Quote Originally Posted by Lustre View Post
Nonetheless I hope you continue, it's nice to see outsider perspectives on such things.
We are all outsiders when playing through the game for the first time. There is always a sense of wonder in the first playthrough, as long as one comes to the game with few expectations. The game currently has players from the ARR period and FFXIV 1.0, as well as each and every expansion afterward. It has always had a growing population of players.

Video games are an in-the-moment media that do not properly scan as written works. Literary criticism is a poor methodology for assessing a video game, especially when here, when the critic is working with localized text rather than the original Japanese.

There are two problems, as I see it, with this so-called 'neutral, unbiased perspective'.

The first is that if one plays the game as it was written, the MSQ is only one of several avenues necessary in exploring the story line. Context appears to be disjointed to the OP because they've ignored half of the early story by ignoring side quests. Half of the early story is made redundant from a leveling perspective because the XP from the MSQ is high enough to ignore them.

The second, as I've stated before, is that Visual media is not Written media. Visual media in the form of a video game is more than reading the MSQ quest texts. It requires an awareness of what is happening visually, as well as mechanically. There is more to becoming a Hero than working through a few quests. A player's attitudes to what is going on are of particular importance as well.

As an example:

On my first trip to Gridania, I shared a coach with a lovely man with the palest green eyes I've ever seen.

As we talked, he asked me "What was it that first attracted you to the life of an adventurer?". I did not know how to respond. The typical answers of "Fame, Fortune, Power" do not ring true for me.

It is desire, I think, to grant aid to those who cannot afford it; to protect those without power to protect themselves; to acknowledge every life in a world where fame so often overshadows all else.

Bremondt seemed to understand the silence. As we said farewells upon our arrival, he gave me a ring, and he said to me "Become the sort of storied personage I can brag about havin' met ..."

Years later, I met him again on another coach while fleeing for my life, a savior with pale green eyes.

I still have the ring, after all of these years. And I do my best each day to be that person he saw I could become.

Dal S'ta, Memorii