"Life is a cycle, No beginning, no end."

[thistlechaser]

On 9/28/2005 I joined WoW.
I left FFXI for it, after much foot-dragging and months of lingering on the game long after I stopped having fun.
Today, 4/13/2014, I quit WoW for FFXIV.

Want to see something scary? This is the amount of time I spent online on WoW on one character (I had ten total).


More than a year spent on WoW, on just one of my characters. It's a boggling thought. I can't believe how many years I've been playing. I can't believe it took me this long to quit.

As when I quit FFXI, I stayed on WoW too long. Outside of RP (which is player-generated, not something offered by the game), I haven't had fun in two expansions (so about two years). And, as my friends kept leaving for other games, there were fewer and fewer reasons to stay.

I don't know if I'll ever go back. I worry I might run out of things to do on FFXIV. I'm only in my second month, and I'm almost done leveling all the craft and gathering professions (and I don't really like leveling the battle jobs).

I sort of wish I had sold my gold. Doing that is against the rules, but what would they do, ban me? I would have liked to have gotten some RL money out of all that time playing. On both FFXI and WoW, I quit the game as one of the richest people on the server. I've always kicked myself for not giving my FFXI money away (or selling it), so I gave a good deal of my WoW money to a few people.

I'm a little sad to let it go, but I'm sad over the loss of what could have been more than what really was. I had some very good times in the game and some very bad ones, but lately it was mostly all bad. The game felt like a job, something I had to do, which means it was time to go. FFXIV makes me happy. I love the lore, I love the artwork, I have new and old friends I'm playing with. WoW was a part of my life for a long time though, so there will be a hole for a while.

Key for the non-gamers on my friends list:
FFXI = Final Fantasy 11
WoW = World of Warcraft
FFXIV = Final Fantasy 14, A Realm Reborn
All are MMOs/online games.

(Quote in the subject line came from a random online person, though it's hardly original to her.)

Comments

[changeling72.livejournal.com]

You have spent over a year of your life playing one computer game? Heavens to Betsy!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Sort of. I was online for a year on that character, but at the same time I was chatting, watching TV, RPing, online at work, any number of other things (luckily!). Still, a good part of it was likely staring at the game screen!

[teaandfailure.livejournal.com]

It's so haaaaaaaaaard
to saaaaay goodbyyyyyeeeeeeee
to yeeeeeeesterdaaaaaaaaaay!

I'm sad over the loss of what could have been more than what really was

YES. THIS. THIS EXACTLY.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yep. I'm feeling pretty good about the decision today. The emotional draw of FFXIV helps a lot. I just don't know how they do it, but that game pulls at my chest with a force that's near impossible to resist. I've watched the opening movie so many times, but every time I try to log in, it catches me again and I have to watch it once more.



Edit: Click it up to HD, for some reason it's not letting me link it that way.

[teaandfailure.livejournal.com]

Oh holy COW, that is beautiful. It gave me chills.

Also I squealed when one of the walker things from FF6 made a cameo, because FF6 is my favorite for ever and ever.

Also ahhhhhhh god, Bahamut is never not the most amazing thing. Bahamut is always SO DONE WITH EVERYONE'S BULLSHIT. SO SO DONE.

And the parties just standing there going "..."

AND THE SAD LITTLE I HAVE DONE ALL I CAN SMILE.

OH

MY

GOD.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

:DDDDDDDDDDDD

You reacted just like I did! And there's so much to see in it! I must have watched it dozens of times by now, and I keep spotting new things! (Not to mention, as I progress through the in-game storyline, I learn about who all these folks are and more about the world and all that.)

All of FFXIV is like that! So many cutscenes and so much emotions and I love it so much. The story is such a big part of it! Not to mention, it's all so beautiful.

But yeah, that smile. Gods, it breaks my heart and makes me so proud every time! It just kills me. :DDD

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

You may enjoy reading the story of Nael Van Darnus, aka how things got to that point: http://gamerescape.com/2013/08/21/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-white-raven/

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Eee thanks for linking that! Louisoix is one of my favorites, and I was really happy to read the last part, explaining exactly what happened in the video.

