I'm beginning to notice a trend with these "seasonal events."

[Tetsaru]

- Go to town to pick up quest
- Go to other towns to talk to random NPC's and watch short cutscenes
- Repeat several times

That's it. Events that last for 2 weeks in-game are done in about an hour, and I get barely enough gil to cover the costs of teleporting/airshipping around. Heck, even the quest NPC makes mention of it like it's nothing:

I trust that traversing the realm will not overly trouble an accomplished adventurer such as yourself. I've no doubt you're well accustomed to teleporting all about the place. I suppose it's faster, albeit slightly more expensive, but— Ahem. Where was I? Oh, yes!

"But Tetsaru! You also get exp, seasonal gear, minions, and achievement points!"

The minions are awesome and adorable; I won't deny that. Achievements are fine too. And so is the seasonal gear for derping around at times, but let's face it - as soon as I can stick it in the armoire, I'd rather have it in there instead of hogging up room elsewhere.

Oh, and I already have all my classes/jobs to 50, so I can't even utilize the exp for anything, despite the fact that exp is handed to us everywhere in this game. *COUGH* merit system *COUGH*

On that note, I found it insulting that one of the quest NPC's even assumes I'm not capable of crafting my own doll for the event, despite having all of my crafts maxed out:

What? You lack the manual dexterity required to make a doll for the contest? I will hear no such nonsense! Still, if you so doubt your aptitude for crafting, you might consider purchasing a doll for the contest. It is not unheard of for those who cannot create their own to use one.

Personally, I'm not sure how you could implement it, but I think it would've been really cool to let players craft their own dolls and enter them in a server-wide contest, then have the winner receive a one-of-a-kind item, similar to the Ahriman Chokers SE gives out for their other contests, or use their doll design as another minion.

I'm just asking for more depth to these seasonal events. Give us house decorations, mini-games involving multiple people, some well-made FATE's that don't necessarily involve killing monsters, SOMETHING besides "run around each town and talk to people."

[FJerome]

On that note, I found it insulting that one of the quest NPC's even assumes I'm not capable of crafting my own doll for the event, despite having all of my crafts maxed out:

I assumed I was being INCREDIBLY sarcastic and he took me seriously.

. . . How sad is it that I was thrilled that there's finally a quest where Serendipity remembers who I am?

[Tierala]

i remember the summer event on FFXI...mini games and night time fireworks displays!

NOT saying they should copy paste that but they really need to step up theire game with these events...something i can look foward too EVERY year. not just for what it rewards you with but also for being fun and unique. thats what i think the events should be anyway

[DaltonC]

This was my first seasonal event in FF, and i was quite sad to see it took under a hour to do the whole thing. Coming from mmos like WoW where the event can take you a lot of time, and really have you doing lots of interesting things and keeping you busy. This felt pointless, talk to person then go and dance then go talk to another person... and done. Felt like very much of an afterthought or somone just got bored and said hey ummm next week make up something for people to get a minion.

[Thorauku]

I totally agree with OP.

[Tetsaru]

Some ideas I've seen used in other games that SE could use:

- Take certain monster spawns (for example, Tonberries in WP) and have a random chance to replace one of them with a "seasonal" version of that monster (tonberry wearing a Santa outfit). Have said monsters drop items related to the event, and/or give bonus exp and gil when defeated.

- Instanced mini-dungeons or mini-games that can be cooperative or PVP-oriented. Guild Wars 2 did this a lot, with things such as races, jumping puzzles, or unique battles such as fighting waves of Christmas toys that have gone berserk.

- Seasonal-themed weapon and armor skins (swords that look like chainsaws for Halloween, wands shaped like candy canes, etc.). The Christmas-themed chocobo barding was a step in the right direction; more of this, please.

- Seasonal housing decorations (wallpapers, Christmas trees, Jack-O'-Lanterns, etc.)

- Additional achievements/titles/rewards associated with seasonal event tasks to encourage community participation

- More graphical/music changes to the game world for immersive effect (permanent night-time/eerie fog effects for Halloween, towns covered in snow for Christmas, fireworks during summer festival, etc.)

[Raestloz]

On that note, I found it insulting that one of the quest NPC's even assumes I'm not capable of crafting my own doll for the event, despite having all of my crafts maxed out:

Agree in this. I'm a master weaver and the SCH quest asks me to go get the Guildmaster. I mean, hello? I'm a master weaver.

I do think that the seasonal events are... lackluster. They certainly went to great length to decorate the cities, but seriously. This is shallow

[eternalstar01]

. . . How sad is it that I was thrilled that there's finally a quest where Serendipity remembers who I am?

Not just you... this also made me so happy!

[Duelle]

This was my first seasonal event in FF, and i was quite sad to see it took under a hour to do the whole thing. Coming from mmos like WoW where the event can take you a lot of time, and really have you doing lots of interesting things and keeping you busy. This felt pointless, talk to person then go and dance then go talk to another person... and done.

I'm looking at it as barebones events for the moment. I also come from WoW, so having an event that can be quickly completed instead of...well, forcing you to play every day the event is active does feel a bit odd. That said, I would like to see something along the lines of the meta achievements like what a long strange trip it's been. I'm hoping for next year we get something with a little more depth.

[ColorOfSakura]

But then you had events like the Lightning Returns event where it rolled out over four weeks and each part was completed at various levels, and people complained about that taking too long and being too in depth because you had to get to Level 46 to finish the final part of the Event.

So where does Square find a happy medium?

These are mini festival events just to get people into the swing of getting some fun stuff. ARR's been off the ground for only six months. I'd say give them a little more time to flesh out Seasonal Events.

They probably aren't going to have very in depth ones until the first expansion comes out. Comparing them to WoW (a game that's been out for ten years now) is kind of pointless because WoW has had years to develop and flesh out cool additional events. I don't remember Vanilla WoW having very in depth events either. I think given time, the ARR events will end up being much more fleshed out and fun.