“Everything is amazing and no one is happy.”

[Lunalepsy]

“If you like ARR, it only gets better from here.” And oh did it ever. A few months in, I met a great FC in Gridania. A place I still consider home, despite not being able to find a house there. We would hang out and chat and play music and do roulettes together. I could try different jobs, and roles, all without ever having to make a new character. Those who haven’t had that experience, of being able to change jobs on one character really don’t know what they are missing. Sadly, that FC broke up due to drama but I keep in touch with some of them and we still hang in Gridania.
The post after this kinda turned into a review of each expansion afterwards, and that’s not what im trying to do so I changed it up.

I love how in this game, every single villain always ends up either misunderstood, or tempered, and redeemable in some way. Its very drastically different from what I was used to in most other games. And I love it. The redemption arc of so many villains in this game really came into my life at a time that I needed to experience a story of forgiveness. It is not an understatement to say these tropes have changed my outlook on life. At the rist of a possible spoiler, I identify heavily with Fordola.

This game really is the best of both sandbox and theme park mmo. There is endless spoon fed content, but the game also makes it so easy to make your own and just enjoy the company of others. It has such amazing single player and group based experiences. Like, I get emotional just thinking about how my life would be different if I had not tried this game. I played WoW for 16 years. I played the wrong game for 16 years. But im home now in the Twelveswood and I will never leave.

Speaking of others, the community in this game is not a meme. It really is great. There are millions of people so of course it isn’t perfect. There are bad people everywhere. But never before in my life have I made friends and relationships so easily, where someone just comes up to me and asks how my day was, and if I need anything or want to run something. Not just a one off experience either. THAT is the life blood of Final Fantasy XIV. Not wall to wall pulling, or spreadsheets, min-maxing. The people that play it are what make it special and magical. And yes, I have fallen in love in this game.

I can’t help but think of a Louis CK quote often when I come to these forums. “Everything is amazing and no one is happy.” I think a lot of people on these forums are playing the wrong game. I know I was, for many many years and there is no shame in it.

Anyway, if you made it this far, or if anyone at SE happens to read this, thank you for making and maintaining this beautiful world. It changed my outlook on life and other people. Please don’t ever stop.

Oh darling. Enjoy your honeymoon phase to its fullest!

[Snorky]

Paying customers are allowed to voice their criticism, there's no obligation to give the devs gratitude when you're already giving them money, and voicing concern, displeasure or asking for a change in a product you're paying for is not entitlement.

I understand what you are saying but you are only paying to access the content. Tomorrow they could deactivate your account and there would be nothing you could do about it. We don't own anything in this game we pay to access it. But understand paying to access doesn't mean we have any say in what they do. They listen to us as a courtesy they are not under any obligation to listen to criticism. So it matters how criticism is presented and some people go overboard by insulting or calling names at which point any criticism they gave is just noise.

[Ramesses]

Paying customers are allowed to voice their criticism, there's no obligation to give the devs gratitude when you're already giving them money, and voicing concern, displeasure or asking for a change in a product you're paying for is not entitlement.

That's is indeed an alarmingly skewed, entitled, and self-centered comment to make regarding any transaction between yourself and another fellow human or business entity.

The fact that you are paying money for a service or a product actually does not give you the right to think that they are underserving of your gratitude-- if you paid for something of quality and it brought you joy, satisfaction and value-- you are essentially saying you cannot even venture a simple "Thank you'?

Interesting.

Your purchase of an item or service indeed allows you to voice your criticism if it is constructive and if it comes from a place of critical thought-- it actually means that you care enough to encourage further innovation or improvement. But to assume you don't owe an obligation to give the Devs gratitude for a decent product that you enjoyed-- just because you think you already gave them money-- is just daft thinking.

Keep your money-- I assure you, it's safer in your pocket and won't earn you the scorn of your peers in the future.

[EaraGrace]

You only say Reddit is fine because it's an echo-chamber. Seeing as you're pretty defensive of the game it makes sense you don't see what's wrong with that. But the fact Reddit and Twitter nurture a safe bubble/echo-chamber culture is a well known objective fact. They're not any better than the forums.

My dude, can we not do this. Just move on, I didn't ask for your personal opinion of whether or not I'm "defensive of the game." You wanna disagree, do so like in the rest of your post which vaguely tries to argue something.

[Ramesses]

I can’t help but think of a Louis CK quote often when I come to these forums. “Everything is amazing and no one is happy.” I think a lot of people on these forums are playing the wrong game. I know I was, for many many years and there is no shame in it.

Anyway, if you made it this far, or if anyone at SE happens to read this, thank you for making and maintaining this beautiful world. It changed my outlook on life and other people. Please don’t ever stop.

Welcome-- and your first two posts of the thread were indeed a joy to read-- I could identify with several of the elements you mentioned above-- and both posts were actually the posts of the day for me considering the amusing number of "trying to be negative but still failing" posts that keep appearing on the forums.