While I love the current version, I wish I had been around for 1.0, too.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Once the Dalamud plotline started, 1.0 improved by leaps and bounds. It was fun seeing the changes after each patch - the moon growing bigger and redder, the Imperial patrols spreading across the land, the sort of FATE precursors involving Urianger/the Lambs of Dalamud/etc. It was neat to be around during such a dynamic time.

That having been said, 2.0 is a far nicer game by several orders of magnitude, and there's still tons of room for things to change and grow. There are very few things I miss from 1.0, and the biggest one is easy to fix since I have a soundtrack CD. ;)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I heard that (repeatedly) about 1.0. And agreed! I can't wait to see how V2 is going to keep growing and changing!

[wow-hazmat.livejournal.com]

The nice thing about MMOs is that, generally speaking, they're always there if you want to go back. The characters, at least.

You made the right decision -- games are supposed to be FUN; if you're not having any, why bother? :)

Hugs!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I think you're right. The characters will be there waiting for me if/when I go back (and won't I be confused about the mess I left in their inventories! so much stuff I was mid-crafting). Maybe one day I'll have fun there again, but if not, I'll have it elsewhere. :)

*hugs back!*

[spike7451.livejournal.com]

I feel like I'm missing something, I've never played an online game ever. lol

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

They're fun! You should try it sometime if you have time to kill. :)

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

When did you actually leave FFXI? Because it wasn't in 2005. I started playing FFXI in 2004 (holy, crud, in a few months it'll have been ten years) and we hung out together for far more than just a year.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, after I posted this, I realized I made an error (but it was the middle of the night, so I didn't get up and fix it). I forgot that I overlapped between WoW and FFXI for quite a while before finally quitting.

Looks like I quit around June 16th, 2009 based on my post at the time (http://thistle-chaser.livejournal.com/1024797.html). Ha! I totally forgot about the lottery they had, I hope they introduce that in FFXIV, too!

[adam-0oo.livejournal.com]

I did this once with an arcade game that showed how many hours you played. I showed my number to a friend and he was like, "oh, that isn't that much", then I pointed out that the screen cut off one number, so it was actually a four digit number.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ha! That's better than me, I had the opposite thing: Spent a ton of quarters in a game to beat the top score, but somehow it didn't register so I called the employee over to ask him about it. Somehow I had missed that last digit, so I had spent all my money for nothing.

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Hi. :P

XIV is probably the most fun I've had in an MMO overall since XI for sure. A few mild things here and there that aren't amazing but on the whole it's so well crafted.

As for running out of things to do... maybe. At least until 2.3 or so I would imagine. While there is a bunch of stuff there right now most of it is oriented to endgame. Sure there are little things here and there you can do to fill time in the day but it never feels like enough. Although that's probably just because it's still relatively new (what with Bahamut hitting that reset button) so hopefully as time goes on we get more awesome stuff. I'm holding out for new jobs personally, nothing wrong with the ones there but after coming from XI and it's crazy jobs I feel I might be spoiled for choice...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

HI YOU! It's so good to hear from you again! :D

What server are you on? I really am loving XIV so much. I'm speeding through jobs though, I have 50 fishing, leather, armorer, and mining, with botany at 47 and all the other crafts 42 or higher (other than cooking, blech). My poor bard is only 38 still! I get about a level per week, heh.

I was a little disappointed with how gardening works. I want to grow my own stuff! My FC is great, but I want personal gardening (and housing, which is coming to some extent).

How have you been? What have you been up to?

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

Been pretty good. Working more with schooling on the side to get better jobs and what not. Started reading again after finishing off A Dance with Dragons. About 4 books into Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar stuff, it's just too hard to stop reading it.

Been hanging around on Ultros with a bunch of people from FFXI. Got my PLD (naturally) and MNK to 50 but haven't enjoyed any of the other battle classes to really get them past 35 or so. Have all DoH and DoL at 50 which was fun to get through, although I'm not a fan of endgame crafting/gathering so nothing has any materia in it.

