Final Fantasy XIV

Living in a MMO

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Yesterday Paeroka of Nerdy Bookahs wrote an interesting thought experiment about which MMO world she would choose to live in, if she could.

My first reaction was of “I’d never want to live in a MMO world. Their whole existence is being constantly threatened by something or another.” Then I thought about it a bit more and is it really that much worse than our real life world, where our planet is slowly but surely being destroyed by generations of political ignorance, apathy and negligence?

Plus at least the MMO worlds have the advantage of heroes risking their lives to save said worlds and often succeeding.

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Games I’ve been playing – February 2022

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February was another month where weirdly enough it felt like it lasted almost forever. Honestly, I would be fine if the rest of the year felt like this. It is certainly better than the last few years where it felt like I just blinked and the month was over.

As for the games, not as many variety as I wished for but not that bad either. So let’s get to them!

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Games I’ve been playing – January 2022

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The month of January felt surprisingly long. I honestly don’t remember when was the last time I played these many games and wasn’t just puttering for 10 minutes in each one.

On the other hand this wasn’t exactly planned. It was just my usual case of ADD kicking in and going “Oh, yeah, there is that game I used to play. I guess I will play it again for a little bit…”

Whatever the case may be I don’t have any regrets about what I played this month!

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Games I’ve been playing – November 2021

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A villager that sells armor

It is almost hard to believe that it is December already. I am not ready for the year to end! AAAAAH!

Anyway, November was almost one of those “MUST PLAY ALL THE GAMES!” kind of month. I’d like to say that didn’t happen because I got into a couple of very time consuming games but the truth is my heart just wasn’t into those other games.

It was just my rational mind that told me I should play other games for a reason or another. But every time I thought about playing them I just didn’t feel like it. Consequently I didn’t play more games as I’d rather not force it and sour the experience.

But enough rambling for now. These are the actual games I’ve been playing recently:

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[FFXIV] Back to the grind

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Last week I was finally able to get over my mental block of playing with random strangers in MMORPGs. Well, for the most part anyway. I am still feeling a bit shy of doing regular Duty Finder dungeons with others but I am getting over that too, slowly.

Another detail is that instead of grinding to catch up on the post-Shadowbringers MSQ story I am grinding for the Moogle Treasure Trove’s Inferno Jacket… Yeah, I know it is kinda ridiculous how messed up my priorities are.

On the other hand I am not in that much of a rush to go into Endwalker. I am pretty sure even with Early Access those new zones will be crowded and a bit of hell to do anything. So might as well give it a bit of time before checking it out myself.

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Games I’ve been playing – August 2021

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A special translation of Fou saying: "Damnit, I should offed him before he got away..."

Another year, another august gone and done. Speaking of which, I’d like to make a brief note about my participation in this Blaugust.

Although I did purposefully aim for the low post count of 5 posts for the event, in retrospect I wish I’d aim higher or made a bigger effort to go with the theme for each week.

Granted, I made this goal for myself because back in July I wasn’t in the best of places, mentally speaking. In fact I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to make 5 posts during August. Yet I still wanted to participate in some way and aiming that low looked like a good idea at the time.

However it still feels kind of pointless for me to participate in an event like this if all I am going to do is post as usual. This is something I need to keep in mind for next year’s Blaugust so I actually put some effort into it.

That aside, this Blaugust was fun as always. Lots of interesting topics and discussions to read, as well as some new people joining the fold or coming back. In this sense Blaugust is still fulfilling its purpose well.

A big thank you to Belghast for organizing this event once again!

Anyway, sorry for that side note there. Let’s talk about games!

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In defense of story as told by Final Fantasy XIV

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I was trying to resist saying anything about this topic besides some comments here and there because I feel this is one of those complicated discussions that might not have right answers. Not to mention people have some strong opinions on it.

So, it all began with Aywren defending the importance of story in MMORPGs by using Final Fantasy XIV as an example. Then later on Naithin, as he was returning to Final Fantasy XIV, mused if Final Fantasy XIV has to be a MMO to deliver its story. Then there is Bhagpuss, who hasn’t made a post on the topic yet, asking in a comment in one of Naithin’s posts, if the way that Final Fantasy XIV tells it’s story wouldn’t be best done in a more traditional format like a movie or a book.

I will try to address both Naithin’s and Baghpuss’ positions and give my opinion on the subject.

EDIT: Bhagpuss did write a post on the subject of stories in MMORPGs. It isn’t aimed at any MMORPG in particular, just his instance about linear stories in MMORPGs in general. You can read it here.

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Farewell Final Fantasy XIV (For now)

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A while ago I mentioned I was going to end my subscription to Final Fantasy XIV. Not because I am tired of the game or anything like that. It is just that because the economy here is so terrible right now that I have to be more stingy on what I spend my money on. Specially if it is something in dollars, which is the case with this game.

I should have done that a long time ago but I thought I could finish the Shadowbringers patches to see how that storyline ended. The problem was that I couldn’t do the content from those patches right away because it required a higher iLevel than what I had.

Still I thought I could grind enough crafting levels and dungeons to get the new gear that would give me the required iLevel.

Unfortunately I never got the patience for that grind. Yes, I know that getting crafting and gathering levels are stupidly easy right now. So much that it is barely a grind anymore. But it is still a grind, even if a minor one.

And I have no idea when I will get the patience for it, even more so when I am pretty much hooked into Minecraft. So it doesn’t make sense for me to keep paying subscription for a game I am not playing.

I eventually want to get back into Final Fantasy XIV and see how the story continues though. Shadowbringer’s story was one of the best in the entire Final Fantasy franchise which makes me want to see what comes next. It will just have to wait until I am in the right mindset for it (and hopefully the economy is better too).

Games I’ve been playing – August 2020

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This has been another month where I played way less than I wanted to due to my mood just being… low, so to speak.

Seriously, brain, what is up with you? We should have been back to normal last month! Why are you still like this?

Random crazy talk aside, I did manage to make a bit of progress in a couple of the games I wanted to play. Not much progress but still better than nothing. Hopefully this month should be a bit better.

But that is enough rambling about that. Here is what I’ve played last month.

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Games I’ve been playing – March 2020

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This is one of those months where all my best plans went down the drain for several reasons. The first one being that I just found myself irritated and and tired for no apparent reason since the last week of February. This is something that happens to me from time to time and fortunately it seems to be gone for now.

The other reasons were the games that pretty much took all my free time this month and what little energy I had. I did try to play some other ones but every time I thought about it I just didn’t find myself with the energy, the interest or the time for it. So only four games really occupied my time during this month.

Hopefully April will be better since as my emotions and energy levels aren’t nearly as bad now.

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