My Automaton I-dent-ifies As Dent-ed.

So, I noticed the posting on Playonline Official Site a week or so ago, about how FFXI Devs would like us to submit *suggestions* via a direct form-filling process, if I understood it correctly. Specifically, [PARAPHRASED] "What would you like to see in FFXI going forward?"

I think it is nice of them to open this communication with FFXI Players.

I will not be filling in their suggestion formy websitey thingy, because what I would like to see in FFXI, is only one single thing, and it is such a small thing, that it doesn't require a form filled with masses of typing. What I would like to see in FFXI is ;

A Future.

I'm guessing that is not one of the suggestions they will implement, they are probably going to take suggestions like "make the game even easier" etc. Maybe "make completed AG-RMEs drop from Lolbuscade mobs." Those are the kind of suggestions I'd predict based on recent years of easyfication and atrophy in the game's direction.

So all I want is for Vana'diel to continue existing. I'm in my early fifties, and I want to play FFXI in my retirement home in the far future. I'd prefer this to be the Online Multiplayer FFXI, but I would be happy enough to play a solo Offline version in my golden retirement years.

My Mog-Locker is currently leased until 2057, twenty-fifty-seven. I would like to extend this further into the 2070s or 2080s, because I plan to be alive when I'm 111 one-hundred-eleven.

FFXI broke a lot of moulds, I've waxed lyrical about it in previous posts, and will not do so here, but one of the moulds is the idea of ;

*Playing the same character every day for over twenty years.*

Many or most pets in the real-world don't live much longer than twenty years, I don't have real-world pets because I've lived in the same skyscraper since the 1980s, and we aren't allowed pets. But people tend to say that their pet is old when it is fifteen or so, I don't know.

I met my Tarutaru girl in 2004, twenty years ago. I have played with her every day, every night, for twenty years, with breaks for hospital stays only, and fitting around my work-job schedule obviously.

But every day for twenty years I have visited my Tarutaru friend. And she is my friend. She is no less real to me than your pet dog or cat is to you.

The idea that I will sit in my Retirement home, thirty years from now, and not be able to visit my Tarutaru friend, after all the decades we spent together, is a horrible thought to me. This is why I'd settle for an Offline Version Of FFXI, because I log in to see my Tarutaru friend, and her EXTREMELY DENTED AUTOMATON, an Automaton that I first met in 2006, two-thousand-six, eighteen years ago, an Automaton that I have played with every day-and-night for eighteen years.

To me, it is quite cruel, to market a game where it takes years to complete RME, as it did for over a decade in the pre-ilvl era, a game where I'm still getting my Mog-House looking *just right* after twenty years, a game where I have adventures and friendship and love unavoidable love for my Tarutaru and her dented Automaton. It is cruel to create a game with such long-term commitments and bonds, only to break those commitments and bonds just because ps2-devkits, and Foamstars-is-the-future, and what have you.

I only have one tattoo on my body, it is the Windurst Flag on my ankle. I got that tattoo in 2005, nineteen years ago, because I swore to defend Windurst till the end of my days, and to never abandon my little Tarutaru girl, ever. I love Vana'diel, I swore to defend Vana'diel against the forces of evil, and I have done so, and it breaks my heart that Vana'diel will cease to exist. So there's the answer to your survey thingy SE. I'm going to go cry now.

:cool:

Quote:

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I will not be filling in their suggestion formy websitey thingy, because what I would like to see in FFXI, is only one single thing, and it is such a small thing, that it doesn't require a form filled with masses of typing. What I would like to see in FFXI is ;

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The devs told us there's this great way to give them our feedback, so I choose not to use it."

We all want more. But this struck me with that raised eyebrow look. There's no point in mentioning this if you're not going to use it. But then again, there's also no point in even filing the form out if all you want is "a future."

We all want a future.

But let me give you a piece of advice. Life is fleeting. When I'm 90 years old I will look back on my memories of the game fondly, whether it's still there or not, after all you dont play a game for 25 years and not have it leave a mark on you. But it's not healthy to be so attached to your character to the point that you can't bear the thought of being apart from it. This isn't a good path to be walking down- nothing lasts forever.