This post is dedicated to and inspired by Zarek "Z-kitty" Windsoul and his friends.
I just wanted to share with you all this story of me. I'm not really sure the point, if I can be honest...just a sort of random thing I wanted to put out there. I suppose it's my hope that my experience and my journey thus far will maybe make others who are reading this and felt like I did change their mind.
I left this game shortly after patch 2.1 arrived. I was around for the mind-dulling launch endgame and the horrible grind for Tomestones in maybe two or three dungeons. The fact that the game's further updates weren't providing players with alternate progression outside of dungeon PUG'ing was anathema to me. I'm too shy to tank things for strangers and I don't know anyone. How dare this game force their design on me. F*** it, I'm out and I'm takin' my wallet with me.
After a while, as is often the case with me and MMOs, I started to miss things about XIV. Most of it was the graphics, and the world, and the lore. And at least one or two people who kept regular contact with me. So, shortly after 2.4, I came crawling back.
Not only were the problems that I left originally still there, they were piled on at least three times over. Huge lists of dungeons. Even more Primals. Regular story progression locked down by dungeons. Triple-digit item levels!!
I was beyond frustrated. I was seconds away from another table-flipping exodus...right until I just....talked it out. And listened. Well, read, but you get the idea. And the support from the folks here at the RPC stayed my hand. At times I know I was repeating myself and my frustrations, but time and again lots of folks patiently encouraged me.
I took folks up on the offers. I reached out to strangers. I took up with some people in the RPC. I begrudgingly ceded to the game design's demands, facing dungeons with a mixture of cynical disbelief, grumpiness and outright fear.
Run by run, bit by bit, it all just burned away. Victories emboldened me. My tiny little static group expanded to include others who gladly helped get my second-ever Relic. And then I moved on to PUGs. I reached to regulars in an FC. I found an old friend and we pulled together a dungeon run in-character.
Now I'm looking towards new dungeons. I'm entering Roulettes completely on my lonesome. I'm collecting HM dungeons not with a sense of dread and illness, but in excitement. I love tanking, even if I'm not the greatest at it. I love the dungeons in this game, even the annoying ones. I love earning Tomestones and gear. I LOVE RAIDING (The Crystal Tower at any rate).
And I want more. I'm eager to see what new patches are gonna bring. I want to do Alexander...or at least try. I still have Wanderer's Hard, Pharos Sirius and all the Hildy things, along with several other HM's. And I haven't even taken a peek at the EX Primals.
Again, what's the point of all of this? To say that you can change. You can adapt to this game's ridiculous grind--and let's be real, this is a grind. But you can make it fun. There are people here. Here and in-game. People that can help. That want to help. I swear to God they exist and in more proliferous a number than anyone could ever guess.
And I'm among their number. Because I'm addicted to this game's dungeons. Hopelessly, madly, gleefully addicted. Someone who was violently against the endgame design of this game.
If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. And that sounds so cliché it hurts...but I swear it's truth. Hand on heart.
I just wanted to share with you all this story of me. I'm not really sure the point, if I can be honest...just a sort of random thing I wanted to put out there. I suppose it's my hope that my experience and my journey thus far will maybe make others who are reading this and felt like I did change their mind.
I left this game shortly after patch 2.1 arrived. I was around for the mind-dulling launch endgame and the horrible grind for Tomestones in maybe two or three dungeons. The fact that the game's further updates weren't providing players with alternate progression outside of dungeon PUG'ing was anathema to me. I'm too shy to tank things for strangers and I don't know anyone. How dare this game force their design on me. F*** it, I'm out and I'm takin' my wallet with me.
After a while, as is often the case with me and MMOs, I started to miss things about XIV. Most of it was the graphics, and the world, and the lore. And at least one or two people who kept regular contact with me. So, shortly after 2.4, I came crawling back.
Not only were the problems that I left originally still there, they were piled on at least three times over. Huge lists of dungeons. Even more Primals. Regular story progression locked down by dungeons. Triple-digit item levels!!
I was beyond frustrated. I was seconds away from another table-flipping exodus...right until I just....talked it out. And listened. Well, read, but you get the idea. And the support from the folks here at the RPC stayed my hand. At times I know I was repeating myself and my frustrations, but time and again lots of folks patiently encouraged me.
I took folks up on the offers. I reached out to strangers. I took up with some people in the RPC. I begrudgingly ceded to the game design's demands, facing dungeons with a mixture of cynical disbelief, grumpiness and outright fear.
Run by run, bit by bit, it all just burned away. Victories emboldened me. My tiny little static group expanded to include others who gladly helped get my second-ever Relic. And then I moved on to PUGs. I reached to regulars in an FC. I found an old friend and we pulled together a dungeon run in-character.
Now I'm looking towards new dungeons. I'm entering Roulettes completely on my lonesome. I'm collecting HM dungeons not with a sense of dread and illness, but in excitement. I love tanking, even if I'm not the greatest at it. I love the dungeons in this game, even the annoying ones. I love earning Tomestones and gear. I LOVE RAIDING (The Crystal Tower at any rate).
And I want more. I'm eager to see what new patches are gonna bring. I want to do Alexander...or at least try. I still have Wanderer's Hard, Pharos Sirius and all the Hildy things, along with several other HM's. And I haven't even taken a peek at the EX Primals.
Again, what's the point of all of this? To say that you can change. You can adapt to this game's ridiculous grind--and let's be real, this is a grind. But you can make it fun. There are people here. Here and in-game. People that can help. That want to help. I swear to God they exist and in more proliferous a number than anyone could ever guess.
And I'm among their number. Because I'm addicted to this game's dungeons. Hopelessly, madly, gleefully addicted. Someone who was violently against the endgame design of this game.
If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone. And that sounds so cliché it hurts...but I swear it's truth. Hand on heart.
