know they didn't dick around with this for even 2 weeks of March. If they DID dick around with it, it ends. Fix the game. Get to work. I know holiday crap is easy to develop just like those crap quests were easy to develop, and it makes it look like they're doing SOMETHING but it doesn't COUNT. For them to pretend it does makes them look like a joke to the player base.

I don't want to hear about another holiday event as anything but an oh by the way at the end of the announcement. If those quests down the pipeline are more of the same trash, don't even bother getting the translation team. Yoshi-P namedropped more quests, am I supposed to squeal like a school girl? Because the last batch of quests were painful to complete. Instead of pretending they were good, apologize for that **** and let us know that the next batch won't be that poor.

But my suspicion is that they thought they could sell the holiday event as more evidence of content, and they don't even realize that the quests they already released were a waste of their time to make and a waste of our time to play.

Why do I think that? Because they haven't said otherwise. Assurance that holiday events and fetch quests aren't considered good quality content by Yoshi-P would go a long way IF they MUST continue to release them.

I am calling what looks like a bluff at this point. It's almost time to show the hand. They'd better have something more than a holiday event and a 2nd round of pointless fetch quests by mid may.

[Abriael]

They have several things they can do to not turn people off with meaningless content updates. Namely, playing them down instead of hyping them.

In fact they're not hyping them. They are just communicating their existance. In EVERY MMORPG on the market, no matter how crappy, the development team communicates that there will be an event and when.
The fact that they don't please you, don't mean that they don't please anyone.

And please, let's not get in the realm of the nonsensical. Are you really going to argue that they should come and tell "oh yeah, we're providing you with those events, but they're just filler crap. Don't look forward to them! Don't log in to play them!"

Seriously, the demands i read sometimes...

Just stop... you have no clue what you're talking about and you are doing nothing but making up BS to fit neatly into the argument you want to make.

At last something we can fully agree on.