Catwho

The first expansion for FFXIV drops in a month.

 

For those who never played, FFXIV: A Realm Reborn was the remake of FFXIV 1.0 which was a failure because of a bad game engine and bad game design.

 

Funny enough, 1.0 actually had a decent story, but most players agreed that it wasn't worth the pain of actually dealing with the game to get to the story.  Like, crab meat is delicious, but not if you're the one that has to crack open the shell on the legs with no tools.

 

Anyway, ARR (known as 2.0) continued the delicious meaty story of 1.0, this time with someone having cracked the crab leg open for you.  The whole arc of the story of 2.0, told across five major episodes, deals with you (the player character) joining up with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn to defeat the primals (classic FF summons) and deal a blow to the Garlean Empire, who is trying to take over the main continent of Eorzea.

 

Along the way, you befriend the grandchildren of the major protagonist of 1.0, Louisioux, who try separate paths to bring world peace.  Neither of them succeed.

 

By the end of the story of 2.55,

 The new expansion, Heavensward, picks up immediately after the events of 2.55, with your character entering the city of Ishgard and getting involved in the Dragonsong war.  

 

7 reasons the expansion is going to be epic

 

(Yes, there's a monthly fee for the game, but your money goes to good high quality content updates.  With 99% server uptime, it's money well spent as well.

 

Plus, the game has some of the most epic fashion out of any MMORPG. )

 

 

I'd initially given this series a pass when it first came out, because it looked like "yet another series about people playing an MMO that got trapped in the MMO" and that's been done to death already.

 

But a friend convinced me to give it another shot, and I'm totally and utterly hooked now.  It's currently on the second season.  

 

There's a well developed central love triangle (and multi-angle polygon if you include a few other characters crushing on the main guy, Shiroe) and a few other safe ships that the show teases at.  All the major characters are well rounded, and one of the fun things that leaks in is how everyone's real life personalities affect the way they play the game.  Shiroe the engineering student.  Naotsogu the salesman.  Nyanta the retiree.  Henrietta the MBA.  Marielle the mother.

 

I think what really draws me to it, however, is the MMO/guild aspect of it.  Much of the show revolves around leadership within the game, and how it manifests itself.  Different leadership styles.  I ran a large endgame guild in FFXI for many years, so I've been in the position that a lot of the characters find themselves in.  (I was the "good cop" in a good cop/bad cop dynamic like Crusty and Shiroe develop near the end of the first season.)  I'm still 2nd in command for a very tiny guild in FFXIV. 

 

Anyone else watching it?

Have your friends and family been asking why you are depressed and/or freaking out?

 

I tried to avoid getting into too much detail at work.  I just said, "A comic series I really like ended this week."  Got a few sympathetic nods.  I really did not get a lot done at work on Friday because I could not concentrate. 

 

Around my anime and manga savvy friends I was a lot more blustery.  Thankfully, my non-ship and even my NH friends were all like "this ending is bull."  The only people who were satisfied were people who hadn't even read the chapter - they were just glad it was over because it had been running too long!

 

I posted the cryptic Facebook status update of:  "So it appears that the ending of a manga series can hit you like the death of a relative or an old friend."  Lots of understanding agreement.

 

But I think the best explanation went to my husband, who was having trouble comprehending just how devastated I was until I put it in terms he could understand.

 

Me: "Hey honey, remember how depressed you were after you saw the world premiere of the Oreimo OVA with the producer and stuff at Otakon, and it turned out to be a steaming pile of incestuous dookey?"

 

Him: "Oh god.  I didn't realize it was that bad."  

 

And I got a hug and a shoulder to sniffle on for a bit.