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

[yukikaze_yanagi]

Obliusly not.
Still, saying seasonal events are too much effort to care right now is just wrong. A group of 3-4 people can't do that much for changing the game
(3-4 people are an hypotetical number, but don't expect a group of 100 devs working on a seasonal event)

[Abriael]

Above all they need to mind the caliber of the content they are releasing.

Oh really? I wonder from what kind of experience you come and want to teach them how to handle game development, because from what I see from your posts the answer seems to be "none at all".
It's already hard enough to reconstruct a game from the basic without having to mind the "caliber" of the content they are releasing, following the natural release of the updates based on the simple fact (it's not even a rule, just a fact) that's what faster to implement gets ready to implement first and holding it back because some random guy on the internet will rage is nonsensical.

If the simple and trifling things are coming out of the pipes first, SE needs to be the first to admit that they're simple and trifling and not the solution

I'm quite eager to see you quote them on whenever they state the contrary. Because they didn't. They never presented ANY piece of content introduced as a single titular solution for any problem. I don't see excessive hype on anything. They siomply communicate "this is going to come out, and this, and this, and this".
If you expect ANY company to come and say "this is going to come out, but hey! It's crap" You really need to finally set foot in the realm of reality.

While I'm sure you'd be happy to see them prostrate themselves further, negativity from the developer themselves isn't conductive of any positive effect.

because the player will make that judgment themselves and it'll be worse if it appears SE is trying to play off simple content as acceptable solution.

Quote where they played off any single feature as a "solution" to anything?

The quality of the quests were free to play.

Oh really? Free to Play and Pay to Play are simple indication of business model. Nowadays they are not an indication of quality.

The quality of holiday events are free to play.

Oh really? Weird considering that many pay to play MMORPGs have the same holiday events. So your "quality" statements are absolutely arbitrary.

and the player base should have been assured that no REAL content or progress was harmed in the making of this simple diversion.

And pray tell who exactly are you to decide what is REAL content and what is not?

Did anyone in the player's poll tell them we need more holidays as a fix? I didn't. I still maintain that they got their priorities messed up (and they realized this too late which is why they killed the may holiday finally).

You seem to think that polling the playerbase should somehow force them to do everything those polls come out with. Sorry to burst a big bubble here, but game development isn't a democratic process. Thankfully, I may add.

If the players come to those conclusions themselves, as opposed to being acknowledged by Square Enix before they reach those conclusions, it appears that Square Enix is an impotent developer who doesn't understand how to repair their game.

And of course you know better right?

As it stands, the quests and the holiday event are making front-page, headline sections in the comments when they should honestly be apologized for ahead of time.

LOL. You require apologies for something you deserve no apologies for.

If you're trying to build a subscription-quality game, every time you release free to play-caliber content you'd best apologize in advance. Period.

Again, your quality assessments are completely arbitrary, and you're owed no apology over your arbitrary feelings.

It's time to stop distracting you with stupid things, because the rest of the potential players see the crap they release to you and figure that's all this team has to offer.

And where did you exactly poll the "rest of the potential players" to know what they want? Ah, right, you didn't.

The reasoning behind peregrine's posts does not seem unsound to me, and the tone by which it is delivered is irrelevant. Einstein could have stated E=mc^2 with a hateful attitude it wouldn't have made him any less correct. I mean, we're not getting marks for presentation here.

Apple to oranges. Einstein wasn't expressing his personal opinion, devoid of any professional or factual confirmation. He was expressing physics.
Peregrine (just as much as you) is expressing a simple personal opinion with no ground to stand on, stating it as it's sanctioned and confirmed facts, which is laughable.

It's like peregrine says, superficial distractions might be fun for a select few, but to the vast majority, it looks like that's all the game has to offer.

Oh really? And how exactly did you poll the "vast majority?" Did you ask them all?

In fact, it's ironic you would upbraid Peregrine for his/her tone when it is the tone of the developers which needs to change. Acting like an easter egg hunt is a suitable bandaid to the swine flu that is FFXIV isn't winning them any confidence from the players.

Again please, quote where the developer ever presented the "easter egg hunt" as a suitable bandaid to anything.
I'm really curious.

[Chezen]

I don't see what everyone has against you and your arguments.

As I said before, I understand what Peregrines point is, and I even agree that it is in fact, correct. But I also believe it is irrelevant. The quality content she speaks of is being worked on, and will be released when it is ready. The same gamers who turn their nose up and laugh now, will in turn come and play when the game becomes quality. Yes, that is, provided the content is good, which I personally believe will be.

You (OP) are making this out to be a detrimental mistake, and I am saying that it is not. They already have a bad rep as a game. Holiday events won't make people laugh any more than they already are, and they make some of us still here happy. I personally think it will be a good many months before the game is completely turned around. Enough to ask for subs anyway. Might as well have a little fun along the way. I hope they have bunny ears for the event.

[Poipori]

The reasoning behind peregrine's posts does not seem unsound to me, and the tone by which it is delivered is irrelevant. Einstein could have stated E=mc^2 with a hateful attitude, it wouldn't have made him any less correct. I mean, we're not getting marks for presentation here.

It's like peregrine says, superficial distractions might be fun for a select few, but to the vast majority, it looks like that's all the game has to offer.

In fact, it's ironic you would upbraid Peregrine for his/her tone when it is the tone of the developers which needs to change. Acting like an easter egg hunt is a suitable bandaid to the swine flu that is FFXIV isn't winning them any confidence from the players.

