Kotaku game diaryThe latest opinions from a Kotaku member on a game we are playing.Talking to people online can have poor communication, but a recent interaction Final Fantasy XIV did my week. A much more experienced player, out of nowhere, dropped a few thousand gils into my pockets to improve my wardrobe.
I started playing Final Fantasy XIV on the last day of vacation, after a few friends mentioned they had gone wrong. Taking a massive multiplayer role-playing game the night before I go back to work is probably one of the worst ideas, but I’m nothing if it’s not consistent in my poor decision making. Soon, he had cast a likeable conjurer Au Ra (read: person with horned dragon), hoping to become a white magician.
Final Fantasy XIV it’s neat, but I would be lying if I said I treated it as a simple way to waste time while my anxiety keeps me hooked on social media. My friends and I work very different hours, so I spent a week more or less staggering the first missions of the game on my own. Even though the various cities are filled with other players and I’ve gotten to the point of matching up with other dungeon adventurers, I still find it an isolated and very personal experience.
That’s why, when a top-level player tried to draw my attention to the wooded region of the Black Shroud, I was completely alien. It wasn’t until I distorted the chat log that I realized someone was talking to me.
At first, the simple message asking me if I was new made me look up. Unfortunately, my social anxiety extends to online interactions and I have played with the idea of closing Final Fantasy XIV down instead of answering. But after struggling a bit with the chat window, I let them know that, yes, I was a new player. What follows is my best memory of how the conversation went.
Player: “I realized your computer is a little underperforming for where you are, so I wanted to give you some money to buy things from the seller.”
Jo: “Oh okay!”
Player, changing me 25,000 gils: “Someone helped me when I first started, so I wanted to pay it forward.”
Jo: “Thank you so much! It’s great!”
Player: “Don’t worry. Is there anything else I can help with?”
Jo: “No, I don’t think so!”
Player: “Very well, have fun.”
Jo: “You too!”
And then the mysterious stranger flew over his winged mount, never to see him again. I’m still kicking myself for not rejecting his name, because that was one of the most beautiful interactions I’ve had with another person in my entire life.
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After finishing my missions in the area, I headed back to the city-state of Gridania to sort out the market and finally decided on several new items that have served me well so far. Obviously, I had to go through the difficulty of learning how to dye clothes to change the sickly yellow color of the gear for a beautiful dark purple — which involved going to a completely different part of the world and looking for orange juice for a Sailor NPC, but such is life.
Final Fantasy XIV and other online games can be daunting at first, especially for someone like me with little experience in MMORPGs outside of simple things like Maple Story i Runescape. People like the player who has helped me are the ones who really realize the potential of the genre, and I’m glad I learned that these kinds of experiences are not uncommon in the Final Fantasy XIV community.
Wherever you are, mysterious adventurer: thank you. I’ll be sure to do the same for someone else if I stay with the game long enough.