Kotaku Games DiaryThe latest thoughts from a Kotaku staff about a game we’re playing.Talking to people online can be accompanied by incorrect communication, but a recent interaction in Final Fantasy XIV made my week. A much more experienced player dropped out of the not a few thousand screams into my pockets to upgrade my wardrobe.
I started playing Final Fantasy XIV on the last day of my vacation after some friends mentioned they were messing with it. It’s probably one of the worst ideas to record a massive role-playing game the night before you go back to work, but I’m nothing if it’s not consistent in my poor decision making. Soon I enchanted a cute Au Ra (read: horned dragon person), hoping to eventually become a white wizard.
Final Fantasy XIV is neat, but I would be lying if I said I was wasting it more than just a way of wasting time while keeping my anxiety glued to social media. My friends and I all work very different hours, so I chatted through the early quests of the game on my own for the past week or so. While the different cities are filled with other players, and I have come to a point where I match other adventurers with dungeons, it still feels like a very personal, isolated experience.
Therefore, when a higher level player tried to get my attention in the wooded Black Shroud region, I was completely unaware. Only when I look absurdly at my chat book do I realize that someone is talking to me.
At first, the simple message that asked me if I was new made me look up. My social anxiety unfortunately extends to online interactions, and I was threatened with the idea of quitting Final Fantasy XIV completely off rather than reacting. 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 noticed that your equipment is a bit shallow for where you are, so I wanted to give money to buy goods from the seller.”
I: “Oh okay!”
Player, trade me 25,000 screams: “Someone helped me when I first started, so I wanted to pay for it in advance.”
I: “Thank you so much! It’s so delicious!”
Player: “No problem. Anyone else I can help?”
I: ‘No, I do not think so!’
Player: “All right, enjoy it.”
I: “You too!”
And then the mysterious stranger flies on their winged mountain, never to be seen again. I still kick myself for not taking off their name because it was one of the most beautiful interactions I have had with another person in my entire life.
G / O Media can get a commission
After completing my tasks in the area, I returned to the city-state of Gridania to search the market and finally decide on a variety of new items that have served me well so far. Of course, I had to make the effort to learn how to paint clothes to change the sickly yellow color of the equipment to a beautiful dark purple – which involved haunting a whole different part of the world and orange juice for a to fetch seafaring NPCs – but so is life.
Final Fantasy XIV and other online games can be scary at first, especially for someone like me with very little experience with MMORPGs beyond simple things like Maple Story and Runescape. It’s people like the player who helped me really realize the potential of the genre, and I’m glad I learned that these kinds of experiences in the Final Fantasy XIV community.
Wherever you are, mysterious adventurer: thank you. I’ll probably do the same for someone else if I stick to the game long enough.