The Feels

[CodeCass]

Hitting that unsubscribe button after so many years of FFXI was a very very hard thing to do back in the day. So many memories, so many friendships. I'm not looking forward to when that time comes for FFXIV!

I played FFXI from the time I was 14 until I was 22. And hitting that final "unsubscribe" button the last time felt like almost losing a friend! I remember sitting there looking at it for a while and debating whether or not I should click it! Very thankful for the great times and good friends that came out of it though! It was my first MMO and it set the bar pretty high

[Sonofbaldo]

Unsubbing from games I played for years (Ultima Online, XI) was bittersweet but it was usually because i didnt enjoy the direction the game was headed. Unsubbing from XIV was easy though. I still have an extremely vague hope that the DEV team will turn things around down the road but $12 remaining in my wallet every month is worth far more than any experience such an easy game has to offer me personally.

Thats generally where games lose me, when they become too easy. Ultima Online became too easy when they split the world in 2 and everyone just moved to the safe new world where there were no dangers, thieves, or PKs. Not to mention GM's were no longer allowed to interact with the player-base as characters or just have a few good laughs. I remember being in a role playing guild of "Orcs" who made their home near the Orc Fort and a GM used to stop by once in a while and spawn a bunch of Ord type monsters on us repeatedly to simulate a rival Orc clan trying to take our home over. It's the little things like that that games dont do anymore that create lasting memories.

UO also had a couple events where a GM controlled a monster king or whatnot that would interact with the community and spawn a bunch of minions to attack and things unfolded more realistically as the human controlled monster interacted directly the actual players. It wasn't just an automated script. Almost 20 years later and I can still vividly remember those days/nights.

XI became too easy when they introduced Wings of the Goddess and most people abandoned the party system to go solo which basically saw an immediate decline in fighting skills as people stopped learning how to function as a unit in a PT. Then they started nerfing all of the older content for being "too difficult" and all of the new content introduced was insanely easy. Next thing you know new events made it possible to go from level 1 to cap in a matter of days instead of months and it lead to a ton of people not even knowing how the jobs even functioned.

Which is basically where XIV picks up. Individual jobs are vanilla and interchangeable and require little skill. You hit level cap in a matter of days/weeks instead of months. Content is designed around people with ADD. Short bursts of simple, scripted battles that are most importantly easy to complete.

So maybe one day they'll add harder, more in depth content for gamers like myself. If so, I'll pop back on and give them a try. If not, I'll hope one day a game will come along that will. For now, I'll happily save my $12 a month.

[Galliano]

That attachment you get to an MMO is one of it's main money makers. You build friendships and bonds and grow attached to your character as well as the world around you and so stepping away from it causes mental triggers similar to losing something you loved IRL, hence the feels.

I'm guessing most game companies use some form of psychology to keep people hooked and coming back for more but this is amplified in MMOs because of the social aspects of the game.

[MoonKeeperr]

I played FFXI from the time I was 14 until I was 22. And hitting that final "unsubscribe" button the last time felt like almost losing a friend! I remember sitting there looking at it for a while and debating whether or not I should click it! Very thankful for the great times and good friends that came out of it though! It was my first MMO and it set the bar pretty high

Dood It was my first time also like you play till 14-19 that 7yrs when I had no choice to quit for reason I said good bye to my first Japanese friend ketp in touch also by email. He mo longer with us though :-( I sure u all know why.

[xxxHolic]

I'm more or less in the same boat. I like the game a bunch, which is surprising seeing as how much I hated FFXI. Unfortunately, I'm at the point where I need to start getting into end-game content or start leveling other classes and I'm just not really feeling it these days. It certainly doesn't help that Destiny is right around the corner and the alpha/beta on PS4 got me stoked for it. Not to mention other games as well. Really glad it's been a bit of a dry spell in regards to releases for the console otherwise I probably would have bailed sooner, lol. For right now, I'm simply trying to do dailies and that's pretty much it. I'm sure I'll get back into it again eventually.