The running joke on several of the FFXIV discords is that there are several simps being paid by WoW and Microsoft to just vomit utter rubbish on the English forums in the hopes that the Endwalker momentum would subside-- the poor sods have no idea that they are literally beyond their depth. I assure you, there are literally hundreds of thousands of vets watching them repeatedly fail miserably-- it really is hilarious watching them burn energy. On the other global forums (Japanese, German, French etc), the game is getting well deserved praises and critical feedback where needed.

Player base has steadily increased in China, with FFXIV numbers now trouncing WoW consecutively over the past 12 months. In addition, the South Korean version of FFXIV just finished their highly successful 2022 digital fan fest and remain on track to getting their EW release this May.

Rest assured, Yoshi and the Dev Team are not slowing down at all-- and he continues to have the massive support of the rest of his peers on the Executive board of Directors. "Everything is amazing and none is happier" is a more accurate statement. It's always refreshing to have new players (who already knew about the game) finally make the commitment and realize what they have been missing. I was fortunate to have played FFXI since 2002 or 2003 (my first MMO) and through that platform, kept an eye on FFXIV since it was first announced as "Rapture" in 2005. Thus, naturally, I was in the crowd when it went insanely wild the moment FFXIV got announced at E3 2009-- I still feel the goosebumps to this day.

I was invited to the Alpha/Beta tests for FFXIV 1.0 and invited to every test from 2.0 Alpha onwards-- my friends still recall that I always gave the most detailed feedback on the tester forums. This was because I deeply believed in their vision to fix everything that was horribly messed up in 1.0. The evolution of the game from 1.0 to 2.0 was spectacular and from then I knew SE had a winner on their hands.

Those were truely fantastic times and it's always phenomenal to look back and remember how closely the Devs listened to us, how much they literally enjoyed joining us in playing-- heck, during Alpha, Yoshi would sometimes appear in Gridania, chat with us, and request us to flood the Aetheryte and jump so the Devs could do stress tests.

Fast forward a decade later and the game remains at the pinnacle of MMO games.

Today, the FFXIV global community is extensive, inclusive and global-- they are making incredible creative artwork and videos in 25 languages, holding events to donate FFXIV merchandise to charities and even musically inclined players like Alex Moukala are now putting together a virtual choir. Once again, welcome, keep playing, pay forward the kindness you get from players who helped you-- and ignore the toxic crap. They only constitute less than 5% of the player base and exist only for our collective amusement.

Remember-- for the toxic ones you encounter in the game, Pay No Mind - (video created by an FC)-- and always Have A Nice Day (by World Order, a popular Japanese group)

[Jirah]

i stopped reading after the first sentence, define any feedback that isnt "negative" is just praising. Yall need to realize as good as ff14 is its severely flawed and i can guess no one has the balls to call it out as they , much like yourself, perceive all criticism as negative

[Snorky]

i stopped reading after the first sentence, define any feedback that isnt "negative" is just praising. Yall need to realize as good as ff14 is its severely flawed and i can guess no one has the balls to call it out as they , much like yourself, perceive all criticism as negative

Honestly I think your definition of how to give criticism is skewed a bit. No one in this thread is under the illusion that any game is perfect. What you are doing and many other people who can not give criticism in a constructive manner are confusing insulting behavior with actual constructive criticism. Your first sentence tells me you don't have the patience to read a couple of paragraphs without jumping to conclusions. No one is in this thread has said anything that you implied. What is being said is that people do not know how to criticize without being overly emotional or insulting. Feedback on a game can be analytical without being hyperbole. You are entitled to your opinion as are people who disagree with you. Personally I think getting rid of the like button would go a long way in cleaning up these forums to a more constructive discussion board. Well thought out critical views of a aspect of this game are always a good read but the ones who sling insults are just attention seeking.

[Xaruko_Nexume]

Oh darling. Enjoy your honeymoon phase to its fullest!

I don't think that is fair to say to me. I've been playing mmorpg's for decades. I am familiar with the so called "honeymoon phase" of the MMO experience, and this isn't it. Things would have to take a serious downturn for me to feel differently about the game.

[LaylaTsarra]

Oh darling. Enjoy your honeymoon phase to its fullest!

I've been here since 2.0 Beta and still having a ball. The negative wind crowd here on the forum does not represent many of us by a long shot.

[Yencat]

I don't think that is fair to say to me. I've been playing mmorpg's for decades. I am familiar with the so called "honeymoon phase" of the MMO experience, and this isn't it. Things would have to take a serious downturn for me to feel differently about the game.

Umm, stop trying to gAsLiGht everyone and get with the programme sweaty. This is the no-fun-zone so any enjoyment you could possibly be getting from the game could only possibly be attributed to being new or having bad taste ok?