How much effort is it to create 1 simple fetch Quest?

[Hycinthus]

Honest question, how much development effort is it to create 1 simple fetch Quest?

The reason I'm asking is - we already have a content drought as of it is right now, and I thought, great, there is at least Seasonal Event Valentione. But then, *gasp* it is only exactly 1 Quest.

What's preventing SE from just having monthly simple events to alleviate some of the drought's frustration? How much effort is it to just create 8 simple quests, tied to a monthly event?

Story - I need just 1 hour for 1 quest's story and dialogue. Give me 8 hours, meaning 1 day's worth of work - I'll prepare 8 quests' stories and dialogues ready. Heck, can they just hire summer writing interns or volunteers? (Localization - just use google translate, it's OK).

Quest Design - Make it very simple. Fetch quests, or completing existing Fates. That's it. People will be happy enough. At least it's enough to fill the time. We're not asking for the moon here.

Animation - I'm thinking this is where the bulk of the effort will go. We don't need complicated animation. Just use the existing Emotes, or even, no need to animate at all. Just a couple NPCs standing together, spout out the lines from the writers, just copy paste, that's it.

Voice Acting - no need voice acting. There isn't any anyway for Seasonal quests.

Rewards - Maybe 1 designer to design 2-3 outfits as reward, probably will take them less than 1 week. If not, then just give out existing items and materials, and maybe a certificate or MGP or something. People will be happy.

Testing - Just 1 or 2 QAs to test, probably done in a 2 day's work.

What else? Please help me as I am just trying to figure out, and I will happily stand corrected if I really am missing a lot of the context here, of why they cannot just push out monthly events with 8 quests each, or even have a less lackluster Seasonal Event like Valentione with more than just 1 quest.

[Poporito_Popoto]

You forgot the extra zone that was created for the event, plus the after-quest wrap-up.

[Stormpeaks]

You forgot the extra zone that was created for the event, plus the after-quest wrap-up.

That's literally 20 minutes of content total, and that's if you're slow on the event, else it's more like 10

[Poporito_Popoto]

That's literally 20 minutes of content total, and that's if you're slow on the event, else it's more like 10

Yet it's more than just 1 fetch quest like the OP mentioned.

[Hycinthus]

Yet it's more than just 1 fetch quest like the OP mentioned.

I want to discuss even beyond Valentione event - that's done and dusted, can't go back.

So basically, how much effort do you think that took, and how about for future Seasonal events? Is it acceptable? How about monthly events with 8 quests each (not just seasonal), would that be feasible? Etc.

[Atelier-Bagur]

I want to discuss even beyond Valentione event - that's done and dusted, can't go back.

So basically, how much effort do you think that took, and how about for future Seasonal events? Is it acceptable? How about monthly events with 8 quests each (not just seasonal), would that be feasible? Etc.

honestly ive gotten so used with the lack of a huge net of grinds that I seriously dont want to have to prolong a quest event for the sake of adding a grind. If this is what you're ultimately wanting for the a seasonal event like in WoW when they do theirs.

Its most so that I can get my small fill, be content about it and not worry about the game and do other things. Is that so bad?

[Jeycht]

You forgot the extra zone that was created for the event, plus the after-quest wrap-up.

It's an old map from 2 years ago and they already used last year too. Nothing to develop there.

[Heroman3003]

Quests like the seasonal quests are usually done in the interim of working on other content, more important and are basically filler. But what you fail to account for in your estimation of effort is a critical thing - every step is easy for one person's work, but this isn't one person's work. Each of steps is worked on by different people in different departments. Now add all the time of stuff being shared back and forth over multiple days to coordinate, idea being settled and confirmed by leads, even smallest errors taking time to fix due to need to go back and forth yet again, etc etc. Ironically, when it comes to incredibly small things, corporate development team structure is a lot slower than solo indie devs at doing it, purely because of separation of duties and paper trails. So yeah, the amount of work going into it? Less than a week, definitely. The amount of time it takes between each step as things get coordinated? Definitely adds up to just as much if not more time.

[dspguy]

But what you fail to account for in your estimation of effort is a critical thing - every step is easy for one person's work, but this isn't one person's work. Each of steps is worked on by different people in different departments.

Can't emphasize this enough. While I don't work for SE, I can't imagine development is that different from the bigger picture.

There's the "story and lore" department. How does this fit into Eorzea? Do they tie in pre-existing characters? Do we need to make a new character? What are they like?

There's the art department - new items, new characters, new zone(?), new decorations, even the new thumbnails of the items. New emotes?

Then there's actually translating the lore, art (and other stuff I left out) into the actual code executed both server side and client side.

I'm also leaving out all the infrastructure that it took to even make all of that happen. While they did have to write their own engine for much of how this is done (and that work is already done), whatever that infrastructure is dictates how the half dozen departments probably have to work together to get a "simple 10 minute quest" live in the game.

[NekoMataMata]

"SE should create monthly sets of busywork quests to keep us busy during content droughts."

5 seconds after the implementation...

"OMG why is this content so meaningless? Why did they bother adding it at all when it's literally just busywork?"