I've been so wrong about FFXIV (personal thoughts and apology from a new fan)

[Crystaline]

Hi everyone! I recently caught up with FFXIV and I just have so many feelings that I wanted to make a post about it. Because of the character limit it’ll be two posts to just give voice to my feelings.

I was pretty hyped for FFXIV back in the days (~2010) and was a 1.0 player who went through alphas, betas, the final game and the rebooted ARR. I wasn’t that invested in ARR’s gameplay and story back then, and with the 1.0 failure and an unknown director (sorry Yoshida-san ;_;) I thought to myself "yeah right, I wasted my time trying to get into this, this game will be dead come 2014" and stopped playing. I will regret this until the day I die.

I’ve seen tweets over the years saying things like "FFXIV is the best current FF" or "the story and music of FFXIV are amazing!!" but I just ignored it. I drooled over the Heavensward & Stormblood trailers but okay that's just CG the expansions themselves are probably bad right? It's an MMO and a couple of dragons and a Japanese city can't be that interesting? It's not like people die in it right? hoo boy.

Fast-forward to November last year when Shadowbringers was announced and my Twitter timeline was full of Fanfest hype and story speculation. I suddenly felt super depressed that as a FF fan and story lover, I had ignored FFXIV all these years even though I was there at the start. Whenever I saw someone being excited about it, I kept thinking it would not be worth playing and that it would die out soon. On top of that... I've been at TGS and in the Eorzea cafe in Tokyo being dragged along by IRL friends, who tried to convince me multiple times to play FFXIV. I just felt so… sad… and guilty… and I really wanted to play it.

So… I did a little yol, I mean, yolo and bought the Complete Edition for PS4 on Black Friday. Still thinking I had made a mistake... I started playing from where I left off years before it. It was... challenging because I had to relearn a lot and there's just... so many main story quests ahead of me. But my goal was to catch up by the next Fanfest, so I could watch that without being spoiled too much and understand things.

By the start of Heavensward in December I was completely invested in the characters and lore. The intro of it took me aback completely. By January I completed Heavensward and was in love. How did I miss out on this? Several days ago I finished Stormblood up to 4.5. Every time I see a "Upon proceeding to the ___, several cutscenes will play in sequence" black box my lifespan gets shorter. I had dreams about FFXIV. I hear the soundtrack when I close my eyes. If my first unborn child isn't called Ay'meric Haur'chefant then what's the point? It's just... so good and interesting and fun to play and I'm so happy I (re)discovered FFXIV.

(...)

[Crystaline]

Best of all, in the two months I've been playing I've done some amazing dungeons, trials and met some really wonderful friends with Benefics along the way and joined a wonderful FC. Everyone's just incredibly friendly and attentive and it's unlike anything I've ever seen. It makes me friendly and attentive to other people and newcomers too, it’s a really weird and positive snowball effect.

For the first time in my life I followed the fanfest last week live on Twitch and social media and I was amazed how much fun it was (while also guilt-tripping myself again because I had free time to go and it’s pretty close, if only I got into it sooner -_-)

I've also gone back and checked out some earlier Fanfests and panels and I'm so surprised to see such passionate devs and learn really interesting behind-the-scenes stuff on lore and gameplay development. I wish I could do nothing more than wind back time and experience all the Fanfests, live letters and patch updates (I have been screaming my lungs out and crying with almost every HW/SB patch main story update) to see people's reactions, discuss the game and share in the hype on social media. I hope this community keeps on rocking for a while. Yoshi-P has quickly become one of my favorite game directors and his back and forth between Koji are amazing. I regret so much that I wasn't in the fandom in the last few years, cause Thal's balls there sure is a lot of things to have been hyped about and to discuss and speculate. Deep down I'm afraid that FFXIV is past its saturation point and it will be les substantial after Shadowbringers, but yeah, I thought that too when I was playing ARR in 2013 -_- I hope Yoshida-san stays and we at least have several years of new content ahead of us.

tl;dr: I love Final Fantasy XIV and its community and I feel incredibly guilty and sad that I've ignored or generalized this game for so long and assumed it was just a generic MMO with no real story or depth, I've never been so wrong. I'm finally here, and I'm here to stay (maybe even find my nhaama) and meaningfully contribute to a really warm community and if there's another Fanfest in Europe I will definitely attend it. The story and dungeons in the recent patches has been nothing short of phenomenal and I can't wait to see what the future brings.

