On the lack of humanity in our community.

[Yoshiyuki]

If anyone remembers me, I'm the AST who made the post giving my feedback about our performance in Alex Savage. Some of the replies encouraged me to share my thoughts here in the future. Thank you for that. I'm making this post for anyone who wants to listen, including the devs. "Avalanches" by IAMX is oddly fitting to accompany my feelings.

A little update on my story: changing to white mage impacted me too negatively. I had to leave my static. I discarded my Esoterics and Ravana canes after doing so. I lost a great deal of patience and understanding from the switch. I lost part of what made me who I am--ultimately, my humanity. The stress made me a liability. What made it worse was that I felt like I couldn't talk about it. I only wanted to be understood by the people around me; I frustrated myself because I knew that my concerns were too deep for them to relate to. I've since declined offers to raid again. No one worth their salt wants an astrologian. I know, if I were to go back to white mage, that resentment would come out again. I'd rather wait for the devs to fix my main job before deciding if I'll quit or not. So now I'm a "casual."

There is a real problem of dehumanization in this game. The endgame community, as it probably is on many servers, and many games, isn't for me. I blame myself for joining it in the first place for the sake of raiding. In many cases I've witnessed, people who were dissatisfied with their real lives took out their issues on others in this game. For them, top-tier gear and efficiency trump the idea that there are real people behind the monitors and televisions. By elevating themselves to this imagined status, they make the gear treadmill their sole concern at the expense of discarding others. Like the new lancer they were rude to for not knowing to ignore the bomb in the second boss in Copperbell Mines normal--they might have canceled their sub, or, worse, continued this cycle by refusing to see others as humans with feelings, all to forget about that poor experience.

I'm not a saint, either. There were too many times when I quantified my experiences as time per tomestones and/or gil, and failed to take other peoples' feelings into consideration. That was wrong of me. There's nothing in my life I feel I must take out on "lesser" players, and yet I did these things anyway. I'm sure there are others who have no real reason to put others down except, "Well, they're doing it wrong. This is the right way." I hope you can also take something away from this post.

I contributed to the gilbuying problem in our game until I realized it, and eventually stopped answering calls for sell runs.

I watched the destruction of friendships, linkshells and free companies over in-game currency, playstyle disputes or job choices (hello astrologians, dark knights, bards and machinists everywhere) and did nothing, or not enough, to stop them from happening.

I neglected to teach willing players because I'd deemed them unworthy of my time when I should have been more understanding. Look to those who walked before to lead those who walk after.

On the other end of the spectrum, the non-hardcores who resent the community I was a part of: they make generalizations and group all of those players into one category of unfeeling elitists. "Fight the power," they may be thinking. "They don't want to understand us, so why should we understand them?" You're right. Not everyone deserves that understanding if they aren't willing to give you the same. At the same time, spreading a blanket over everyone in a group and deeming them as others has contributed to countless wars, supremacy groups and bigotry in our world's history. As a less dramatic example, suicides, low self-esteem and poor attitudes are all direct results of gamers feeling ostracized in some way. It isn't fair. It isn't right.

The servers could be shut down tomorrow for some mysterious reason. That sense of superiority (or fighting back against the elites) would die with the game. Where would some of you be then? Forced to look in the mirror at the wasteland that is your life and your choices. That would be torture for you when it shouldn't be.

tl;dr - people have feelings, as I'm sure you do. The emotional genocide in the video game community is staggering. It probably doesn't seem like a big deal until you are personally affected by it. Please don't contribute to it, and if you do, make an effort to do better. Someone on these forums has a quote in their signature by Ernest Hemingway that fits perfectly: "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self." Try to remember. Try to understand. Please.

P.S. - Thank you again to GM Eresgha for helping me with an unrelated matter. You were very helpful. You also restored a little more of my faith in this game and the community.