The FFXIV Diaries: Part 1
Aug. 30th, 2025 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flatwoodsdaemon I have tried at least 2 times before to get info Final Fantasy 14 Online. It was one of those things that I had desperately wanted to be a part of from the outside looking in, but never quite been able to understand the appeal of.
Everyone who's video games tastes are generally similar to mine thinks this game is peak fiction, some even calling it their favourite game ever, and I wanted to participate in this game that seems to mean so much to people like me.
Whenever I booted it up, though, I found the experience sluggish and uninteresting. It's a typical "run here, fetch this thing, fight this guy" MMO, and the playstyle I had picked at the time, Archer, I really didn't gel with. I got furthest on an account called Avis Cerulle - before he was apparently swallowed whole by Square Enix's servers never to be seen ever again. I don't know what happened to Avis, I tried hunting him down on every single email I'm logged into, but he seems to just... not exist. Since Avis' apparent deletion, I never picked up FFXIV again. I just assumed it was something I would never really understand, and it was taking up too much storage on my PC to keep downloaded.
Then, about 2 years later, I thought - I really like the idea of this game. I love fantasy, I used to love MMOs as a kid, this one is apparently genuinely good and not a time-waster.
So I gave it another shot, basing my new character on an OC of mine, Mika Frey, and went with the Gladiator class instead of the Archer. This, apparently, changed the game Entirely. I went from being bored to actively having fun, I was excited to go into battle and command the enemy to attack ME not my friends. Then it sort of clicked. I'd been trying too hard to get invested in my character from day ONE, I was thinking too much about the character I wanted to draw rather than the one I wanted to PLAY. I wanted my OC to be a bard archer - but I'm more of a big sword brawler type. And thinking about playing the game as me versus as a character reframed the entire experience to me. The character lore can come organically from my experiences playing the game and the thoughts I have while doing it - not pre-determined lore I make before I even know what the game is about. I'd been thinking far too much about the roleplaying aspect and not nearly enough on the game bit.
Mika as he exists in FFXIV is a blatant self-insert, and if that's the way I learn to love this game, then that's the way I'll play. I'm starting this diary series of sorts to document my time with this game - channeling my previous self who wanted to be a games journalist.
Everyone who's video games tastes are generally similar to mine thinks this game is peak fiction, some even calling it their favourite game ever, and I wanted to participate in this game that seems to mean so much to people like me.
Whenever I booted it up, though, I found the experience sluggish and uninteresting. It's a typical "run here, fetch this thing, fight this guy" MMO, and the playstyle I had picked at the time, Archer, I really didn't gel with. I got furthest on an account called Avis Cerulle - before he was apparently swallowed whole by Square Enix's servers never to be seen ever again. I don't know what happened to Avis, I tried hunting him down on every single email I'm logged into, but he seems to just... not exist. Since Avis' apparent deletion, I never picked up FFXIV again. I just assumed it was something I would never really understand, and it was taking up too much storage on my PC to keep downloaded.
Then, about 2 years later, I thought - I really like the idea of this game. I love fantasy, I used to love MMOs as a kid, this one is apparently genuinely good and not a time-waster.
So I gave it another shot, basing my new character on an OC of mine, Mika Frey, and went with the Gladiator class instead of the Archer. This, apparently, changed the game Entirely. I went from being bored to actively having fun, I was excited to go into battle and command the enemy to attack ME not my friends. Then it sort of clicked. I'd been trying too hard to get invested in my character from day ONE, I was thinking too much about the character I wanted to draw rather than the one I wanted to PLAY. I wanted my OC to be a bard archer - but I'm more of a big sword brawler type. And thinking about playing the game as me versus as a character reframed the entire experience to me. The character lore can come organically from my experiences playing the game and the thoughts I have while doing it - not pre-determined lore I make before I even know what the game is about. I'd been thinking far too much about the roleplaying aspect and not nearly enough on the game bit.
Mika as he exists in FFXIV is a blatant self-insert, and if that's the way I learn to love this game, then that's the way I'll play. I'm starting this diary series of sorts to document my time with this game - channeling my previous self who wanted to be a games journalist.