I'm hoping the crafting rebalance scheduled for 2.3 makes it less "Find your favourite flavour of broken macro and cross class skills" and more free flowing. Although having said that I really enjoy fishing so I might get around to going "Big Fishing!!" sooner or later. Funny the only gathering or crafting I really enjoy is the one that is essentially just a big time sink.

Working towards the housing right now. FC is at about 10mil and aiming for a medium Limsa house. So we have between 5-9mil left to go depending on which we go after. Hadn't really started saving until a little before 2.2 so we are moving along at a decent clip given a few people don't really farm gil and are just holding onto a mil for 1 big investment.

I imagine you'll be able to garden with the single player housing and we'll probably see a bunch of other stuff added just for that. I do hope they distinguish the two types of housing though. As opposed to just having FC housing and then "FC Housing-light" for people who are solo or want their own house. Maybe incorporate your retainers in some way, like it's a house where you live with them or something, that'd be nice.

I need to stop thinking about it because I'll come up with a million possibilities of what they could do and then they'll just be like "You can make a house shaped like a chocobo!" and I'll get really disappointed. I know how you work SE...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean about fishing. It was my first 50 and I'm sorry I don't get to do it more. (There's really no reason to, on my server fish are vendor trash with almost no exceptions.) I haven't done Big Fishing!! yet, because it seems kind of pointless. You get a title from it sure, but titles don't show up the same way they do in WoW. (That's one of the only things I hope they adopt from WoW, but I'm pretty sure they won't.)

Our FC house is small, but we're thinking about upgrading it/moving to a bigger one. I'll admit that the size doesn't matter much to me -- I don't get to decorate it, rearrange it, or anything, it's more like I'm a guest in someone else's house than it being my own place. I'm one of those "don't donate, holding onto a million for investment" people instead (because of the feeling like a guest thing), even though I haven't quite hit a million yet (900.7K was my highest, then I spent 100K on damned materia which was silly because I'd have to invest 200K+ more to reach the next cap and I'll never mine enough to make that money back anyway...).

I've done very little high end crafting (I made some fireplace that sold for 75K, that was the biggest). I do better with low level gear and such.

Yeah, I'd love to have my retainers be in my house. I have high hopes for personal housing, I hope I don't get disappointed. I'd like more than one room, gardening at least like FFXI's if not better, it'd be great to bring mannequins back, and so much more.

Speaking of mannequins, it tickles me so much when something appears straight out of FFXI. Beastmen, mobs, whatever, it makes me grin so much!

Heck with a house shaped like a chocobo, I want a house shaped like a fat chocobo!

[veloxe.livejournal.com]

I think we'll see personal housing be more like it was in XI. At least in terms of ability to store your items there. Since there isn't really much in the way of storage at this point in time. Ya there is a bunch of retainer space and the armoire but the latter can only story certain things and it's annoying to be constantly be making it so people can't buy my stuff from the marketplace getting items off the former.

Ya, I love seeing things from XI show up again. Although MNK annoys me for that reason since, apparently, things like Haymaker and Bootshine actually translate over to Counter and Combo from their Japanese names ("connecting strikes", but close enough). The localization team did a great job actually localizing the game as opposed to just translating it but I think they fell short on some of the ability names. I know they weren't obligated to do it but I would have liked to have seen the nod to the predecessor. Heck apparently the JP client uses Rare/EX as well, but I'm sure that would have just confused the hell out of anyone not from XI.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

YES! I hate that your stuff is taken off the marketplace each time you want to get or store something! Forget about taking time to organize your stuff, I just use the auto sort now because I don't want my stuff off the market for longer than necessary. It would rock if your house included items with +storage on them.

Yeah, I had to level monk (er, pugilist) to 15 for bard, and I really didn't like the ability names. Also, after playing a ranged DPS for so long, melee was so annoying! I basically just never did fates because it was too much of a pain to have to be nonstop moving to stay out of bad stuff on the ground.

Aww! I'd love to see rare/ex again, though agreed it might confuse people. Still, I'm so happy to see goblins, Qiqirn!!!, and others again. Some areas seem straight out of XI. There's some town, one just outside of Ul'dah I think it was, that seemed a strong nod to ToAU. NPCs dressed in COR AF knockoff outfits all over the place! I loved it.