final fantasy xiv

i used to play a lot of final fantasy xiv, the MMORPG of the final fantasy series.
i got into it back in 2020 when my senior at UIUC, jared, invited me to play with him.
he was trying to rope as many people as he possibly could into the game
because, unsurprisingly, MMOs are a lot more fun with good friends to play with.

i humored him on the idea because in my childhood and elementary school years,
i loved playing korean MMOs like FlyFF and MapleStory, grinding levels all night.
i also think i wanted to prove him wrong; he kept bragging about how “fun” the game was.
it seemed like an entertaining investment of my free time in my university years.

i never regretted putting all the 3,000 or so hours that i have in the game to this day,
and looking back on the journeys all my friends went through together as Hope’s Dawn,
our reactions to the exciting and emotional story cutscenes, all the trailers we watched,
the breathtaking music, the challenging raids, and just all the time we shared,
i look back on the memories i have playing FFXIV very fondly.

when me, danny, adam, and juice cleared Heaven-on-High. i’m in the white coat.

yeah,
in those days when i was raiding and everyone was progressing through the story,
it felt like something new was happening every day on the server and it was like
i was rushing to log on to play so that i wouldn’t fall behind in my own way.

but after finishing the MSQ for the most recent expansion, Endwalker,
i stopped playing the game as much. (´-ι_-｀)

i just didn’t feel a need or a desire to really push myself to do the content.
after i graduated college, there was this force i felt to do things that,
i guess sort of felt more productive than playing this MMORPG,
like reading books, working out, doing stuff in real life..

but leading up to the release of the next expansion, Dawntrail, in just a few days,
i got back into playing the game so that i could do some content that i hadn’t done
but wanted to do for a while (even though it’s been out for two years already..)

i wasn’t super excited to go back to playing.
there were times when i had come back between the ending of 6.0 up to today (patch 6.55)
where i tried playing some post-endwalker stuff and i just couldn’t get into it at all..

in those moments, i had even wondered to myself
“how the heck did i spend so much time on this game..?”

but i decided that it was now or never! Dawntrail was going to be out in a week,
and i thought, “i had better clear this content before the new expansion comes out
and everyone else has moved on to bigger and better things!”

the content was the Endwalker alliance raid series, Myths of the Realm,
where, when fighting Nald’Thal, I heard the song In the Balance for the first time.
and i was taken away by how amazingly catchy it was! (stoke now, nascent flame~)

i actually went with my guildmates to FFXIV Fan Festival 2023 in Las Vegas,
and apparently we heard this song live, but i didn’t recognize it because i hadn’t
done the alliance raid until now, almost a year later (damn it, me!).

i felt myself getting more and more invested into the story of the alliance raid,
and as it all concluded after all those boss fights, and there was nothing left to do,
for the first time in two years i thought to myself,
“ah.."
“i can’t wait to play more."

my in-game character. but really, how i felt being excited to play again.

one of my favorite things about FFXIV is the developer team.
and producer and director of FFXIV, Naoki Yoshida, once said:

“It’s alright not to play it everyday.
Since it’s just a game,
you can stop forcing yourself if it’s hard on you to keep that up.
Rather, it’ll just pile up unnecessary stress
if you limit yourself into playing just that one game
since there are so many other games out there.
So, do come back and play it to your heart’s content
when the major patch kicks in,
then stop it to play other games before you got burnt out,
and then come back for another major patch.
This will actually make me happier, and in the end,
I think this is the best solution I can answer
for keeping your motivation up for the game.”

so i guess what i’m trying to say is,
try your best not to forget what you put your time into.
it’s rude to the you from back then.

thank you for reading today’s post.
i hope you have a chance to rekindle your passion for something from your past as well.