Are You Enjoying XIV For The Game? Or Are You Enjoying XIV Because Of The People.

[Luluna]

It is the game for me a lot of my friends do not play anymore or we have lost touch. I do have hubby as company but mostly a loner these days which I do like for the most part. So the game the world is what I love. I have a lot of great memories though.

[Mel0hDee]

For me, I love the game just for the story, and the chance to make new friends in game. Sometimes we drift apart, and that's ok. There's always new friends I can meet! I'm currently focused heavily on yet another alt, this one in the 3.1 patches, while my main is done through 6.55, and one of my other alts is somewhere in 6.1?

[Metalface_Villain]

i came at the end of shadowbringers, i had a lot of acquaintances in the game but no friends. the few friends i made turned out to be weird people, so i didn't bother making any new ones after that since from what i can tell, a decent amount of the community fits that description. i enjoyed the game when i had content to do and things were new but now i pretty much finished almost all of it and even the new story, which used to be a highlight of the game, didn't win me over, to the point i started skipping this patch's story after a while. my take is that if the game is worth playing, it's for the gameplay, since the community is kinda phony but after a while you are left with not much gameplay either. my sub is ending and i think i won't be renewing. i didn't even have anyone i wanted to say goodbye to and sadly nothing gameplay-wise is making me want to play in the future.
so to sum up without me yapping, i'd say what is really worth more is game>community but for most people i think it's the opposite, since even though the game has been dry for quite a while, many keep playing, doing rp or just standing on limsa.

[ZavosEsperian]

When I am in the game these days, it is usually due to maintaining my house. I will also, on occasion, play on my various alts with a good friend of mine I met back in the HW era of the game when I didn't have as many issues as I do now with how the community aspects of the games have changed. Part of me is somewhat high on hopium that the game does rebound a bit but I am currently not looking forward to what is to come.

To elaborate on the community aspect since that seems to be a more talked about topic here. I find people are less afraid these days to walk up to you with a specific motive in mind I, as well as many others in this thread, am not interested in. I have had a few run ins with these types of players, and only really ever had to escape via a log out one time as the person was that persistent.

While the community has definitely declined I feel like I'm visiting my Christian family members reading half of this. The pearl clutching is extra af.

Wanting people to at least be somewhat modest isn't exclusive to one particular group of people and most people do not like being approached in the manner being described in some of the earlier posts. I have had to bail out multiple friends of mine from awkward situations by serving as their significant other, be it either as a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, and so on. Of these friends, none of them are particularly religious and most of them are from the LGBT community, which I do not consider myself a part of. I should note on one occasion, someone suggested I could join in on the things they were planning on doing with my friend as they asked them about this while they were trying to convince them to do adult things with them.

I personally do not care what people do behind closed doors outside of what I would consider to be a public area (in other words, staying in tells or other restricted chat areas and keeping it amongst themselves). I find problems generally arise when players attempt to reach out to other parts of the community as there seems to be a lot more individuals present in the game now who take people seeking new friends as people seeking potential "virtual conquests" for lack of a better term. This behavior is admittedly one of the more off-putting things about the community in FFXIV at the moment, and causes many people I know to be hesitant when offering it as a game recommendation due to the community's unfortunate reputation in some spaces.

[strawberrycake]

Wanting people to at least be somewhat modest isn't exclusive to one particular group of people and most people do not like being approached in the manner being described in some of the earlier posts. I have had to bail out multiple friends of mine from awkward situations by serving as their significant other, be it either as a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, and so on. Of these friends, none of them are particularly religious and most of them are from the LGBT community, which I do not consider myself a part of. I should note on one occasion, someone suggested I could join in on the things they were planning on doing with my friend as they asked them about this while they were trying to convince them to do adult things with them.

I personally do not care what people do behind closed doors outside of what I would consider to be a public area (in other words, staying in tells or other restricted chat areas and keeping it amongst themselves). I find problems generally arise when players attempt to reach out to other parts of the community as there seems to be a lot more individuals present in the game now who take people seeking new friends as people seeking potential "virtual conquests" for lack of a better term. This behavior is admittedly one of the more off-putting things about the community in FFXIV at the moment, and causes many people I know to be hesitant when offering it as a game recommendation due to the community's unfortunate reputation in some spaces.

I by no means am am implying on one religious group does that nor am I ignorant of how this community is currently. The generalization and shaming is what I find so irksome, like yeah theres a lot of weird people, but don't be a bully to those who aren't hurting or harming others. And for me thats why it's hard to tel friends about this game, a lot of judgemental types and a lot of people who will shame you attack you and bully you for not fitting their description of *normal*.

Like the lack of nuance is not healthy or good, yes I encounter them to on other characters of mine, espcially my au ra, and it is annoying, but I'm not gonna knock any RPer I know because weird people are not frequenting the popular MMO, this is how it is whenever any MMO is popular, throwing blame on a specific group due to it;s adjacentcy is just a easy spiral into bullying RPers who aren't doing anything based on the assumption they'll ask for ERP.

All in All, Don't stereotype

[Jojoya]

How about both? It doesn't have to be either/or.

I enjoy the game. Certainly there are things that stand improvement but overall I'm having fun. When I started, I didn't know any other active FFXIV players though I've made in-game friends over the years along with having family and friends give the game a try so I get to play with those who decided they also like it and keep playing. Even if some quit, others will continue to play.

I've also been playing Skyrim a bit lately. Something that comes up in my head occasionally is "I wish this was at least co-op so I could be playing it with so-and-so like we do FFXIV". So that makes me see that part of this game's appeal for me is playing with others and not just game play.

Trying to make someone's reasons for playing "either/or" is trying to simplify things too much. It's usually not that straightforward.

[Zeastria]

I play for the game!
The community is bad, but at least i'm not forced to interact with them.

[Reinha]

I've been here for the game since the beginning. I have good memories of some the people I met along the way but I love playing mostly solo these days. My husband joins me for expansion launches and we enjoy discovering all the new things together.

[strawberrycake]

How about both? It doesn't have to be either/or.

It can definitely be both and if people are playing for both thats great and I'm happy for them. The reason i asked this question is because I personally wanted to see why people even played XIV to begin with, XIV is currently the most popular MMO, so I'm wondering if people are just here because, like they usually are in many other MMOs.

It's surprising how many people will play a game they personally don't even care about for the sake of having something to do with friends.

[Astrus]

[...]
It's surprising how many people will play a game they personally don't even care about for the sake of having something to do with friends.

For me that's how friendships with other gamers have always worked. If we can find something that all of us want to play that's great but sometimes someone just has that itch to play their favorite genre and the rest obliges.
I don't care for FPS as a genre but will occasionally play one with friends, in return they'll play a survival-craft title with me even if it's not their usual jam.
I've found that with friends I tend to enjoy playing things I wouldn't even touch if I was on my own, even things one of us is bad at. Sometimes especially things one of us is terrible at.
I'm hilariously bad at platformers, yet some of my best memories playing with a particular friend is playing a co-op precision platformer and generally being useless, watching them trying to get to the next checkpoint on their own while fighting against the shared camera perspective.