Kotaku game logThe last thoughts of a Kotaku staff member about a game we’re playing.Talking to people online can be fraught with communication mistakes, but a recent interaction in Final Fantasy XIV It’s been my week. A much more experienced player, out of nowhere, dropped a few thousand gil into my pockets to improve my wardrobe.
I started playing Final Fantasy XIV on the last day of the holiday break after a few friends mentioned that they were messing with him. Getting a massive multiplayer role-playing game the night before you get back to work is probably one of the worst ideas, but I’m nothing, if not consistent, in my poor decision-making process. Soon, I released a cute Au Ra (read: the person with the horned dragon), hoping to eventually become a white magician.
Final Fantasy XIV he is neat, but I would be lying if I said that I treated him more than a way to waste some time, while my anxiety keeps me glued to social media. My friends and I work completely different hours, so I spent the last week stammering the first searches of the game on my own. While the various cities are full of other players and I have reached the point where I fit in with other dungeon adventurers, it still feels like a very personal, isolated experience.
That’s why when a top-level player tried to get my attention in the wooded area of the black shroud, I was completely ignorant. It wasn’t until I looked absently at my chat journal that I realized someone was talking to me.
At first, the simple message asking me if I was new made me stand up. My social anxiety unfortunately extends to online interactions and I played with the idea of shutting down. Final Fantasy XIV rather than answer. But after a bit of a struggle with the chat window, I let them know that, yes, I was a new player. The following is my best recollection of how the conversation went.
Player: “I noticed that your equipment is a little understated for where you are, so I wanted to give you some money to buy things from the seller.”
Me: “Oh, good!”
Player, trading me 25,000 gil: “Someone helped me when I first started, so I wanted to pay for it first.”
Me: “Thank you so much! It’s so beautiful!”
Player: “No worries. Can I help you?”
Me: “No, I don’t think so!”
Player: “Okay, have fun.”
Me: “And you!”
And then the mysterious stranger flew over their winged mountain, never to be seen again. I still hit them because I didn’t take their names off, because this was one of the most beautiful interactions I’ve had with another person in my entire life.
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After completing my missions in the area, I returned to the city-state of Gridania to sort through the market, eventually settling on a variety of new objects that have served me so far. Obviously, I had to go through the trouble of learning how to paint clothes to change the diseased yellow color of the tools into a beautiful dark purple – which meant moving to a completely different part of the world and bringing orange juice to a sailor NPC – but it’s life.
Final Fantasy XIV and other online games can be daunting at first, especially for someone like me with very little experience in MMORPGs, other than simple things like The story of the maple and Runescape. People like the player who helped me really realized the potential of the genre and I’m glad I found out that this kind of experience is not uncommon in Final Fantasy XIV community.
Wherever you are, mysterious adventurer: thank you. I’ll be sure to do the same for someone else if I have to stay with the game long enough.