I want to open my window and scream how much I love FFXIV and the people behind it. I’ve spent the last few days from morning till dawn reading about lore, watching FFXIV OST videos, watching Fanfest videos and raid videos, reading social media and the FFXIV Reddit and I’m just so unbelievably excited for what’s to come. Sorry for the long two post. /psych

Thank you FFXIV and the dev team for creating such a wonderful game, I'm sorry I mistook you for a generic MMO

[Nedkel]

Never tie up your choices by feelings, never ever, you will end up disappointed.
Also everyone currently playing this game had many leaves and coming backs, its normal.

[Final-Fantasy]

So you played a bit then gave up, you should have stayed away cause once you get to Eureka that smile will be wiped off you're face :P


The current expansion is by far their worst... not to mention the total lack of managing the rampart out of control RMT and Botters.
Now they are adding Trust, so you can Solo everything with your own Bots, the future is not looking so good...

[xkazh]

So you played a bit then gave up, you should have stayed away cause once you get to Eureka that smile will be wiped off you're face :P


The current expansion is by far their worst... not to mention the total lack of managing the rampart out of control RMT and Botters.
Now they are adding Trust, so you can Solo everything with your own Bots, the future is not looking so good...

awwh don't be a killjoy in this thread at least.

OP this was lovely to read! I also remember really struggling to get into this game, having tried out a whole bunch of MMOs to see what suited me best (e.g. WOW/Aion/Wildstar etc.) I can't remember the exact time I clicked with the game, but the old MMO I played didn't have a GCD so I remember that was sooo weird to get used to! I think it was the last couple of quests of the 2.0 story, the 8man dungeons that actually I remember enjoying, if only because I saw the name "Rock the Castrum" amongst many other puns. I think just after that was when I started to read into the lore of the game and got the first lorebook, still one of my favourite purchases.
I've taken some breaks here and then, never really longer than 2 weeks but that's more because of the occasional wait for a next patch, but rn it's still my favourite game and I'm very much looking forward to Shadowbringers =D

[loreleidiangelo]

Hey, nice post. While I'm burned out to death of this game after multiple perceived design failures from expac to expac it does honestly bring a smile to my face to see someone new wholeheartedly enjoy it and get lost in the wonder of it all. I wish I could get that feeling back.

Hope you keep enjoying your time in Eorzea, OP!

[SenorPatty]

Ignoring the Debbie Downers who completely failed to understand OP's social experience with FF14...ahem

I wouldn't beat myself over it OP. Perhaps it was meant to be. Perhaps this moment, this junction in time was the moment you were truly meant to enjoy the experience that the game brought you. There's no telling for certain that you would've enjoyed this had you played earlier. Maybe you would have. Maybe not. But now is the time to focus on the now while you still can.

[linay]

I'm glad you've been enjoying it, but...

If my first unborn child isn't called Ay'meric Haur'chefant then what's the point?

…

;p

[ksuyen]

I am also glad you enjoy the game. It's a very rich game in terms of stories, colours and characters. I have been on and off but always come back. Nothing beats exploring Eorzea and neighbouring countries with a cup of steaming coffee and comfy chair. But no, please don't name your first unborn child Ay'meric Haur'chefant for Mother Crystal sake.

[Freyt]

It's not like you were wrong based on your experience during the launch of ARR. Even though it had been much improved, there was plenty of room for doubt. It takes up until the the setting up for Heavensward to really understand that this games story isn't going to slouch around. Gameplay has also seen many improvements since 2.0. I even had a couple of prolonged absences during 2.x and 3.x, though I had always intended on returning and I did (and have not been absent since).

I'm glad you turned around, and I hope this game continues to impress us both.