sidequests are a waste of time

[User201109011315]

A lot of people felt divorced from the world of Eorzea, but the sidequests haven't really served as a vehicle for people's attachment. They aren't interesting, the lore is presented with no dramatic context, there are no voice overs, they force you to do repetitive things, players skip through the dialogue.

Compared to fully voiced upcoming MMOs, content like this is very poor quality. It would be okay if FFXIV made up for it by selling itself on other areas of expertise, but it doesn't.

FFXIV is supposed to be a story-based MMO and yet there are only a handful of cutscenes, almost no voiced cutscenes, and the sidequests of which there are plenty, are all rather forgettable.

People shouldn't have to choose between quality and quantity, but I think SE chose quantity, and that wasn't the right choice.

[Catapult]

Players only skip through the text if they CHOOSE to not care, if they WANT it to be over and done with rather than trying to be brought into the story.
The fact that you believe they are uninteresting and presented in no dramatic context emphasizes that you are such a person, thus having missed out on the bucket-loads of lore they present.

Quest goals have become more diverse since the first batch. Granted that they still involve "go here, do something, come back" but just about every game on the market follows this formula. You're playing a freakin' MMO for goodness sake - the very concept of an MMO involves repetitive activities, else the game would not maintain subscribers.

Voiced cutscenes? If you want them that bad, then you can pay for the voice actors to be brought in every month for the new patch content. This is expensive. It would be viable if you had all the content to do at once, but not when you're patching it in on the fly like with this game.
An absence of voice-acting also has a place in games anyway - it encourages people to use their imagination. Ever tried that?

[User201109011315]

Players only skip through the text if they CHOOSE to not care, if they WANT it to be over and done with rather than trying to be brought into the story.
The fact that you believe they are uninteresting and presented in no dramatic context emphasizes that you are such a person, thus having missed out on the bucket-loads of lore they present.

Quest goals have become more diverse since the first batch. Granted that they still involve "go here, do something, come back" but just about every game on the market follows this formula. You're playing a freakin' MMO for goodness sake - the very concept of an MMO involves repetitive activities, else the game would not maintain subscribers.

Voiced cutscenes? If you want them that bad, then you can pay for the voice actors to be brought in every month for the new patch content. This is expensive. It would be viable if you had all the content to do at once, but not when you're patching it in on the fly like with this game.
An absence of voice-acting also has a place in games anyway - it encourages people to use their imagination. Ever tried that?

I try to read all the quests, because I don't want to miss out on anything, but it sometimes feels like a chore.

The lore needs better presentation, or they shouldn't even bother.

And voiceovers can be expensive, but other games do it just fine and still manage to realse a game with a proper UI and no lag, so what exactly is SE using their money on if not voiceovers? They obviously still have a poor UI and lag. So you see, they don't even make up for lack of voiceovers in other areas, so they don't have any excuse.

SE has discarded the "sandbox" aspects of the MMO, and fully embraced the "themepark" aspects. In otherwords, there has been an increased emphasis on developed quests and content. There has been less emphasis on player-made content, and therefore less emphasis on imagination. Imagination might have a place in MMOs, but obviously not this one anymore.

SE falls far short of the next-gen standard of MMOs in terms of questing.

You are making excuses for them where they deserve none. I'm only thinking of their welfare by broaching this topic.

[Ruri]

Its like this in every video game. Some people choose to read, some click through. I do a little of both depending on my mood.

[Pulseczar]

I think the majority of us would like all npc's to be voice acted, but it's just not feasible or within budget—especially with this game being in different languages. Also take into consideration that this game has no investors and is being 100% funded by SE.

When Everquest II was first launched, every single npc was voice-acted, and it was quite amazing at the time. Over the past 7 years, with each expansion, the voice acting has been cut out because it's way too expensive and that game is US only.

[User201109011315]

I think the majority of us would like all npc's to be voice acted, but it's just not feasible or within budget—especially with this game being in different languages. Also take into consideration that this game has no investors and is being 100% funded by SE.

When Everquest II was first launched, every single npc was voice-acted, and it was quite amazing at the time. Over the past 7 years, with each expansion, the voice acting has been cut out because it's way too expensive and that game is US only.

How does SE make up for lack of voice acting though?

The standard for current MMOs is voiceacted quests, unless it's a sandbox MMO. If it's a story based quest-objective type MMO (like GW2, TERA, BnS, Secret World, etc) then these MMOs set the standard at voice-acting.

FFXIV comes across as inferior if it lacks this aspect.

Nobody's asking for total voice-acting, but a little more wouldn't go amiss.

[Arcell]

All I hear is "Oh no, reading is too much work!" Fully voiced content is all well and good but it's a lot less sustainable in terms of actually getting the content out and finished quickly. Content currently takes long enough to develop, you want to add more to that so people can just be lazy?

Personally, I've done most of the side-quests and I've enjoyed most of them. If people actually read them, they provide interesting little bits of lore.

[PrettyPrincess]

Reading is hard for this community. These very forums prove that.

[Gidonoidon_Sur]

Sort of agree with OP. I think it is smarter, and more compelling, to intertwine real, and challenging content, with story. I think of CoP as a good example. Are side-quests appropriate in this game? Sure, they give a little background into the individuals that fill Eorzea. But, I think they should be icing on the cake used to accentuate an already developed concept (in this analogy, the cake). Therefore for FFXIV development, I think they should be put really low on the priority list moving forward. Certainly a nice-to-have imo, although before there were any people were going nuts for them, so I guess it depends on your view.

[Gramul]

sidequests are a waste of time

Well no duh.
Videogames in general are a waste of time.