I guess nobody remembers or cares, but a few weeks ago I wrote a short rant about
how I was fed up with Atma speed-grinding F.A.T.E.s and how I was going to take a
break.
Well, it turns out this "break" turned into a full-blown bye-bye after all.
So. Why am I writing this? Of course there is the possibility that I just want to spit into
everyone's soup, spoil everybody's fun and do the maximum damage to the game for
the single reason that I am a rage-quitter. As it stands, I just lack the rage for that.
I still believe Yoshi worked a real miracle by turning the game from a big **** pile into
the truly beautiful game ARR was for quite some time. No hard feelings, and lots of
respect from my side.
I have little doubt that technically, I am the longest-standing player of FF XIV on the
whole ZAM network; by pure coincidence, I was in Germany for the first public alpha
presentation at the 2009 (?) Gamescon convention and won one of the first tickets
for a hands-on. This is not to say that my opinion matters one piece of sh*t more than
the opinion of any other John Dude on the internet, but may provide a perspective to
the statement that I followed this game "for a long time". Like, "really long".
During that time I witnessed the change from a (rather innovative but very cumbersome)
charge-based combat system in pre-alpha to a (still innovative but also still somewhat
cumbersome) stamina combat system throughout the first months of 1.X, then to the
(less innovative but arguably convenient) introduction of an auto-attack combat system,
the introduction and subsequent removal of the first iteration of (innovative but horribly
cumbersome) party combo attacks, and finally the introduction of the very fast-paced but
pretty conventional combat system we have now. Which, ironically, to my eyes looks just
like a sped-up version of the very first combat system, just that the original stamina gauge
was replaced with the TP gauge... but hey, that's semantics.
This game has been through a lot, and overall I think Yoshi has mostly taken the right
decisions, compromising where he had to and delivering excellent work where others
would long have given up. Some of the boss fights were the most challenging and fun
party play stuff I played for a long time. This explicitly includes Titax EX, because he is
totally unforgiving and totally LOLstomped us some 40 times, but he also is totally fair.
And he totally is THE MAN.
Congratulations, SE really deserved the money I paid.
During those last months, however, the ugly feeling of having to "work" or "grind", or, in
short, having to "do things I do not really enjoy doing" to attain a certain reward has time
and again marred my desire to simply enjoy the adventure of representing a certain role
in the game's universe. The joy of simply "being" and "doing" has too often been supplanted
by the joy of "being done with it", if you catch my drift.
Perhaps that is simply the curse and the essence of MMOs; that after a time, repetition
has to become a defining element of the whole experience, simply because it is not
possible to come up with something new that pleases players from all strata of competence
fast enough. Hopefully though, this "curse" is just a description of the current status quo,
and some time in the future some developer will have a brilliant idea that circumvents the
whole problem altogether.
As for now, I will thankfully bow my head and walk away. May the door not hit me on the way out!
P.S.:
Who wants my stuff? Just joking. It will all go to my FC bank, although I won't announce my leave.
No need to disturb the harmony. Sooner or later they will simply realize that the member list became
a little shorter, but the number of digits in the FC bank account increased considerably. A lot of
money accumulates during 4 years of playing the auction house, hahaha!
Good bye!
EDIT:
And a special Good bye goes to FilthMcNasty. May your life be full of boobs and ice-cream!
Edited, May 29th 2014 11:11am by Rinsui