I agree with you, peregrine's post was spot on, albeit with a touch anger.

I also think that the devs should really stop wasting time developing these insignificant(or fluff) content such as these holiday quests, because this is not helping the game at all, considering players might think that the team had lost track of priorities.

Sure, these holiday quest might not take much development effort, but all these minor development effort can still be channeled to proper content development, any extra manpower being allocated for main content is better than these useless fluffs whose only purpose is to serve as a diversion.

[Abriael]

I agree with you, peregrine's post was spot on, albeit with a touch anger.

I also think that the devs should really stop wasting time developing these insignificant(or fluff) content such as these holiday quests, because this is not helping the game at all, considering players might think that the team had lost track of priorities.

Sure, these holiday quest might not take much development effort, but all these minor development effort can still be channeled to proper content development, any extra manpower being allocated for main content is better than these useless fluffs whose only purpose is to serve as a diversion.

-As far as we know, a rather large part (if not all) of the assets needed for the events might have been ready even before the launch of the game. It makes perfect sense to create a few holiday themed assets for the future.
-You call it useless, but it has plenty uses, both for the people that enjoy them (and obviously there are), and as a marketing tool. The fact that it's "useless" for you doesn't mean it is for everyone.
-Team development doesn't work as you think it does. There are plenty times in which different teams have to wait for another team's updates before proceeding with work. Those dead times can much easier be filled with accessory self-contained tasks as holiday events and minor content.
-Any and every development team I've been in contact with, especially the ones dedicated to continuated projects like a MMORPG need some "lighthearted" small projects to work on once in a while. It helps a lot keeping the stress at bay, and it ultimately raises the quality of the overall work.
Game development is nowhere as fun and games as people would think (even more so in Japan), and sometimes some "fun and games" injection is needed to avoid people losing drive and enthusiasm.

Ultimately, I'm quite sure the dev team knows how to allocate development time efficently better than random internet goers with absolutely no idea of the schedules, the team sinergies and the timings they work under. An extremely oversimplified idea of game development that's all too widespread on this forum doesn't help.

[Kazimir]

Holy **** I just read over some of the last few pages and what a total mess of fail. You guys are seriously idiots if you think the developers took away any attention from the core fixes in this game to come up with some holiday event. It only takes a very small number of people to work on the holiday events. They really aren't that complicated to demand the attention of the 100 devs let alone even 5. They are split into groups anyway determined by the type of content they develop, whether it's UI, battle system, endgame, etc. so the devs working on the fixes/content didn't just stop what they were doing to work on some dumb holiday event.

Also, you guys act like any major thing in this game should be fixed in the 3 months since Yoshi-P took over when they have to 1. Come up with all the details of everything they are changing 2. Coordinate with the other dev groups to make sure it's compatible with their ideas 3. Hash out every last detail (yeah, that takes a lot of time) 4. Code it 5. Test it 6. Re-balance and de-bug 7. Test again 8. continue #5 and #6 until it's ready.

And in the middle of all that, they have to work with the community doing interviews every so often, listening to the retarded ideas from half of the posts on this forum, and implement the crap in between that technically could wait but everyone keeps complaining about it too much to put off. They aren't just dicking around in an office. It takes a lot of work to develop a good multi-million dollar MMO, if that wasn't already evident by the fact that the vast majority of MMO's lose over half their player base in the first 3 months, or just fall apart all together.

I swear, you guys are like a bunch of kids in a toy store yelling I WANT MY TOY NOW when your mommy hasn't even gone through the register yet.

[Ostia]

But we did go through the register....6 months ago in fact.....

Btw: one forum goer telling another how development works in SE is priceless, this thread delivers big time :P

[Rutelor]

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 certainly can say that again! It's not like placing identical sets of bells on the same spot event after event, and rehashing powdered sugar as a reward will make much of a dent in their schedules.

C

[Evenstar]

Holy **** I just read over some of the last few pages and what a total mess of fail. You guys are seriously idiots if you think the developers took away any attention from the core fixes in this game to come up with some holiday event. It only takes a very small number of people to work on the holiday events. They really aren't that complicated to demand the attention of the 100 devs let alone even 5. They are split into groups anyway determined by the type of content they develop, whether it's UI, battle system, endgame, etc. so the devs working on the fixes/content didn't just stop what they were doing to work on some dumb holiday event.

Also, you guys act like any major thing in this game should be fixed in the 3 months since Yoshi-P took over when they have to 1. Come up with all the details of everything they are changing 2. Coordinate with the other dev groups to make sure it's compatible with their ideas 3. Hash out every last detail (yeah, that takes a lot of time) 4. Code it 5. Test it 6. Re-balance and de-bug 7. Test again 8. continue #5 and #6 until it's ready.

And in the middle of all that, they have to work with the community doing interviews every so often, listening to the retarded ideas from half of the posts on this forum, and implement the crap in between that technically could wait but everyone keeps complaining about it too much to put off. They aren't just dicking around in an office. It takes a lot of work to develop a good multi-million dollar MMO, if that wasn't already evident by the fact that the vast majority of MMO's lose over half their player base in the first 3 months, or just fall apart all together.

I swear, you guys are like a bunch of kids in a toy store yelling I WANT MY TOY NOW when your mommy hasn't even gone through the register yet.

I am glad we got people like you, seriously. I tried to explain this kind of stuff in so many different topics, but its no go man. They do not want to understand it or maybe they simply don't have to capacity to understand. I don't know.

[Malakhim]

That powered sugar is going to lead to some serious childhood diabetes.