MMO addiction

[caffe_macchiato]

Friends:
There are multiple mechanisms in place to build friendships in the game, be it through Free Companies, Social Venues (RP Cafe's, Clubs, Bars), Communities (Eureka, Deep Dungeons, Gposing), to leave is to neglect/lose at the same time you cannot force people to stay so you are at a situation where you stay and others leave due to content who don't mind tie cutting / maintain friendship out of game or you leave and the same thing. Yes, discord exists, yes other games exist, however "Games we both enjoy that also facilitate the same atmosphere" is not exactly the same. Some are desperately lonely in real life and just cannot make friends there, I know multiple people like this and FF is basically their only social outlet.

It’s 2024, a lot of people don’t want friends anymore. They just hop around between different flavors-of-the-month games and the going cope is “just hit the bar if you want friends lol”. And they want to drag everyone else down with this vain cope. More and more I hear the line of “MMOs are dead, multiplayer games are dead” in FFXIV spaces. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. Doomers with low attention span are intentionally crashing this game and they don’t care if we lose friends in the process, because they have none to begin with.

[BigCheez]

It’s 2024, a lot of people don’t want friends anymore. They just hop around between different flavors-of-the-month games and the going cope is “just hit the bar if you want friends lol”. And they want to drag everyone else down with this vain cope. More and more I hear the line of “MMOs are dead, multiplayer games are dead” in FFXIV spaces. It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. Doomers with low attention span are intentionally crashing this game and they don’t care if we lose friends in the process, because they have none to begin with.

It definitely isn't the players that are crashing the game.

[Avoidy]

I think for a lot of disgruntled players, it's less addiction (what is there to even log in and do?) and more sunk-cost feelings brought on by the housing demolition system. Although, I hear autodemo is turned off nowadays, due to the hurricane disaster in NA.
That being said, if you log in and have no purpose behind doing so, and then just idle in your yard running in circles without doing anything while several hours pass like some people I've known (self included, but I stopped doing this) then yeah you might actually be addicted in a weird way to a game with an absolute trickle of content. Sometimes there really is just a bizarre soothing element to logging in and relaxing in game, even if you're not doing anything. I had to make the conscious effort to just log off when I caught myself standing around doing nothing. Once I began doing that, it started to get harder to even justify logging on in general. At this point, the three factors keeping me subbed are the people I've met who still haven't quit (I want to say only a few of them remain at this point), my house, and the simple fact that reinstalling this game is confusing as hell and I wouldn't even remember where to begin.

[Keumjo]

Let's be real here. Why else are you subbing to FF14 if you think the game is in a bad state?

Break free. Play better games. Let go of your nostalgia. Stop trying to chase that high when you cleared your first Savage tier for the first time all the way back in Heavensward. You'll never get it again. I've done it years ago*. You can too. You'll never be happy in life if you want to see a capitalist firm satisfy your desire to fall in love with their products once again. Save that for your spouse.

*You all know why these alts are still subbed.

Jokes on you, I don't have a spouse.

[Connor]

Am I the only one who thinks that people complain about FFXIV so frequently precisely because they care a lot about it? People don’t generally dedicate their time to thinking about things they straight up do not care about.

Every person who makes a complaint does so because they want something they care about to improve. I mean, isn’t that the whole point of complaining? To hope it might instigate change or convince others to do the same?

Personally I wouldn’t class blatantly malicious or otherwise ‘invalid’ / ‘misleading’ / ‘troll’ or whatever else people do these days to stir up internet drama as being the same as a ‘genuine complaint’.

I.E
‘This game is trash and it’s probably going in the ground where it belongs and I’ll dance on its grave if it ever does’ - not a ‘genuine’ complaint because it’s just trying to be incendiary and doesn’t really seem like they care what happens
‘This game is dying and it’s because of ‘X’ content it needs this, this and a little bit of this!’
- it’s overdramatic lol, but by indicating specifically what they want to change it’s more apparent that the person wants things to improve, so it’s still a ‘genuine complaint’ because it’s coming from a place of wanting things to change for the better (regardless of what the feedback ends up being lol).

That’s what I think anyway. Whether people are ‘addicted’ or not is one thing, but I think the constant stream of negative feedback comes from people who actually do (in one way or another) truly care about the game’s future. Not to say that their feedback is always going to make sense or should always be followed lol

[Gunz_Zbestest]

Am I the only one who thinks that people complain about FFXIV so frequently precisely because they care a lot about it? People don’t generally dedicate their time to thinking about things they straight up do not care about.

Every person who makes a complaint does so because they want something they care about to improve. I mean, isn’t that the whole point of complaining? To hope it might instigate change or convince others to do the same?

Personally I wouldn’t class blatantly malicious or otherwise ‘invalid’ / ‘misleading’ / ‘troll’ or whatever else people do these days to stir up internet drama as being the same as a ‘genuine complaint’.

I.E
‘This game is trash and it’s probably going in the ground where it belongs and I’ll dance on its grave if it ever does’ - not a ‘genuine’ complaint because it’s just trying to be incendiary and doesn’t really seem like they care what happens
‘This game is dying and it’s because of ‘X’ content it needs this, this and a little bit of this!’
- it’s overdramatic lol, but by indicating specifically what they want to change it’s more apparent that the person wants things to improve, so it’s still a ‘genuine complaint’ because it’s coming from a place of wanting things to change for the better (regardless of what the feedback ends up being lol).

That’s what I think anyway. Whether people are ‘addicted’ or not is one thing, but I think the constant stream of negative feedback comes from people who actually do (in one way or another) truly care about the game’s future. Not to say that their feedback is always going to make sense or should always be followed lol

Compassion is a better measure for carring than anger.

[Axxion]

i see titan man is back

[genuine_stranger]

Compassion is a better measure for carring than anger.

You sure about that?

Lootboxes? P2W store items? Bots? RMT? Battlepasses?
If the mobile version of FFXIV ends up with those kinds of monetization practices, I highly doubt compassion will be on anyone’s mind.

Even less so if the mobile game starts generating more revenue than the retail version.

[Gunz_Zbestest]

You sure about that?

Lootboxes? P2W store items? Bots? RMT? Battlepasses?
If the mobile version of FFXIV ends up with those kinds of monetization practices, I highly doubt compassion will be on anyone’s mind.

Even less so if the mobile game starts generating more revenue than the retail version.

Those things might make you angry and anger can be motivating but not sustainable. Eventually anger drains you and all that you are left with is not caring anymore.

[RyoXander]

I was definitely addicted to FFXI, but not XIV; it's too casual (which I love now). I remember when I played XI I had a ton of friends and the game was very social. I never got that same feeling with 14 and instead have had just a very small circle of friends. Now its just me and one other close friend who joined an FC that has very nice people in it. Idk why I find it so much harder to make friends in this game. Is it cuz im older? who knows lol.