Do you ever think about how people play games to escape yet...

[Raven2014]

But isn't that how you make friends? Do you strive to have like a separation as of "gaming friends" and "real life friends"? I have meet many amazing people through FFXIV (and other MMOS), that are now part of my life. That's the beauty of social games.
At some point you can't talk about the game anylonger. There isn't even that amount of things to talk.
You're going to talk about the roulette every week? That sounds so boring.

Eh I made a lot of "acquaintances" over the years, but I wouldn't go so far as saying I'm trying to make friends. We talk about a lot of crap outside of the games. And guess what, the groups that filter the content to stuffs that we mutually enjoy, and make sure we don't burden each other with our own real life issue - are the group that last. There is an implicit understanding that we're all here to have fun, I'm not here to carry your burden neither I expect you to carry mine. That's why we're gaming groups and not bands of BFFs. Groups that does not respect that boundaries ... well, tend to have a much shorter life span.

The friends that I have in RL, they're very different.

[Melorie]

It's all well and good until there is a disagreement about some rl "things" and suddenly the one on the wrong side of the discussion has to make the call if they need to stay silent or double down on what they feel and pray that what they say doesn't infringe the open ended nature that is the ToS. Personally, I would stay quiet in those moments because my personal opinions are not worth losing/getting a mark on my account, lol.

That seems to be a very personal experience. Usually if I'm playing with someone and getting access to their worldviews to the point that it's over my limits I just decrease the contact slowly. It's not a big deal.

Eh I made a lot of "acquaintances" over the years, but I wouldn't go so far as saying I'm trying to make friends. We talk about a lot of crap outside of the games. And guess what, the groups that filter the content to stuffs that we mutually enjoy, and make sure we don't burden each other with our own real life issue - are the group that last. There is an implicit understanding that we're all here to have fun, I'm not here to carry your burden neither I expect you to carry mine. That's why we're gaming groups and not bands of BFFs. Groups that does not respect that boundaries ... well, tend to have a much shorter life span.

The friends that I have in RL, they're very different.

I don't really see how talking about your life or daily things isn't "having fun" or sharing a burden. Talking about non-gaming stuff shouldn't be about giving people a burden. No one enjoys having someone dropping their entire life on you all of sudden, but if I'm playing a game every week and interacting with a particular group, then eventually we get more intimate.

Anyway, I never had "gaming groups", I had people that I meet in-game and that turned out to be my friends eventually. We talk about the game and talk about ourselves and our lives. I probably have a few people around that I do content it with eventually but it is 500x more fun if I'm doing it with people that know me and I'm actually friends with. Most of the people that I tend to do just content with are honestly bland or forgettable for me.

I don't see games as some sort of "escape" where my life doesn't exist and I should just focus on having fun. It's just a hobby that's also part of my life. That's why I don't understand most of the time why people come up with these "I play game as a escape"... Because escape is not the same as having fun, which is not the same as forgetting about your own life or your day imo.
But, different folks with different strokes. Thank you for answering does, I guess it makes sense for some.

[Raven2014]

I don't really see how talking about your life or daily things isn't "having fun" or sharing a burden. Talking about non-gaming stuff shouldn't be about giving people a burden.

Neither did I. Rant, meme, we all talk about it. The different lie in the expectation. Even if I gonna make a rant in the group, I do not expect anyone to try to understand or empathy with it. In fact, most of the time we did it with the expectation people gonna make a meme out of it. And of course we talk about weather and food and the like.

The point is every topic is brought up almost exclusively for the express purpose of entertaining ourselves and others. No matter what it is, we always avoid bringing up something that we think may "trouble" each others.

No one enjoys having someone dropping their entire life on you all of sudden, but if I'm playing a game every week and interacting with a particular group, then eventually we get more intimate.

This may sound weird, but despite playing and talking with some of these guys for years (in the order of 5+ by now) we never really make the attempt to understand each others, and that's exactly how I like it. I don't know who or what kind of person they are, and neither they do me. I think that's precisely we never disappoint, because we have no expectation toward each others. Some time we laugh together, sometime we get pissed off at each others, but we never disappoint.

On the flip side, the majority time a more "intermate" groups break up (and yes I was part of some of those group too), it usually stars with the "I thought I understand you but I was wrong!" when people don't receive the reaction they expect on their "issue".

Friends? I have people I call that in real life, and like I said they're treat much differently.

I don't see games as some sort of "escape" where my life doesn't exist and I should just focus on having fun. It's just a hobby that's also part of my life.

I don't see it as an escape, but for me it is an outlet that's meant exclusively to have fun. The moment the fun stop, the plug will be pulled. Like ... the hell I'm doing playing a game if it's not fun? This applies not to just relationship about other players but to the whole medium. This is why it always mystified me why some people who appears not having fun and passionately hate the game but have to keep playing just to tell other how much they hate it. (not talking about you btw).

[Corrupted]

Never gave it too much thought, tried out the (beaten to death) club/casino once before they multiplied like rabbits. It was fun, but having it be 90% of your reason to play? That's a bit weird.
It's always the same as well thanks to oversaturation and everyone more or less will end up running out of ideas and they all blend together - so on and so forth.

You can socialize however you want, but I personally think having friends, free companies, linkshells, and groups on voice chats or whatever way to group people up is enough for me. It doesn't have to be always role play, know people who just login to chat with friends in-game while their gameplay actually doing something other than chatting is like 10% and that's fine to me. Don't get the need to turn it into 2nd life though, especially when people start making drama that would put highchool ones to shame.

[RexVex]

I mean, I will always ask my Limsa peeps cursed food questions, cause if I have to see/read about them... Someone has got to go down with me.

[DayHealer]

According to the forums, there’s an unlimited amount of gameplay content, so it’s really puzzling why people are using this game as a Second Life replacement. Many people say that modders, gposers and the “insta” players are all a minority. However, Mare has 20,000 people online at any given time. Those who don’t use Mare are even more numerous. And while there’s certainly an overlap between social players and raiders, the vast majority of parties in North America are for clubs and venues, not raids.

People need to re-think the broad consensus that FFXIV has an unlimited amount of gameplay content when people opt to spend most of their time not playing the game. And, as we can all predict, the social scene will only grow from here. While many people say that post-Endwalker has a ton of content, it’ll be two years until we get a new expac. You might not think that’s a big deal, but not everyone in FFXIV is satisfied with replaying ARR content all day. Some people are clearly not interested in farms and reclears.

This is what FFXIV is now, and unless if the game opens up to more long-term grinds, there’s no turning back.

My eyes, pls have mercy

[TowaIsBestGirl]

According to the forums, there’s an unlimited amount of gameplay content, so it’s really puzzling why people are using this game as a Second Life replacement. Many people say that modders, gposers and the “insta” players are all a minority. However, Mare has 20,000 people online at any given time. Those who don’t use Mare are even more numerous. And while there’s certainly an overlap between social players and raiders, the vast majority of parties in North America are for clubs and venues, not raids.

People need to re-think the broad consensus that FFXIV has an unlimited amount of gameplay content when people opt to spend most of their time not playing the game. And, as we can all predict, the social scene will only grow from here. While many people say that post-Endwalker has a ton of content, it’ll be two years until we get a new expac. You might not think that’s a big deal, but not everyone in FFXIV is satisfied with replaying ARR content all day. Some people are clearly not interested in farms and reclears.

This is what FFXIV is now, and unless if the game opens up to more long-term grinds, there’s no turning back.

A lot of people undoubtedly still use TexTools despite its inferiority. It's rather common to forget that Mare is still a relatively young plugin. Not to mention those who simply don't want their character data uploaded to some random's server that they don't even know.