Square Soft/Square Enix's "A Word to Our Players" from 19 years ago.

[PeppinoTuna]

"A Word to Our Players" used to show up at the login screen of Final Fantasy XI almost 20 years ago. I've attached a picture for reference. This was a reminder that Family, Friends, School, and Work takes priority over gaming. I doubt a lot of people would be into this. I suspect many will say, "Players would just click past it. LOL WASTE OF SPACE," but I feel it would be nice to get a reminder that real life comes first.

I reflect on this pop-up from 19 years ago when I have an urge to play FFXIV while writing a paper for school. It stuck with me pretty well. I do agree that family, friends, school, and work are important. While not everyone is currently in school, it is possible for almost everyone else to relate to the other three areas of importance.

I do not believe this is a hot topic and I don't know if anyone else has ever suggested this. I don't know how much effort is required to have someone code this into the game or perhaps the login screen, nor if it is easy or difficult to do. I am not suggesting this because I have a fear of playing with people who have limited time or people who leave mid-dungeon, but rather as a show of concern for the community as a whole.

[Enkidoh]

FFXIV 1.0 also had a similar message when clicking 'Start' on the main title screen, but FFXIV ARR has never had one. I wonder if it was something Tanaka himself wanted (given both FFXI and FFXIV 1.0 were produced by him originally), and was just concerned players would spend all their time playing the game at the expense of everything else in their life (given Japan has the whole 'hikkimori' issue, and other Asian countries have had in the past incidents of gamers literally dying from heart attacks brought on by extreme exhaustion and dehydration due to doing nothing else but gaming, such a warning appears justified).

Of course, FFXI was from the earlier Everquest days of MMOs which were literal time sinks, something which WoW and it's imitators changed (by making it much easier to play and thus did not require huge blocks of time to get anywhere in the game, and could be played more casually), but with the pandemic still waging, countries including Japan going in and out of lockdowns and forcing people indoors where sitting in front of a computer/console and TV because they have nothing else to do, maybe a return of such a message might be needed, just a small reminder that the game isn't everything, something even Yoshi himself has actively mentioned in the past.

[DrWho2010]

you know you don't hear any reports these days of korean gamers dying from playing games straight for a week anymore.